| LEC # | LECTURE TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1–Modernity, Modernism, Modernization | ||
| 1 | Introduction to Theories of Modernism and Modernity | |
| Week 2–Mass Culture and Revolution | ||
| 2 | Introduction to Theories of Mass Culture | |
| 3 | Eugène Delacroix, or How to Imagine Liberty | |
RecitationDiscuss readings and view a selection from the BBC program "Ways Of Seeing". View the program "Pictures Beneath the Cobblestones: July 28, 1830, Liberty Leading the People". Review the Marxist contribution to theories of mass culture. | ||
|
Week 3–Field Trip Field trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see Monet's La Japonaise (Camille Monet in Japanese Costume), 1876, and other paintings. | ||
| Week 4–Post–Revolutionary France | ||
| 4 | Caricature and the Safehouse of "High Art" | |
| 5 | Courbet, Realism, and Popular Images / ASCO preview | Paper 1 due |
RecitationDiscuss readings. Go over writing strategies for first paper on Delacroix. | ||
| Field trip to Williams Art Museum | ||
| Week 5–Manet's Realism and the Painting of Modern Life | ||
| 6 | Manet: Flâneurs and Flâneuses in the Modernizing City / ASCO | |
| 7 | European Orientalism: Camille's Kimono and Gauguin's Skirt | |
RecitationMidterm reviews. Discussion of Orientalism. Gender and the city. | ||
| Week 6–Impressionism & Photography | ||
| Midterm exam (includes take-home essay, paper 2, due at exam) | ||
| 8 | The Impressionist Eye as Camera | |
| Week 7–Serialism & Semiosis | ||
| 9 | Serial Impressions (Print and Eye) | |
| 10 | Picasso's Cubism: Politics and/or Semiosis | |
RecitationReview theories of modernism emerging in Paris in regard to new reproductive technologies (the camera, the lithograph). Go over the midterm. Review how to do close readings in preparation for paper 3. | ||
| Week 8–New Subjects for Modernity | ||
| 11 | The Soviet Avant-Garde | |
| 12 | Futurism's and Dadaism's Popular Mechanics | Paper 3 due |
RecitationDiscussion of semiotics, gender, sexuality / avant-garde, and kitsch. Approaching paper 3–how to do close readings. | ||
| Week 9–Production and (Commodity) Fetish | ||
| 13 | In and Around Duchamp | |
| 14 | Irrational / Rational Production: Surrealism vs. The Bauhaus Idea | |
RecitationDiscussion of fetishism / commodity with respect to art, production, and kitsch. Peer review and the process of revision. | ||
| Week 10–Postwar Primitives | ||
| 15 | Anti-culture? Dubuffet, Pollock, and Premonitions of the Postmodern | |
RecitationDiscussion of the anti-art impulse and the beginnings of postmodernism. Continuing discussion of editing and revision of re-written paper 4. Brainstorming session on possible modern / postmodern paper topics. Discussion of strategies for visual recall and note-taking for the final exam. | ||
| Week 11–Marketing Mass Culture | ||
| 16 | Robert Rauschenberg's Coca-Cola Plan / International Pop | Paper 4 (revision) due |
| 17 | The "Business Art Business," Globalism vs. Globalization | Outline and proposed bibliography for Paper 5 due |
RecitationContinuing discussion of modernism and postmodernism. Review readings and polemics on internationalism, globalization, and globalism. | ||
| Week 12–Simulation, Spectacle, & the Postmodern | ||
| 18 | Postmodernism, Spectacle, and Institutional Critique | |
| 19 | Postmodernism and Feminism | Complete all oral presentations by the end of this week. |
RecitationView Debord's "Society of the Spectacle". Discuss readings. Abstract writing. | ||
| Week 13–New Media & Biennial Culture | ||
| 20 | New Media / Mass Media / Sensory Reconfigurations | |
| 21 | Biennial Culture and the Aesthetics of Experience | Abstract of paper 5 due |
RecitationDiscuss readings. Review progress on final research papers and abstracts. | ||
| Week 14–Present Strategies | ||
| 22 | Present-day Strategies Vis-a-vis Art and Mass Culture Guest lecturers: Star TAs, Rebecca Uchill and Niko Vicario! | |
| 23 | Last class: concluding discussion of class themes, review for exam, and discussion of student research paper abstracts. | Paper 5 due or exam date tba |
