SAA 10: Arts Encounters: Exploring Arts Literacy in the Twenty-First Century
Syllabus
Rationale: This course adopts the logical (if logistically challenging) position that the best way to forge relationships with the arts is through direct encounters with artists of all stripes. Each week the course will investigate a set of artistic practices (covering music, dance, theater, visual arts, architecture, and digital arts) through direct encounters with choreographers, dancers, directors, musicians, actors, painters, performance artists, and media artists, among others. The goal of these encounters is both to familiarize ourselves with what these artists are about and to develop a set of critical tools for placing their achievements in a richer context. We will learn that there is no single definition of art but rather a continuum of understandings, from art as moral action to art as abstract expression (and more).
Range: While we will understandably focus on a great deal of contemporary art, we shall also spend an equal amount of time looking at traditional and historical artistic practices. The very dichotomy between "traditional" and "contemporary" raises aesthetic and cultural issues that will help us to bridge the divides between "world" art and "Western" art, between "high" art and "popular" art.
Two caveats: We do not have the resources to address either fiction and poetry or film and cinema. Rather, our focus will be primarily on art as performance and/or ritual.
For a course such as this there can be no single textbook. Rather, we shall undertake a complementary set of readings that will help to focus our discussion. Readings will be posted on the course website at least three days before the relevant topic is introduced. We will be hearing from experts (many on our faculty) in the fields under discussion who will prove as helpful to your understanding as the artists themselves.
Logistics: A course that depends heavily on live performance and invited speakers cannot fit easily into a single simple schedule. This course is more for those who welcome adventure and a challenge over neatly wrapped schedules. Yet we will do everything in our power to make the course sufficiently flexible so that the maximum number of students may participate.
The regular class meeting times will be on Monday and Wednesday mornings from 9-11 a.m. in Jan Popper Auditorium of the Schoenberg Music Building. Monday will typically be devoted to introducing the art encounter of the week (and, after Week 2, to summarizing the experience of the previous week). Wherever possible, Wednesday will be devoted to visits by or with artists. Because performaing artists in particular often have thick schedules, we will do everything we can to accommodate them. On some weeks the Wednesday class will be cancelled because of our attendance at a live event. For your easy reference, a full schedule of class events will be kept on the class website.