The Final Platedown

These were the plates we made in the last week of class. Click on them for more detail.












Amanda So (contest winner)


















Aaron's Humanities Elephant (as promised)


















Alyssa






















Rante



















Ankita






















Martha

Participation grades ("writing")

As the syllabus explains, there is a second 10% participation score that belongs to your writing grade. (Along with the 3 essays.)

There are three sub-categories here: discovery tasks, drafts, and peer review.

I'm giving an "A" for discovery task to anyone who submitted a reasonable effort at both of them. "C" if you missed one, "F" if you missed both. Reasonable effort means basically that you answered each question and didn't submit a blank document to EEE. I mean, I'm sure you didn't, but as Ronald Reagan said (somewhat nonsensically), "trust but verify."

For the drafts, you get an "A" if you submitted an ideas draft and a working draft for each of the three papers. One letter grade down for each one missed.

For the peer reviews, the default grade was A. There was one for paper #4 and two for paper #6. Turning in one of those three was a D+, turning in two of them was a B-. (I'm giving you a pass if your partner never submitted a draft.)

So I took those three sub-grades and averaged them together, basically. 13 of you were straight As for this across the board. One A-, one B, one C-, one D+, one D.

Participation grades ("lecture")

Participation is sometimes known to teachers as "the wiggle grade" or to students as "the bullshit grade." I try to make things a bit more transparent. No names are used below...if you want a more detailed breakdown than EEE gives you, see me in my office hours next quarter.

Per the syllabus I handed out on the first day of class, the "lecture" participation grade is determined by homework (completion only, with extra credit assignments canceling out missed ones) and by vocal involvement in class discussions.

So that's basically 5% for homework and 5% for speaking in class.

Speaking

3 essential contributors = A
4 frequent contributors = B+
4 occasional contributors = B
4 if I dragged it out of you = C+
3 even dragging didn't help much = C

Per the syllabus, more than two absences to discussion eroded these grades, by one letter grade per day absence, in fact. (Egregious lates/earlies counting as 1/3 of an absence.) This led to one of the B+s becoming an F and two of the Cs becoming an F. Then I added in unused homework extra credits for eight of you who were blog-crazy. Resulting in:

1 A+ (EEE actually gives this a higher score)
3 A
5 B+
2 B
2 B-
2 C+
3 F

Homework

There were 17 homework assignments by my count. I'm throwing out the 2 group homeworks because I can't remember who was responsible for what... I'll just assume everyone did those. That leaves 15. I'm also giving extra credit for additional posts or ones that were exceptionally good, either the assigned ones or useful ones that you posted spontaneously. (If you had no missed assignments to cancel it out, I put it towards your discussion participation above.)

13 of you missed none, or just one, or even did extra. That's definitely an A.
1 of you missed four, which I'm giving a B- by counting down for each (A-, B+, B, B-)
1 of you missed five, thus C+, but she also won the "helpful" poll, so that's B-.
1 of you missed six, so that's a C.
1 of you missed eight, so that's a D+.
1 of you missed twelve, so that's an F.

Total

The average grade for lecture participation, taking both talking and homework into account, is more or less a B.

Final Exam (essays)

I am relieved to say that your essays were considerably better than your quotation analyses. So most of my comments below are not meant as criticism, but rather to help you think further about the issues. If you've got me to the point of making a philosophical objection rather than complaining that you're not studying hard enough, that's the equivalent of a gold star! If you want your bluebook, or you want a more detailed explanation of how I determined your grade, you need to see me in office hours next quarter.

A. Can aesthetics be an independent category? (8 answers, avg. = 21.50)

Everyone used multiple case studies with some success, including Alberti, Hitler, Hoch, the Soviets, Shakespeare, and Gershwin. The stronger ones used case studies that were contradictory or otherwise difficult or problematic to show the complexity of the issue, while the weaker ones selected (or shoehorned) a series of case studies to fit perfectly with the same yes/no answer.

thesis: aesthetics are determined by their historical setting (what the political, ethical, moral values of some time and place are)
objection: any given historical setting has multiple, competing systems of values, not just one
objection: perhaps art can constitute or create values rather than just reflecting preexisting values

thesis: Gladwell's "cool" is an exception to historical determination because it is ineffable, abstract, or purely spontaneous
objection: many things that seem ineffable, abstract, or spontaneous are actually not... some people argue, for instance, that the reason the people Gladwell is describing are "cool" is because they are seen to have an "authenticity" that stems from the experience of urban poverty, particularly by racial minorities

thesis: aesthetics are determined by the ethos, logos, pathos of the individual artist
objection: art is not always created by individuals
objection: individuals are not truly individual... their ideas are determined by the society/culture etc.

thesis: sometimes art is "just art" or entertainment
objection: a few of you cited Shakespeare as someone who insists that artistic imagination goes somehow "beyond" the constraints of its setting, and I am sympathetic to this argument... perhaps sometimes art is just ... let me just say, as Gorky might, that it is oftentimes the mere art that is most ideological

B. Who makes art and who do they make it for? (10 answers, avg. = 21.60)

Everyone used multiple cases with some success, including Shepherd Fairey, Hitler, L.A. gangs, Van Gogh, Shostakovich, the Harajuku district, Shakespeare, Jacobs, Soviet realism, Alberti, grilled cheese sandwiches, Gershwin, Dadaism, and Toni Morrison.

The key here seemed to be tying the cases together to make some coherent point. In the weaker essays, the point was simply, "art is used in different ways" and thus the examples barely related together. The difference is especially evident in the transitions between paragraphs, where the stronger essays shone.

thesis: art requires patrons to fund it... because of production costs, premodern art tended to be exclusive, modern art more widely available
objection: you are confusing the era prior to 1700 with the era from 1700-1900... there really was a time when art was available to all (mainly through the church)... perhaps it isn't until capitalism becomes truly dominant in certain countries that art becomes exclusive
objection: the mechanical reproduction of art that occurs with the industrial revolution does not necessarily make art more available... "high" art becomes a form of exclusive private property because hand production is now rare, while "low" art becomes widely available... but mass production and distribution of low art requires money also, thus the patronage of the capitalist-corporate system

thesis: modern artists, beginning with impressionists and expressionists, paint solely for self-expression
observation: To me this is one of the interesting things about the divergence of communist and capitalist aesthetics... they both agree that art in capitalist countries equates to self-expression, but they disagree as to whether that is a good thing. Then again, I could see Gorky saying that the entire notion of the "self" in capitalism is a fraud, because what the self really is, is a bunch of bourgeois pretending not to belong to any social class when they actually are a social class.

observation: graffiti seems to inhabit an ambiguous area between art and property crime
observation: someone is building a coffee shop down the block from my house, and they put a sign on the outside wall of the building that says, "Attention taggers: we are happy to put your art inside of the store when it opens, but please don't deface our outside wall or we will prosecute." I thought that was interesting.

observation: The art Hitler approved of paid tribute to the Aryan race.
frustration: There is no such thing as the Aryan race. There is no such thing as the Aryan race. There is no such thing as the Aryan race.

C. Can & should art be centrally regulated? (9 answers, avg. = 20.11)

At this point of the test, some of you started running out of time. But the answers remained pretty good on the whole. Cases included the Soviets/Gorky, the Nazis, present-day China, the Bauhaus, Jacobs, the rude mechanicals, London city government and "the liberties," coolhunting.

thesis: art can be centrally regulated, but should not (7 of you argued this)
objection: what happened to those arguments against scenes of extreme violence, torture, child pornography, etc. that we discussed the afternoon of the review... aren't those centrally regulated in the U.S., and do you really object to those regulations?
objection: Leaving aside the "should not"... given all our talk about improvised uses, the "can" can be called into question, even under a totalitarian government

thesis: coolhunting is itself a form of artistic making
observation: Gladwell disagrees... you two should have a debate

claim: the Soviets randomly assigned certain people to be artists, regardless of talent, and would not let them change jobs
frustration: this is completely POOYA (pulled out of your ---)

claim: Jacobs wants to regulate painting
confusion: ????????

claim: Jacobs is a planner who wants to make garden cities
frustration/observation: see question #3 above... Jacobs thinks the garden city model is wrong... on the other hand, it is interesting to consider whether she is a planner or an anti-planner

D. What is the unique character of cities? (9 answers, avg. = 20.88)

Examples included Jacobs, Alberti, Shakespeare, Davis, Soviets, and the Nazis. The challenge seemed to be finding some linkage between a contemporary example and an older one.

thesis: geographical segregation is characteristic of both older and contemporary societies, and we can see this in the way geography is depicted through art
praise: nice thesis that a few of you had, though the execution varied

thesis: the city is the opposite of the suburb or rural area
objection: how can it be the opposite of both? rural areas are not the same as suburbs!!! sub-urban means it combines some characteristics of rural and urban areas

thesis: cities are cultural centers with demographic and aesthetic diversity, areas outside of cities are more isolated and homogeneous
question: to what extent do the internet and specifically online social media change this? I just read that if MySpace were a country, its population would be bigger than Brazil's.

claim: holidays like Mayday and Midsummer occured in Athens
clarification: those are English holidays... one of those Englishmen happened to write a play that uses Athens as a fictional setting which also reflects English traditions... in other words, don't look to a play for historical accuracy

Final Exam (quotation analysis)

This section of the test was not as good as I expected. I do not feel that you prepared for it as much as you should have. I may sound a bit cranky below... just trying to make it clear why the scores were low. If you want your bluebook, or you want a more detailed explanation of how I determined your grade, you need to see me in office hours next quarter.

1. Gladwell (17 answers, avg. = 7.88)

If you didn't bother to figure out what a dialect was... well, you had a week, what can I say? Successful answers tended to focus on the exclusivity of dialects, the regional/historical contextuality of dialects, the mutability of dialects, or some combination thereof. Some of you argued that dialects, unlike languages, cannot be learned... you just know them or you don't... this is a highly dubious theory, almost as if you are suggesting that they are hereditary. According to Gladwell, people who are cool appear to have authenticity because they are either skilled at creating/adapting new dialects or at very quickly learning them.

Gladwell means that cool comes from something distinct from what is considered normal by most people. For example, dialects are only understood by some people and not all; however a language is understood and spoken by many. In the same way, when something is cool, it is so only because not everyone understands or follows it. And that is why when everyone starts to understand the phenomenon of what 'cool' is, it becomes no longer cool. In his article, Gladwell gives examples of the Harajuku district in Japan, where many coolhunters go to be inspired by new fashion. What people wear to be different or just because it is different, and how they pull it off is interesting to coolhunters. That is how new trends start a new fashion, and when most people start following the trend, it goes 'out of fashion.' (10 points)

2. Gorky (16 answers, avg. = 8.88)

Successful answers mentioned explored the relationship between at least a couple of the following concepts: socialist realism, collective production, class struggle, the problem of artistic or intellectual exclusivity under capitalism, Soviet educational reforms, revaluing labor. Those who took "head" in the sense of government or "head of state" had difficulty with the quotation, which is about the relationship between mental/intellectual activities and the manual/physical activities. I was a bit disappointed that nobody referenced last quarter's "thinking with the body" concept.


According to Gorky, social and cultural progress only occurs when resources, ideas, and labor are circulated, meaning everyone should have their share. It first starts with the hands teaching the head; labor is what makes the country work and ideally everybody does their share, meaning less work. Then, as the head grows wiser, it teaches the hands. In translation, the head, or mind, would devise ways in which labor can be less intensive; that way the work day would go more efficiently and that leaves more leisure time, where the hand, grown wiser, promotes the growth of the mind. Laborers would thus be given the chance to again cultivate [the arts] - the opportunity to live a fulfilled life. Ideally, this would benefit the nation because workers are the ones that make it work, socially and culturally. (10 points)

3. Jacobs (13 answers, avg. = 7.08)

Jacobs thinks that the street is a good environment for humans, and thinks that city houses should not face into garden courtyards. The quotation comes from the part of the book where she is criticizing/ridiculing the theories she disagrees with. It is hard for me to see how anyone who read some of that book and attended two lectures about it could have missed that. "Street" here includes sidewalks; it is not the opposite of sidewalks... again, reading the book and reading this page with care would make that clear. Oh, and Death and Life of Great American Cities is not a novel. Successful answers discussed the problems with trying to "cleanse" cities and its ideological roots, what makes streets work or fail, what makes parks work or fail, crime, spontaneity/"sidewalk ballet", public/collective use, etc.

Jane Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, drew a line between the consequences of living in cities and suburban areas. In this particular quotation, she expresses her dislike of houses that are "turned away from [the street] and faced inward toward sheltered greens." In contrast, she would favor houses that are facing the street. Homes and streets are much safer when there is what she calls a "sidewalk ballet" taking place on the street, when there is a great "succession of eyes" that are perusing the streets. This is evident in the chapters entitled "City Sidewalks: Safety and Contact." Jacobs expresses in these chapters her dislike of closed-off and isolated areas. She also mentions her own street, where most everyone are strangers or at most acquainted. Despite that, many people who live nearby confidently give their keys to the main in the shop nearby. Houses that are turned away are much more dangerous than home located on city sidewalks because there are no "eyes" or "sidewalk ballet." Jacobs mentions a man who hurt himself on the city streets was immediately helped by a stranger walking by, who was never seen again. In contrast, if a girl is trying to escape from a potential predator, she might try to run to the nearest house to ask for help - if the houses nearby are all gated up, or "turned inwards," she is less likely to grasp their attention, exposing her to danger. (10 points)

4. Hitler (18 answers, avg. = 8.00)

Most of you recognized that degeneracy was somehow related to expressionism or modern art more generally, but a good answer to a question about Hitler is going to explain why he finds the art objectionable, and that's going to relate somehow to his racism/antisemitism and his nationalism/anticommunism. Otherwise you're just paraphrasing his statement instead of analyzing it, and in that case I couldn't care less whether you've memorized the exact date of the speech. Degeneracy is a concept that links biology to art and politics... it means "born wrong"... again, you had an entire week to figure this out. Some of you linked to the "small cliques" idea, which is good so long as you see its antisemitic and/or anticommunist basis. This is a propaganda speech... Hitler isn't an egalitarian in the sense that Gorky is... referring to "the people" as the judges of art is a rhetorical trick, insofar as the Nazi regime itself asserts full control over what counts as art.

Adolf Hitler explains in this quote from his speech at the opening of the House of German Art why some art - modern art in particular - should be considered degenerate, and why the artists who produced such art should no longer be able to do so. He connects degeneracy to art in two manners: physical degeneracy and political dissent. In both cases, Hitler, like Plato, argues that art is leading people astray in showing them things contrary to how they really are. Unlike Plato, he does believe there is good art, but he maintains that it should be regulated to promote "the people." Good art comes from the "right" people with the "right" ideals, creating the "right" kind of art. To hitler, only certain people can create good art, and the rest must be considered degenerate. (10 points)

5. Davis (12 answers, avg. = 7.31)

I basically decided to make this one optional because we didn't actually discuss the essay much until last week's after-class review. I was surprised how many of you took an interest. Everyone who answered this understood the "self-fulfilling prophecy" that creates the ghetto, or the "unsafe," "undesirable" neighborhood, and most of you saw the link to Jacobs. But better answers discussed the role of class conflict/exclusion, and the implications of racism... a couple of you linked to the L.A. riots as an example of the ghetto fighting back in this "war," but if you read/watch the news, you know that the war in poor neighborhoods is almost always the residents vs. the police, and/or the residents vs. themselves. You can imagine what a communist would say about this... they would say it is a suppression or diversion of class conflict. (If you think that Davis is complaining about the poor terrorizing the rich and ruining Los Angeles, it's hard for me to believe you read this essay carefully.) Davis was somehow transformed into both "Daniels" and "Mitchell'... I wouldn't say that's a huge problem, but it sure doesn't buy you the benefit of the doubt as to whether you've read carefully.

Davis looks down on Los Angeles' attempt to ever less discretely separate the poor from the well-off. As fences are built to gate communities, card keys made to enter parks, and security systems installed to protect homes, a clear line is drawn to establish those with money and social status and those without possession of either. As security systems are installed for the rich, one cannot deny that it is intended to restrict access, and it irks Davis that people focus more on segregating social classes than on integrating people with multiple [???]. Thus he refers to this phenomenon as a "zero-sum game" where the upper class clearly wins all the monetary and social benefits while the poor are left with nothing. This can be seen as public parks and beaches are replaced by strip malls and museums. Such outings require than an individual have some money or social status to enjoy, which Davis believes to be completely unfair. (10 points)

6. Pravda (13 answers, avg. = 7.85)

Some of you told me all about Shostakovich and his opera without really analyzing the quotation. Then again, some of you jumped right to the quotation without establishing that it was about the opera. Successful answers explained why the reviewer would reject "apolitical" art (not celebrating the revolution, individualistic, etc.) and why he would reject "confusing" art (can't convey propaganda, maybe sexually confusing, form for form's sake, etc.), and what that has to do with Shostakovich.

The anonymous Pravda writer expresses his dislike of Lady MacBeth, written during the time of Joseph Stalin's reign over the Soviet Union. This writer closely resembles the preferences of Stalin himself. The Pravda writer criticizes the "Western" or "leftist" influence on the musical component of Lady MacBeth. He believes there are too many degrading influences, such as jazz, that taint the production. Also, he finds it demeaning that the woman chooses the bourgeois over the proletarian. This article doesn't seem to rationally criticize the production itself. Rather, it is being debunked by the writer's preferences. He seems to idealize Gorky's "classless society" and Stalin's dislike for any Western influence. And because the "bourgeois audiences abroad" enjoyed Lady Macbeth, it gives the writer every right to criticize and ridicule it. He asks his readers rhetorically about why the bourgeois like it. He's implying that those from the Western part of the world enjoy being politically unaffiliated, and that they are demented for liking things that are "confusing." This article is more of a political attack than anything. (10 points)

Class #28 Postgame

Thanks to everyone for the time & effort you put in at the review session. That was fun. Here's the handout if you didn't get one.

I didn't have a chance to say this last Friday because everyone was coming and going at different times, and I probably won't have a chance this Friday because I don't want to cut into your exam time... but I really enjoyed teaching this group of students. It was definitely different than last quarter... I don't know what it was last quarter, I think maybe because me & the students both were desperate and scared, but it was really a love-at-first-sight type of thing from the very first day of class. And I was really heartbroken to see that class end. So this quarter I was looking for a rebound relationship, something with less emotional commitment. And I think maybe you were looking for that as well. It wasn't until maybe the 5th week of the quarter that we really started understanding each other. But by the end I developed a lot of love for you guys, and you for me I think, and I feel like I/we really had to earn it. So that was cool in a different way than last quarter.

Best of luck on finishing up all your exams and papers this week.

FINAL EXAM:

Friday 8:00-10:00, same classroom as usual.

PAPER #6:

I fixed the problem with turnitin.com, but if you already emailed me your paper, then I'll just upload it myself. I apologize if this stressed anyone out. I probably won't grade these until next week because I'm still waiting on a few of them.

MAKE A PLATE CONTEST:

This came up later in the afternoon Friday. I will give a bonus, which you can apply either to the final exam or the Gershwin paper, to the person who makes the best plate that encapsulates the themes & concepts we talked about this quarter, and possibly the students in our class as well. If you didn't take home an extra transfer sheet, I left some more of them in front of my office door (HIB 199). I'll spring for the $6 to make that plate, but if you really like one of the ones you did Friday or one of the ones you make for the contest, just give me $6 and I'll give it to you in a few weeks.

Blanket Comments on Working Draft #6

Don't stop working on your essays just because you finished one draft. It takes a long pull to get there. Huh!

To those who didn't do their two peer reviews:

Tom Cruise has something to say to you. Unless of course you didn't have the draft to review. Which brings me...

To those who didn't submit a draft:

Lily Allen has something to say to you.

To those who are making no reference to any of the sources, or barely referencing them:

The Beatles have something to say to you.

To those who are making no analysis of any specific features of the play, or barely analyzing them:

Bad Religion has something to say to you.

To those who need to cite sources more carefully:

If you didn't live in Charleston in the 1920s, I'm guessing you didn't know that the real life neighborhood Gershwin is referencing is called "Cabbage Row." I didn't. So this fact must have come from somewhere.

"In Gershwin’s final words, he required that an all black cast always perform Porgy and Bess." Likewise.

To those making frequent use of words like "clearly" and "obviously":

It probably isn't clear or obvious; it probably needs to be clarified and made obvious. By you.

To those who need to be careful about accidentally sliding into free indirect discourse:

"To black men, women merely exist to raise children and work on house chores." I'm guessing you mean, according to the way it is shown in the opera, or even, according to a common cultural stereotype. Are you really making this claim about all black men?

To those who need to do some brief research on African-American playwrights:

"Some people would argue to stage a different play that could still present an African-American as the lead, such as Shakespeare's Othello." Othello is similarly complicated by racial stereotyping, and written by someone with zero knowledge of actual black people. The hypothetical person making this argument would probably think of something other than Othello.

To those who are still scarred by a high school English teacher who forbade you to use personal pronouns in your essays:

"Though there are many counterarguments against showing the opera, they are opposed by a general belief that the play is not meant to offend, and should therefore be showed. The committee will not be led to believe the opera is completely void of any racist factors..." Not lead to believe by whom? By you. I hereby release you from this absurd requirement.

"When taking into account the historical context, musicality and satirical aspects of Gershwin’s controversial Porgy and Bess, a staging of the play at UCI would be appropriate because it is a glorification of the race rather than a racist representation." Who is taking it into account? I'm guessing you are. So why not say so? I hereby release you from this absurd requirement.

To those who need to work harder to find logical connections between the points they make:

"Many people find the opera to be offensive as it presents negative black stereotypes. It has also been questioned for its authenticity as Gershwin only spent a week in Charleston, South Carolina to use as the basis for his opera." If the portrayal of the characters is not authentic, what is it? Probably stereotypical. These are two sides of the same coin.

"From a moral standpoint, the play even has an ironic ending. Sportin’ Life, one of the antagonists, wins Bess instead of Porgy. This may deter audiences further from coming to the play." Don't they have to see the play in order to know the ending?

To those who need to get their facts straight:

"In this scene, the neighborhood women are sitting and working on crops together. Regardless of whether they are working for their 'owners' or harvesting food for themselves, they are joining together and making the best of what they’ve got." The opera is set in the post-slavery era, although it is true that the economic relationships in the agricultural south remain similarly exploitative.

"When Porgy and Bess debuted in 1935 many considered it to reinforce negative stereotypes of blacks in the Great Depression era... such as Harold Cruse in "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual."
This book was written in 1967. For that matter, "many" is probably wrong here, as the opera's bad reputation mostly grew later.

"Entertainers such as the Jewish American Al Jolson, too, brought forth a different type of racial labeling with 'blackface' make-up."
Minstrel shows were fairly common by the 1840s... you make it sound like Jolson et. al invented this form of humor.

"Gershwin, the writer of this opera, revealed to the audiences the marvel of African American singers and actors at the peak of the Harlem Renaissance at an insensitive time period." Perhaps I should have emphasized the collaborative nature of the production more. Both George and Ira Gershwin were involved, as well as Dubose Heyward, the writer of the original Porgy and Bess story. Ira G. and Heyward wrote the lyrics; George G. wrote the music. Though as de composer, George G. was de main boss.

To those who are totally gonna get smacked down in Pravda:

"The appropriateness of the work should not be considered solely in terms of political or moral criteria but also on its value as a work of art."

To those who may not live in the same world as I do:

"We now live in an era in which we have moved beyond serious racial stereotyping." Really?

The sentence doctor:

"The opera based on lifestyles of African-Americans in the 1920s in Cabbage Row, created many controversies, mostly about racism, and other issues that are overlooked such as sexism." How could a controversy be overlooked? That's a contradiction in terms. This is also a parallelism error, and should read, "about racism, and about other issues..."

"Although it brings up many common social stigmas, the musical collection that sews the story together has been what many people have praised Gershwin on." This sentence is a mess. Simplify. Though some criticize the libretto of P & B for falling into common racial stereotypes, the opera has more often been praised for the quality of music.

"In an article written by Richard Crawford, explaining the background of Porgy and Bess, he notes that..." The extraneous "he" is a sentence-killer. How about just In an article explaining the background of P & B, RC notes that...

"In a review written by Olin Downes in October 11, 1935, he praises Gershwin’s smart choice of actors and the lyrical success of the music." Ditto. In a 1935 New York Times review, Olin Downes praises Gershwin's smart choice...

"Many scenes also depict blacks as being gambling, religious, and having a desire to dance." This is another parallelism error. Look it up in your Easy Writer book. Also, being religious per se is not a stereotype. I'm not even sure gambling or dancing is. I think the point is that it may be a stereotype to depict black characters being incapable of reason; thus stereotypes of addiction to gambling, stereotypes of purely emotive religiosity, and stereotypes of sensual or lascivious dancing in lieu of other cultural activities.