SAA 10: Arts Encounters: Exploring Arts Literacy in the Twenty-First Century
Syllabus
Welcome to SAA 10, Arts Encounters. Before I say anything, let me state flatly that you are in for a very special quarter. Read on!
Primary Instructor and Coordinator: Robert Winter (for purposes of immediate identification, I am a Professor of Music, the Director of the Center for Digital Arts, and an Associate Dean in the School of the Arts and Architecture)
Office Hours: One of my hours will be on Monday from 11 am until noon. The second we will tailor to your schedules at the first class meeting. My office is in Schoenberg 2631 (on the second floor), a short walk from our meeting place in Jan Popper Theater. I will give you contact information at our first meeting.
Teaching Assistant: Karl Haendel. Karl is a graduate student in the Department of Art and will be an important resource for you this quarter. Because of a student trip to Israel, Karl will not join us until this Wednesday, January 10. He will set his office hours for you at that time (one will probably be right after class on Wednesday).
Background: However small our first group this quarter, you are among a very fortunate group of students. For many years we have talked in the Dean's office about a general lower division course that attempts to address the most fundamental question faced by students and faculty in our School. What is art in the twenty-first century? How do we attempt to make sense of all the multifarious forms? How can students who are majoring in everything from art to anthropology, English to chemistry, gain an overall grasp of this central issue that they can take into their lives after UCLA? While numerous breadth courses address pieces of this pie, this is the first course in the School that attempts to be fundamentally global in its scope and cross-disciplinary in its approach. Since no single faculty member could claim to have mastered all of these areas, you will have the privilege of hearing from numerous experts over the course of the quarter.
Another formulation: Traditional Western notions of art have privileged the masterpiece over folk art, conoisseurship over ritual, abstract analysis over cultural understanding, and art-for-art's sake over commercial popularity. At the dawn of a new millenium these views appear increasingly less relevant in our postmodern and pluralistic society. This is especially true on a shrinking globe where interrelationships among various forms of human expression assume more importance than single or dominant ideologies.
Through a series of direct encounters with art and artists across a global range of practices, the course aims to equip today's student with the kinds of critical skills that will enhance their understanding of, and sharpen their appetite for, a wide range of artistic practices.
While today's students are often passionately engaged with styles of popular music, dance, and cinema, they are largely unaware of the connection of these activities to historical and global practices. The "perpetual present" that defines much of digital culture allows us to hone in on obscure corners of the world, but at the same time it tends to draw a gauzy veil over the very distinctions that give artistic practices their texture and character.