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FALL 2007 Courses N.B. Lecture classes are limited to 20 students, Methods of Research is limited to 15 and seminar classes are limited to 12 students. Three overtallies are allowed in each class, but written permission from the instructor and from the Executive Officer and/or the Deputy Executive Officer is required.
ART 70000 - Methods of Research GC: Thurs., 11:45 A.M.-1:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Murphy, Rm. 3421, [90433] Office Hours: Thurs. 2:00-4:00 and by appointment. Email: kmurphy@gc.cuny.edu This course will offer an introduction to the discipline of art history and to the principal methodological developments in the field. A series of common readings will provide examples of various methodologies and will be discussed in detail by the group. An effort will be made to include readings from a variety of periods and sub-areas of the discipline. The purpose of the course will be to help students become more self-conscious of their own methodological choices and to inform their subsequent work in the program. Short presentations will be required and will focus on the common readings which students will take turns presenting to the group for discussion. As a final project, students will be asked to analyze a variety of methodological approaches to a single subject, be that an individual work of art or architecture, or the oeuvre of a particular artist or architect. In the preparation of the semester project, attention will be paid to methods of art historical research as well as to the technical aspects of presenting a project in writing and orally. The final work will be presented to the group for discussion. Auditors are not permitted. Preliminary Reading Donald Preziosi, The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (1998).
ART 70600 – Topics in Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture: Pre-Columbian Art in South America GC: Wed., 11:45 A.M.-1:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Quinones-Keber, Rm. 3421, [90435] Office Hours: Wed. 2:00-3:30 p.m. Email: equinones@gc.cuny.edu Archaeological discoveries and subsequent revisions about the peoples, societies, and arts of the South American continent have proliferated in recent years. In this light, this course surveys the myriad art works, especially architecture, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, produced by the numerous ancient cultures of South America. While it focuses on art works produced in the Andean area from the site of Chavín in the early first millennium BCE to the Inca empire brought down by the Spanish invasion of the sixteenth century, it also includes those in northern South America and Amazonia. Requirements include weekly readings, written critiques, and discussions. Three (3) auditors permitted, but they will be expected to do all readings and participate in discussions. Preliminary Reading: View the South American collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The American Museum of Natural History and read the Preface and Introduction to Rebecca Stone-Miller, Art of the Andes, from Chavín to Inca, 2nd ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002.
ART 70700 – Topics in Islamic Art and Architecture: Ottoman Art and Architecture, 1450-1600 GC: Thurs., 4:15-6:15 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Bates, Rm. 3421, [90436] Office hours: 6:30-7:30 p.m. by appointment via email (email will be given out in class). The subtitle of this course might read, “The formation of an imperial art.” The focus will be on the transformation of the Ottoman sultanate into an empire following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the creation of art and architectural forms that defined its enhanced status. The artistic traditions from which the Ottoman Empire derived its inspiration were from the East as well as West: pre-Islamic and Islamic Turkic, Greco-Roman, Islamic/Asian, Byzantine/Christian, and contemporary European. The amalgamation of such diverse sources took place during the period approximately between 1450 and 1600. We shall consider mainly architecture but will refer to Ottoman historical paintings, textiles, and objects that were used in court ceremonies. Requirements for the course are: readings to be briefly discussed every week; a short research paper, 10-12 pages, and a take-home final examination. Five (5) auditors permitted. Preliminary reading Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600 (1973; pb. ed., 2001) Pamuk, Orhan. My Name is Red (2001, also in pb) If no previous course in Islamic art, read: Blair, S. & J. Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam, 1250-1800 (1994; also pb) A visit to the Metropolitan Museum to view Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797 (closes on July 8, 2007).
ART 70800 - Topics in Ancient Art and Architecture: Roman Art from Republic to Empire GC: Wed., 6:30-8:30 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Kousser, Rm. 3421, [90438] Office Hours: Wed. 5:30-6:30 p.m. and 8:30-9:30 p.m. or by appointment. Email: rkousser@brooklyn.cuny.edu This course analyzes the visual culture of Rome during a critical period of political transition: the transformation from Republic to Empire. In so doing, it examines an era – spanning roughly the first centuries B.C. and A.D., and including as its centerpiece the age of Augustus – which has been a major focus of scholarship for the past thirty years. The course presents an introduction to Roman art of the Late Republic and Early Empire, with a particular emphasis on questions of art and power. At the same time, we will examine both the advantages and difficulties with current scholarly approaches to Augustan art. With a focus on major monuments such as the Ara Pacis and the Colosseum, as well as the masterpieces of Roman wall painting from Pompeii and Herculaneum, the goal of the course is a broader and more nuanced understanding of early Roman art. Major topics to be addressed include: classicism and the use of the past, elite and ‘plebian’ visual culture, center/periphery interactions, and the categories of public and private in the Roman world. Auditors permitted. Preliminary reading Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988.
ART 72100 - Topics in Baroque Art and 18th Century Art and Architecture: Eighteenth Century European Art GC: Tues., 11:45 A.M-1:45 P.M., Prof. Sund, Rm., 3421, [90441] Office Hours: Tues. 1:45-3:00 p.m. This course surveys arts production, institutions and patronage throughout Europe, with particular attention to the Parisian art world. With focus upon the Rococo – from its seventeenth-century roots to its gradual displacement by Neo-Classicism – artists’ practice will be considered within the contexts of academicism, cultural vogues, Enlightenment debates, and parallel developments in literature and theater. Auditors permitted.
Preliminary
Readings: Michal Levey, Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in 18th-Century Painting, 1985.
ART 75020 - Topics in Northern Renaissance Art and Architecture: Sacred and Profane in Early Netherlandish Painting GC: Mon., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Lane, Rm. 3421, [90976] Office Hours: Mon. 4:00-5:00 p.m. and by appointment An investigation of the current controversy over the meanings and purposes of early Netherlandish religious paintings. Lectures will examine recent challenges to traditional interpretations of major works by Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes, and Hans Memling, and will involve students in the debate over the concept of “disguised symbolism.” Problems of sources, attribution, chronology, and technique will also be considered. Five (5) auditors permitted. Preliminary Readings: Barbara G. Lane, The Altar and the Altarpiece: Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting. New York: Harper and Row, 1984. Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1953.
ART 75600 - Topics in Modern Architecture and Urbanism: Twentieth-Century Architecture, Urbanism, and Design GC: Mon., 6:30-8:30 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Maciuika, Rm. 3421, [90442] Office Hours: Mon. 8:30-9:30 p.m.; Wed. 2:00-3:00 or by appointment. Email: john_maciuika@baruch.cuny.edu This course surveys developments in modern architecture, architectural theory, design, and urban planning over the course of the “long” 20th century, that is, from approximately 1890 to the present. Global in nature, this survey course will focus thematically on developments in Europe, the Americas, and the non-Western world. Our goals in this course are both to examine the built environment in terms of pragmatic, aesthetic, and theoretical issues specific to architecture as the “art of building,” and to understand the design fields in relation to the broader political, cultural, social, and economic forces that inevitably shape and impinge upon them. We will endeavor, in other words, to understand architecture as a cultural practice with its own internal rules and discourse, but with implications reaching far beyond the realm of built form. Interested participants will benefit from familiarizing themselves with Ulrich Conrads, Programs and manifestoes on 20th-century architecture, and William Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900 (3rd ed.). Auditors permitted.
Preliminary Readings: William Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900 (3rd ed.), 1996.
ART 76040 – Topics in Contemporary Art: European Art 1945-1982 GC: Thurs., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Golan, Rm. 3421, [90445] Office Hours: Thurs. 1:00-2:00 p.m. Email: rgolan@gc.cuny.edu This lecture course will survey European art from the aftermath of WWII, covering such movements as Art Brut, Informel, Zero Group, The Independent Group, Fluxus, Nouveau Realisme, Situationism, Arte Povera, Art and Language, Institution Critique, Neo-Expressionism, up to Documenta 7 of 1982. It will focus on specific themes and modalities that distinguish European art and art criticism from its American counterpart. These will include: rewriting the first historical avant-garde at mid-century and the question of the neo-avant-garde; the “triumph” of painting at the aftermath of WWII; the impact of John Cage and the question of the “open work” from Fontana (Italy) to the Independent Group (England) to Fluxus (Germany); Pop and the cocacolonization of French culture; New Urbanism and Situationist derive; Beuys/Richter and trauma; theory and Institutional Critique; the key role of exhibitions (such as “When attitudes become form”) and of international ones like the Venice Biennale and Kassel’s Documenta; the return to painting in the 1980s. There will be a mid-term and a final paper based on class readings and lectures. Three (3) auditors permitted.
Preliminary Readings: -Benjamin Buchloh, “The primary colors for the second time: a paradigm repetition of the neo-avant-garde,” October 37, summer 1986 -George Maciunas, “Neo-dada in music theatre, poetry, art” (Both will be available a few weeks before the course on this course’s electronic reserve on ERES.)
ART 79000 – History of Photography: Photography, The First Two Decades GC: Tues. 9:30-11:30 A.M., 3 credits, Prof. Batchen, Rm. 3421 [90448] Office Hours: Tues. 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Email: gbatchen@gc.cuny.edu This class, designed to coincide with an important exhibition of British calotypes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will look in detail at the conception, invention and development of photography in Britain up until about 1860. Students will be exposed to rare vintage photographs as well as relevant primary and secondary literature in an effort to explore a number of fundamental historiographic and interpretive issues. Each student will conduct research on a particular image and present this as a final paper. No auditors allowed. Preliminary Readings Geoffrey Batchen, Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography (MIT Press, 1997).
ART 79500 – History of the Motion Picture: Aesthetics of Film GC: Tues. 4:15-6:15 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Massood, Rm. C-419 , [90451], Cross-listed with FSCP 81000 and THEA 71400 and MALS 77100 This course will introduce students to graduate-level film analysis by acquainting them with basic film vocabulary, techniques, and styles. Central topics for study will include narrative structure and nonnarrative forms, mise-en-scene and shot composition, camera movement, editing (continuity and montage technique), and sound. Students will also be introduced to a variety of critical approaches to film analysis, including narrative, genre, auteur, industry, technology, and reception. By the end of the semester, students will be familiar with the fundamentals of research in Cinema Studies and the essential bibliographic and archival sources for research and analysis. Preliminary Readings: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 2003. Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams, eds. Reinventing Film Studies, 2000.
ART 80200 - Seminar: Selected Topics in African Art and Architecture: Masking in Africa, North America, and Melanesia GC: Thurs. 9:30-11:30 A.M., 3 credits, Prof. Corbin, Rm. 3421, [90454] Office Hours: Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m. The seminar will study masking as an art form in West Africa, North America, and Melanesia. Each student will present an in-class seminar report on a specific masking tradition in one of the three regions listed above. The presentation will be about 60 minutes in length, with slides and/or power point. A final research paper—about 12-15 pages of double-spaced text with additional footnotes, bibliography, and illustrations—will be required of each student in the class. No auditors allowed. Preliminary Readings: S. Vogel, Baule: African Art, Western Eyes. New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1997. A. Fienup-Riordan (ed.), The Living Tradition of Yupik Masks. Seattle, Univ. of Washington Press, 1996. G. & U. Konrad (eds.), Asmat Myth and Ritual: The Inspiration of Art. Venice, Erizzo Editions, 1996.
ART 81500 - Seminar: Selected Topics in Renaissance and Mannerist Art and Architecture: The Medicis as Collectors of Art: From Private Patrons to Ducal Collectors GC: Mon., 4:15-6:15 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Richter, Rm. 3421, [90460] Office Hours: Mon. 2:30-3:30 p.m. or at Hunter college Florence in the Renaissance was often referred to as the “new Athens” having achieved a cultural zenith rivaling that of Periclean Greece or Imperial Rome. The Medici family dominated the city’s cultural and political growth during this entire extended period. From 1434 until 1492, they exerted power without holding any major office functioning as de facto rulers in a republic that was jealous of its liberty. The family survived temporary exile after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent only to return stronger than ever as hereditary dukes in the 16th century, their power supplemented by their control over the papacy as well. The Medici exercised authority both overtly and covertly through the manipulation and influence of their patronage. Patronage helped to build the most magnificent dynasty in Italian history whose artistic legacy formed the nucleus of the collections of both the Uffizi and Pitti Palace Museums. This course will cover the history of the family from its obscure origins in Mugello in the 13th century to the end of the 16th century when a series of strategic arranged marriages placed the Medici at the very center of European power. The Medici not only attracted the most significant artists of the period (Donatello, Botticelli, and Michelangelo), but the greatest politicians (Machiavelli), thinkers (Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola), writers (Guicciardini and Vasari) and religious zealots (Savonarola). This course will focus on the intermeshing of family and civic goals that helped transform Florence into the epicenter of the Renaissance. Topics will include the Medici collection of antiquities and decorative arts, the burgeoning interest in Northern European painting, the creation of public residences and private villas, as well as the grand decorative schemes of their great palazzi. The rise of the Medici dynasty resulted in nothing less than the transformation of Florence from a medieval town to become the focus of international cultural and social life in Europe. Students will be required to deliver an oral presentation and to write an extensive research paper. Three (3) auditors permitted.
Preliminary Reading Ames-Lewis, F., ed. The Early Medici and their Artists, London: Birkbeck College, 1995 Goldbert, E.L. Patterns in Late Medici Patronage, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983 Hibbert, H. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall, New York: Perrenial, 1974
ART 81500 – Seminar: Selected Topics European Art and Architecture, 1300-1750: The Material Culture of Early Modern Privacy Office Hours: TBA. Email: melsky@gc.cunyedu This is a cross-disciplinary course that investigates how the ideal of privacy and its artistic representation in the early modern period can be understood in relation to early modern material culture. The core theme will be the separation of the private from the public realm and their material embodiment in architectural interior spaces, mostly domestic. The course will be a combination of social and material history, architectural history, visual representation, and literature. The course will focus on both primary sources (visual, literary, and historical) as well as examples of leading scholarship on the topic. Assignments will include an oral report and term project, either a paper or annotated bibliography. Because this is an interdisciplinary course with students from a variety of disciplines, students can work on topics related to their home discipline. Auditors by permission of instructor.
ART 80040 - Seminar: Selected Topics in the History of Prints: Word and Image: Broadsheets, Caricature, Comics, Illustration, 1750-1900 GC: Wed., 9:30-11:30 A.M., 3 credits, Prof. Mainardi, Rm. 3421, [90977] Office hours: Wed. 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. or by appointment. Email: pmainardi@gc.cuny.edu This seminar will examine prints from 1750 to 1900, with an emphasis on those where the word/image relationship is important, such as broadsheets, caricatures, comics, and illustrations. The period saw improved technology in paper-making and printing, and the invention or development of new processes such as aquatint, mezzotint, wood engraving, lithography, photomechanical processes (including photography), and color printing. New genres arose such as illustrated periodicals and comic strips, which enlisted artists as varied as Winslow Homer, Gustave Doré, and Camille Pissarro. Books on a wide variety of subjects, e.g. novels, travel accounts, artists’ manuals, scientific publications, and children’s albums, now included numerous illustrations, often by major artists. While some sets of illustrations are familiar to art historians, such as Flaxman for Homer and Dante, Blake for his own poetry, Delacroix for Goethe’s Faust, Manet for Edgar Allan Poe, Aubrey Beardsley for Oscar Wilde’s Salome, numerous other projects have received scant scholarly attention. Illustration is still widely considered an inferior art, the serious study of caricature is in its infancy, and comic books have barely emerged in art historical consciousness. Nonetheless, the popularization of images during the nineteenth century across the spectrum from high to low resulted in their widespread dissemination - at times plagiarization - across national borders to a growing and, at times, newly-literate audience. In the nineteenth century, prints became the lingua franca of art. The first half of the seminar will consist of lectures and field trips to print exhibitions and collections. Following this, each student will present an in-class report based on some aspect of print history. Reports could focus on artists, media, themes, projects, audiences, markets, etc. A paper of approximately 15-20 pages based on the report will be due, in publishable form, at the end of the semester. For further information: pmainardi@gc.cuny.edu. Five auditors are permitted, by permission. Preliminary readings: Students should purchase and read: Anthony Griffiths, Prints and Printmaking: An Introduction to the History and Techniques (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996).
ART 85000 Seminar: Selected Topics in European Art and Architecture, 1300-1750. Morgan Library & Museum, Thurs. 2:00-4:00 p.m., 3 credits, Dr. Rhoda Eitel-Porter, Thaw Conservation Center, [91026] This seminar will provide a general introduction to the study of drawings and prints, including media, techniques, and issues of conservation. The content of the class will be based on the collections of the Morgan Library & Museum, one of the foremost collections of old master drawings in the country. The major focus of the seminar will be Italian drawings from the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, although French, Spanish, Dutch and Flemish, and German examples will also be discussed. Each student will be assigned a topic as the subject for a presentation and a term paper relating to a small group of drawings in the Morgan collection. A fair reading knowledge of Italian is preferred; knowledge of French or German would be helpful. No auditors allowed. Preliminary Readings: Francis Ames-Lewis, Drawing in Early Renaissance Italy. New Haven and London, 1981. Carlo James et al., Old Master prints and drawings: a guide to preservation and conservation. Amsterdam, 1997. Ursula Weekes, Techniques of Drawing. Oxford, 1999.
ART 87100 – Seminar: Selected Topics in American Art: The Ashcan Painters and the Material Culture of their Urban Environment: Ongoing Exhibitions, Historical Collections, New Scholarship GC: Tues., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Manthorne, Rm. 3421, [90466]. Office Hours: Tues. 1:00-2:00 p.m., 4:00-5:00. Email: kmanthorne@gc.cuny.edu The centenary of the landmark exhibition of The Eight will be marked in 2008. John Sloan, Robert Henri, and their colleagues in the so-called Ashcan School are receiving intense scrutiny beginning in Fall 2007, which will be at the heart of this course. Since Katherine Manthorne contributed to the first major retrospective of John Sloan in fifty years (to open at the Delaware Art Museum in October), the class will get a first-hand view and the opportunity to see behind the scenes, talking to staff there. An exciting retrospective of the group, organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts, will come to the New York Historical Society in late November. We will work with photographs and material culture objects of the N-YHS and the Museum of the City of New York, building knowledge of this urban culture. Visits to other major holdings of artworks – the MMA, Brooklyn, Newark and Whitney Museums– are also scheduled, including discussions with curators and conservators there. One class is devoted to early motion pictures of the period, and another to an architectural tour of the neighborhood where the artists lived and worked, with special attention to their work spaces. We also investigate those excluded from Henri & Sloan’s inner circle, including women (a recent exhibit focused on Henri’s female students) and people of color. Our goal is threefold: to revise our understanding of this infamous group of painters and its subsequent impact on art history, to gain first-hand experience with art and exhibitions, and to acquire unique insight into the urban environment of NYC in the early decades of the 20th century. Semester-long investigations will culminate in individual student research papers. The course is taught in collaboration with Dr. Linda Ferber, Vice-President and Museum Director, New-York Historical Society. Five (5) auditors accepted. Preliminary readings: Rebecca Zurier, Picturing the City. Urban Vision and the Ashcan School. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006.
ART 89000 - Seminar: Special Topics in the History of Photography: The Documentary Turn GC: Wed., 2:00-4:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Batchen, Rm. 3421, [90468] Office Hours: Wed. 4:00-5:00 p.m. Email: gbatchen@gc.cuny.edu
At a time when the term ‘documentary’ appears to have made a comeback, especially within contemporary art, this class will seek to examine its history and efficacy as an aesthetic and political mode of image making. Moving quickly from the 1930s through the 1970s and ‘80s to the art of the present, the class will examine relevant texts, with particular attention being paid to the claims for the ‘documentary turn’ made by Okwui Enwezor while he was Artistic Director of Documenta XI, as well as work by artists as diverse as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Allan Sekula, Martha Rosler, the Bechers, Ed Rusha, Susan Meiselas, Waalid Raad, Alfredo Jaar and Taryn Simon. As this grouping of artists indicates, one of the issues the class will address is the status of the photograph as a document (and thus also issues of the photograph’s relationship to seriality, the archive, text, and so on). What can a photograph say? What are its limits as a means of discourse? How can those limits be overcome? No auditors allowed.
Preliminary Readings: Martha Rosler, extract from 'In, around, and afterthoughts (on documentary photography)' (1981), from R. Bolton ed., The Contest of Meaning, 303-325, 334-341. Linda Nochlin, ‘Documented Success,’ Artforum (September 2002), 161-163.
ART 87400 - Seminar: Topics in Latin American Art: Object Lessons: Reinterpretations of 20th-Century Latin American Art (Modern and Contemporary) GC: Tues., 6:30-8:30 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Indych-Lopez, Rm. 3421, [90469] Office Hours: Tues. 5:30-6:30 or by appointment. Email: aindych@ccny.cuny.edu
The aim of this course is to enrich the history of 20th-century Latin American art by exploring the possibilities of different methodologies and modes of thought for modern and contemporary Latin American art. Two distinct strategies will be employed: focused analysis of individual objects and/or artists’ processes and careful considerations of the theories engaged by scholars/artists to discuss objects/movements. Conceived as an experimental laboratory or workshop of ideas, the seminar investigates possible models for the future of the discipline and intends to bring together cultural, literary, philosophical, and aesthetic histories to create a nuanced understanding of Latin American modernity and post-modernity. We will analyze critical approaches based on ideological frameworks, thereby complicating and perhaps moving beyond constructs such as identity, race, and nation. Although the course is organized thematically across the century, discussions and student papers/presentations should focus on the post-World War II period. The course comprises weekly readings, written critiques, discussions, presentations, as well as a culminating seminar report (oral and written). The class will visit “Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection” at the Grey Art Gallery. Auditors allowed, but they will be expected to do all readings and participate in discussions. Preliminary reading: Luis Pérez Oramas, “The Cisneros Collection: From Landscape to Place” in Geometric Abstraction: Latin American Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums), 39-57. Students should skim the following exhibition catalogues: Inverted Utopias, Oiticica: The Body of Color, Blanton Museum of Art Latin American Collection, and Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art From the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection and they should review Eric Fernie, Art History and its Methods: A Critical Anthology (London: Phaidon, 1995).
ART 89400 - Seminar in Film Theory GC: Tues., 2:00-5:00 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Herzog, Rm. C-419, [90470], Cross-listed with THEA 81600
This class will provide an overview of significant movements, debates, and figures in film theory. Readings will span both classical and contemporary film theory, addressing a range of approaches including realism, structuralism, auteur theory, genre criticism, psychoanalytic film theory, feminist and critical race theories, and third cinema. The class will examine writings on cinema in their historical and national contexts, looking at the way in which film theory intersects with political, cultural, and aesthetic trends. The final sessions of the course will focus on recent developments in film theory, in particular the debates surrounding cognitive approached to film, the evolution of digital technology, and the writings of the controversial philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In each case, new theoretical work on cinema will be read in relation to the complex history of film criticism. In addition, the class will examine the field of film theory alongside related fields of aesthetics and representation (e.g. art history and photography, television studies, cultural studies, visual studies, postmodernism), exploring the ways these disciplines have overlapped. Each seminar meeting will involve close analyses of readings related to a particular topic or theme. We will discuss the contexts within which these writings emerged, and the institutional frameworks that provided for the evolution of the field. Written texts will be read alongside specific cinematic examples. Students will be required to screen at least one film per week outside class. We will view additional shorts, and attend screenings and discussions in venues around the city. Students will be responsible for six weekly response papers, to engage more deeply with the heavy reading load, and as a means of invigorating class participation. They will also be asked to complete a longer research project on a topic of their choice, in consultation with the instructor. Preliminary readings: Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and Criticism, 6th Ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
ART 89500 – Seminar: Special Topics in the History of the Motion Picture: Neorealism and Beyond: The Golden Age of Italian Cinema, 1945-1975 GC: Mon., 2:00-5:00 P.M., 3 credits, Profs. Dickstein and Lombardi, Room C-419, [90471], Cross-listed with FSCP 81000 This course will examine the flowering of Italian cinema after World War II and its transformation in the 1960s by focusing on the best work of five leading directors, Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti, Antonioni, and Fellini. It will explore the historical, social, and theoretical roots of Neorealism and the different ways each of these directors participated in this movement and was in turn influenced by it. The course will begin with documentary-style films they made within the ambit of Neorealism, such as Rossellini’s Rome – Open City and De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, and then show some of the directions they took in their later work, which focused less on the harsh lives of the poor and more on the malaise of the middle class, and was often more personal, more psychological, more historical, more operatic, or more theatrical. There will be readings by theorists of Neorealism, such as Zavattini and Lizzani, and by sympathetic critics in other countries, including André Bazin and James Agee. This course will conclude by exploring the work of important younger directors who first emerged in the 1960s, including Pasolini, Olmi, Bertolucci, Bellocchio, and Scola. Course requirements: Students will be expected to see the film(s) to be discussed between classes, to deliver an oral report, and to research and submit a term paper.
ART 89500 – Seminar: Special Topics in the History of the Motion Picture: Film History, Part Three GC: Tues., 11:45 A.M.-3:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Zhu, Rm. C-419, [90478], Cross-listed with FSCP 81000 and THEA 81500 This seminar surveys the development of world narrative fiction film from geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geoaesthetic perspectives. It traces the institutional as well as the stylistic evolutions of world cinema since the 1970s. It examines major cinematic events, movements, and developments within national and regional film industries of varying political, economic and cultural milieus. While an exhaustive coverage is not the goal, the course does seek to traverse a few distinctive geographic terrains including new and planet Hollywood, New German Cinema, British Cinema, Iranian Cinema, Latin American cinema, and Asian popular cinema. Within each nation/region, our survey highlights major trends in film style including both the commercial and the art waves and film practice including the organization of film production, distribution, and exhibition, as well as film policy involving censorship, regulation, and classification.
ART 89500 - Seminar: Special Topics in the History of the Motion Picture: Documenting the Self: Performance in Nonfiction Film GC: Wed., 11:45-3:45 P.M., 3 credits, Prof. Miller, Rm. C-419 [90480] Cross listed with FSCP 8100 and THEA 81500 This seminar examines the significance of performance in nonfiction film. We pay particular attention to cinema vérité and direct cinema, new styles of filmmaking that emerged in the early 1960s. Filmmakers such as D.A. Pennebaker, the Maysles Brothers, and Fred Wiseman did away with the artifice of voice-over, interviews, archival footage, and incidental music—and made use of new lightweight equipment—in order to create a more authentic documentary. They were especially drawn to capturing backstage views of rock stars (such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie) as well as gaining access to interactions of ordinary people in extraordinary situations (such as in mental institutions, on the road selling bibles, working in political campaigns, and attending high school). In their attempts at recording life as it occurs, an unintended consequence of the filmmakers emerges as a major aspect of these films—theatricality. This theatricality arises not from the staging of situations per se, but in the freedom the filmmaker gives subjects to be themselves, and to act as if the filmmaker was not there. This contradiction generates riveting performances of self as the presence of the camera activates and frames conscious and unconscious modes of playing a role. As this class looks at methods of filming both backstage and onstage performances, our readings come from the fields of cinema and performance studies, as well as relevant texts from cultural studies and psychoanalysis. Some of the notable authors we read are D.W. Winnicott on the role of play in developing the self, Erving Goffman on everyday performance, J.L. Austin and Judith Butler on performativity, Philip Auslander on the filming of rock concerts, Dick Hebdige on subcultural identity, and Bill Nichols, Stella Bruzzi, and Thomas Waugh on performance in documentary film. We trace a selective history of nonfiction film since 1960, beginning with the paradigm shift in documentary inspired by the assembling of distinctive –and talkative—Parisians in Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961). We conclude with Jonathan Caouette’s aesthetics of self-preservation in Tarnation (2004) and YouTube’s videos of self-display. We pay particular attention to on-screen performances of gender and race due to the influence of identity politics on many of the key nonfiction works of the 80s and 90s. We also stress the importance of new film, video, and digital technology in both revealing and concealing the presentation and representation of self.
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