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2004-2005 Course Offerings: Fall Quarter
101-6: Freshman Seminar: Interdisciplinary Study and the Visual Arts
TTH 9:30-11am
David Robertson
Kresge 3-430
Office Address: Block Museum, 40 Arts Circle
Phone: 491-2562
E-mail: d-robertson@northwestern.edu
Office Hours: TBA
Course Description: Defined by W.J.T. Mitchell as &a site of convergence and conversation across disciplinary lines, interdisciplinary study permeates and penetrates university study today. When, where, and how did this expansive approach to knowledge originate? What are its values to knowledge and learning? When does it simply result in polite conversation among colleagues in different fields on the one hand, and when does it radically fracture traditional lines of inquiry on the other? Using the Block Museum as our laboratory and focusing upon the Museums fall exhibition entitled Gene(sis), we will explore through texts, original works of art, and a variety of exhibition-related artist talks and films, roles played by the visual arts in interdisciplinary study. Questions we will ask together include: What results from art and technology merging? And what role does contemporary art play in promoting or challenging new scientific wisdom and in molding public opinion?
Teaching Method: Discussion involving full participation of all seminar members; intensive use of the exhibition and related programs for writing assignments.
Evaluation Methods: Final Grades will be based upon writing assignments (descriptive, analytical, and research-based 3 to 6-page essays), 50%; individual reports and one public presentation (gallery talk), 20%; class participation, 30%.
Readings: Reading list TBD
Note: Personal Statement: I am an art historian and have worked primarily in university museums, where interdisciplinary work on campuses often finds its most vibrant and stimulating manifestations. I firmly believe that the freshman year is a particularly fertile time to explore the topic of interdisciplinary study and that the freshman seminar experience can prove to be critical to the success of your future disciplinary and interdisciplinary work through its solid focus on writing and the opportunity it offers you to find your own confident voice in the classroom.
250-0 Introduction to European Art: 1750-today
Prof. Hollis Clayson
TTH 11-12:30pm
Fisk Hall 217
shc@northwestern.edu
The course will present aspects of the history of the visual arts in Europe from the era of the Ancien Rgime to the age of Globalization. Attention will be given throughout to the circumstances social, cultural, political, economic, personal in which art works were made and used. Special emphasis will fall upon: 1) the rise (and fall) of modernism, and 2) the critical role of the big city (the metropolis) in modern art. All the way through we will puzzle over the changing, unstable and even fictional status of an entity called Europe.
Method of instruction: Two lectures per week and one discussion section. Grades will be based upon contributions to discussion, and the results of midterm and final exams. One short paper may also be assigned. Students will be expected to visit the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Readings will include:
Matthew Craske, Art in Europe 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Economic Growth.
Richard R. Brettell, Modern Art, 1851-1929: Capitalism and Representation.
Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties.
330-1 Renaissance Art (1450-1550)
Prof. Claudia Swan
MW 2-3:30pm
Kresge 4-425
c-swan@northwestern.edu
Early Modern Northern European Visual Culture: This course surveys the visual culture of the Netherlands and Germany from ca. 1400 to 1550--from Burgundian court culture around the time of Jan van Eyck to the fantastic works of Hieronymus Bosch and later Flemish urban culture, as represented by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. (Visual culture may be taken to mean the network of practices, expectations, and convictions that are brought to bear on the production and viewing of works of a visual nature.) Works in a variety of media will be presented in light of broader considerations on the role of the image within devotional practice, political representation, "popular" culture. We will consider such themes as the place of art in courtly culture; the power of images to mediate religious experience; private vs. public devotion; the representation of folly and death; the social position of the artist. We will also survey the predominant interpretive models that have been developed to analyze the significance of these works. One of our primary concerns will be the shift, as it has been formulated recently, from the era of images to the era of art. Understanding the motivating concerns behind the production of representational art during this period, the means employed to do so, and the ways in which such works were implemented, functionally and aesthetically, is crucial to the study of subsequent periods in the history of art, and this course will make frequent reference to the relevance of early modern conceptions of image-making to later periods of artistic production.
350-1 19th Century Art
Prof. Stephen Eisenman
TTH 11-12:30pm
Kresge 4-425
s-eisenman@northwestern.edu
A Survey of European and U.S. Art from 1780 to 1850. There will be an emphasis upon artists who contested official art and ideology and who were instrumental in developing a modern art.
Prerequisite: Sophomore status, or permission of instructor
Teaching Method: lecture and discussion
Method of evaluation: tests, short papers, class participation
Reading materials: Textbooks -- Eisenman, "Nineteenth-Century Art, A critical History" and "Art in Theory, 1815-1900'
367-0 Special Topics in American Art: Promise and Problems in Public Art
Prof. Christine Bell
TTH 2-3:30pm
Kresge 4-425
cbell@northwestern.edu
This course has two related objectives: it will combine art historical study of public art in the modern era, with practical training in procedures necessary for the preservation and conservation of art objects.
As one of the most accessible of contemporary art forms because it resides in public spaces outside the museum, art designed to be exhibited in the public arena also presents us with special problems. Who is the "public" that public art is meant to address? How can a work of art engage a modern audience that is likely to consist of a multitude of diverse identities, and even widely varying backgrounds in art appreciation? What are the pitfalls of undertaking a public art commission, and then in preserving a work of art from falling prey to changes in the political--or meteorological--climate? Students enrolled in this course will gain an understanding of the historical complexities of a public art commission, as well as an introduction to the practical difficulties of preserving this unique historical record. The course will look in depth at several case studies of public art and its politics, then will focus on the specific problems of a local sample: the public art owned and maintained by the City of Evanston. Students should be prepared for significant time spent out of the classroom-on field trips, and on excursions examining and documenting the condition of Evanston's public art collection. Students will be trained in digital photography and in the use of computer technologies currently being developed by Academic Technologies. Our ultimate goal will be to produce a digital tool that will be used by city representatives as they make decisions about the preservation and conservation of Evanston's public art legacy.
Course Requirements: Short reading responses.
Contributing written text and photographic images to collaborative web project.
Preliminary Listing of Course Texts:
Jane Kramer, Whose Art Is it? (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997).
Course packet of required readings.
369-0 Special Topics in 20th Century Art: Nomads Artists and Travelers in the Era of Globalization
Visting Professor James Meyer
MW 12:30-2:00
Kresge 3-430
What are the effects of globalization on contemporary art? How have artists responded to the increasingly international character of exhibitions and conditions of art-making? This course will examine such phenomena as the emergence of a global exhibition circuit in recent years; the escalation of artistic scale in response to the spatial demands of global "destination" museums; and the representation of the figure of the artist-traveler and a "nomadic" subjectivity in contemporary practices. The course will focus on the work of such artists as Martha Rosler, Renee Green, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Gabriel Orozco, Christian Philipp Mller, John Di Stefano, Andrea Fraser, Ursula Biemann, and Gregg Bordowitz.
Texts: David Held and Anthony McGraw, The Global Transformations Reader; Naomi Klein, No Logo; Writings by Hal Foster, Fredric Jameson, Saskia Sassen, Okwui Enwezor, Robert Smithson, Renee Green, Gregg Bordowitz, Martha Rosler, Andrea Fraser, and others.
Particulars: Two short papers (5 pgs) and final research paper (10-12 pages).
370-0 Modern Architecture
Prof. David Van Zanten
TTH 9:30-11am
Kresge 4-425
d-van@northwestern.edu
SUBJECT: Where does design fit in the construction of a bearable world today?
Around the year 1800 the world changed fundamentally, and hasnt ceased changing since. In Europe, population began to increase rapidly and simultaneously to concentrate in cities in size and organization of a sort no one had seen before. The Industrial Revolution seemed to both encourage this and provide techniques to make it supportable. The scientific and political revolutions of the same time produced ways of viewing the world and of organizing it to human advantage. Military advances gave Europe the ability to conquer the globe and impose its technical, scientific and political organization on a unified globe. But there was a fundamental belief that this must be done following a pattern both a broad pattern for exploitation, and a local pattern for humane shelter.
The subject of this course is the nature of the construction of these patterns in architecture, city-planning and in harnessing the environment and how they relate to the technical, social and scientific constructions of contemporary society.
EVALUATION: There will be a midterm examination during class Tuesday, February 11, a research paper due the Monday of Examination week and a final examination at the time scheduled, Wednesday. March 19, 12:00-2:00 PM.
TEXTS:
Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture, 1750-1890
Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture
Friedrich Engles, The Condition of the Working Class in England
Karen Sawislak, Smoldering City
Robert Fishman, Urban Utopias of the Twentieth Century
Robert Venturi, Learning From Las Vegas
389-0 Special Topics in Non-Euro-American Art: Hindu Art of India
Visiting Professor Susan Huntington
FRI 12-3pm
Kresge 3-420
This course focuses on the Hindu art and architecture of India, from its earliest traces through the 17th century. Emphasis is placed on the form and meaning of the Hindu temple, the symbolism of the major Hindu gods and goddesses, and the ritual practices associated with Hindu images and monuments.
Texts: S. Huntington, THE ART OF ANCIENT INDIA : BUDDHIST, HINDU, JAIN (1985)
Method of evaluation: TBA
390-0 Undergraduate Seminar: Africa and Cinema
Prof. John Peffer
MON 2-5pm
Mitchell Media Center Video Theater (University Library Room 2712)
j-peffer@northwestern.edu
What are the images of Africa as portrayed in films? How has cinema been a critical site of the struggle for representation, both aesthetic and political, for African's? This seminar will examine film, video, and installation art about Africa and from Africa, from classic Hollywood stereotypes of primitives and witchdoctors to contemporary postcolonial critiques of civil society and the injustices of Western hegemony. Each week we will view films and discuss theoretical literatures on topics such as "Third Cinema", the role of cinema as oral history, the status of the "document" and ethnographic film, and the writings of directors and artists about Africa and film. We will be equally attentive to the particulars of film form, film history, and the politics of moving pictures. We will consider Africa and film generally, and will also consider the special cases of Djibril Mambety and Ousmane Sembene in Senegal, the activist cinema of Jean Rouch, and the problems of race and art in South African film. We will also look at film production in North Africa, and it's presentation of a dialogue with, or alternative to, European modernist film.
Prerequisites: Previous course work in African history, or survey of world cinema.
Teaching method: Colloquium type, with emphasis on student discussion.
Evaluation: Individual students will be responsible for introducing readings and initiating class discussion. Course grades will be based on short response papers to films and readings, on class participation, and on a 10-page research paper due at the end of term. Students choose a topic related to the course areas for in-class presentation at the end of term.
Readings: TBA
440-0 Studies in Baroque Art: Early Modern Collecting: The Aesthetics of Possession and the Limits of Knowledge
Prof. Claudia Swan
TUES 2-5pm
Kresge 3-430
Early modern collecting practices are shot through with the kinds of cognitive and aesthetic concerns conventionally demarcated as scientific and artistic, respectively. This seminar will examine episodes in the history of early modern collection, seeking to align collections with the epistemological and aesthetic conditions of their use and appreciation. In brief, we will consider the philosophical status of sensual engagement with objects of nature and artefacts at this time by examining a range of collections -- royal, princely, middle-class, artistic, scientific (medical and pharmaceutical); matrices of collecting (from studioli to gardens to stuffy crowded rooms of dried things); and private and public concerns related to such collections. Cognitive inquiry did not exhaust the objects of natural history; nor is aesthetic judgment the exclusive province of artistic agents. Collections and, specifically, the objects they encompassed provided the arena for modes of experience whose recuperation depends on working across the disciplinary lines usually traced for art, science, and collecting.
450-0 Studies in Nineteenth Century Art: William Morris
Prof. Stephen Eisenman
TH 2-5pm
Kresge 3-430
Coming soon……
460-0 Studies in 20th Century Art: Art & Globalism (sect. 20)
Visiting Professor James Meyer
MON 6:00-9:00
Kresge 3-430
Contents: This course explores the theme of "globalism" in the visual arts since the 1960s. We will address such topics as economic globalization and its effects on production and distribution, the emergence of an international exhibition circuit of central and "peripheral" Biennals, the physical expansion of the museum and of artistic scale, and the representation of the artist-traveler and a “nomadic” subjectivity in recent practice. Our readings will draw from theoretical, sociological, and art critical sources.
Texts: Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto; Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire; Michel De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life; Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents; Writings by Fredric Jameson, Davis Harvey, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Chantal Mouffe, Saskia Sassen, Caren Kaplan, Rosalind Krauss, Rem Koolhaas, Okwui Enwezor, Hal Foster, and others.
Particulars: One short paper; final research paper and presentation.
486-0 Studies in African Art: Afrofuturism
Prof. John Peffer
WED 2-5pm
Kresge 3-430
Across a variety of historical and cultural contexts, this seminar will consider the spatial and temporal concept of "Africa" as an ambivalent construction of the deepest timeless past, but also as a site of social revolution, and as a horizon of knowledge-- in short, as a perpetual border zone, always adrift. "Afrofuturism" is a term usually associated with the science fiction writing of African American novelists like Samuel Delaney. We will examine Delaney's writing and also look to the uses of cyborgs, mad scientists, and alien abductions for what they can tell us about bending received notions of race and gender. We will also explore images of Egypt during the Harlem Renaissance, and the achronic image of African American music and dance, in Paris, in the age of jazz. The status of "the future" in African traditional art and architecture will also be discussed, as will the futurist uses of African historical objects in modernist art at the end of the colonial period. Further, we will look at modern African prophets such as the South African artist Credo Mutua, ideas about Africa and the future in the music of Sun Ra, and post-68 visual art from the African Commune of Bad Relavant Aritsts. This seminar purposefully conflates contradictions within the historical image of Africa, in order to invent a new set of tools for discussing the art of Africa and its diasporas.
Prerequisites: Previous course work in African Art, critical theory, or Modernism. Students form outside Art History are encouraged to bring their area expertise to the seminar.
Teaching method: Colloquium type, with emphasis on student discussion.
Evaluation: Individual students will be responsible for introducing readings and initiating class discussion. Course grades will be based on short response papers to readings, on class participation, and on a 10-page research paper due at the end of term. Students choose a topic related to the course areas for in-class presentation at the end of term.
Readings: TBA
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