Make a Plate

The Final Platedown

2009-04-14T13:12:00.001-07:00

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")

2009-03-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

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")

2009-03-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-03-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

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.

Class #27 postgame

2009-03-11T10:13:00.000-07:00

Much better discussion today. I'm really looking forward to Friday.

HOMEWORK:

Find a key quotation (1-2 sentences) from your assigned essay/book, for the short answers on the final exam, and post below. It would be helpful (to you and me both) if you could also find a second one from one of the other essays/books.

LEFTOVER QUESTIONS FROM TODAY'S DISCUSSION:

We'll try to come back to this at some point on Friday, but I'd love for the discussion to continue on the blog here.

-Who determines what is cool in the U.S... is it more "trickle down" or more "trickle up"? (p. 120)
-Do you agree with Gladwell that cool is primarily an ethical system rather than an aesthetic one? ("look for cool people first and cool things later" - p. 128)
-New one... is the U.S. primarily an 'export' market for cool or an 'import' market for cool?

PAPER #6:

Is due on Friday unless you arrange with me otherwise. Submit to turnitin.com with works cited, acknowledgments, and reflections all in the same document. As you know, I got heavily involved at the "ideas draft" phase of paper #6 instead of the "working draft" phase. So I won't be reading your working drafts individually. I will take a quick look at them tonight however. So if you watch this space later tonight, I will be posting blanket comments/tips based on some of the issues that come up in the papers.

NO WEDNESDAY OFFICE HOURS:

Sorry, I have some appointments to keep. You will have ample opportunity to talk to me on Friday...

FINAL EXAM REVIEW SESSION:

I am reserving a room for the afternoon of Friday the 13th. I will be in there immediately after class at 12:00, and stay until 4:00 or possibly later. Drop in for as much time as you can... the more of you there, the better it will be.

Class #26 Postgame

2009-03-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

REGARDING THE POLL ON THE LEFT: I think a few of the votes might have been deleted somehow. Try again if you don't think yours got on there.

SIGNUP FOR FRIDAY REVIEW SESSION: Here.

BLOG HOMEWORK: One thing/person/activity that is cool, and one that is not cool. And why. With links, if possible. (Post below.) And for god's sake please catch up on your reading (CR 102-05, 114-31) so we can have a lively class discussion. For your reference, here are Lupton's study questions about Davis, Mitchell, and Gladwell (ignore De Botton), and some more questions about Gladwell.

TWO PEER REVIEWS DUE BY WEDNESDAY: Unless of course your partner doesn't get you a draft by then, in which case your deadline for the peer review will be extended. You can either put them in the Paper #6 shared student dropbox, or c.c. me on the email, or show them to me on paper.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN JACOBS AND PREVIOUS COURSE MATERIAL:

As discussed in class today. Hey wait, broad concepts that link various parts of the course together... that sounds like...

1) Planned vs. improvised uses, new meanings emerging from new contexts, regulating or censoring the arts

2) Individual vs. collective creation, and what it has to do with theories of what counts as "art" and "artists"

3) Depictions of rural vs. urban life, and what ideological function they serve

OTHER JACOBS TIDBITS:

Here's the objection to Slumdog Millionaire that Lupton mentioned.

60's era video reminiscent of Jacobs. And another.

And here's what President Obama thinks about The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN PORTRAIT OF SHAKESPEARE DISCOVERED: Here. Also, a somewhat different use of the term "authentic."

Paper #6 Peer Review Exercise

2009-03-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

If your partner has not completed a working draft, you should help her/him with creating an outline.

1) Read the letter all the way through.
2) Rate the letter's organization 1-10, 10 being best. Give one suggestion for improvement, perhaps an alternate organization of paragraphs/sections, or a better transition sentence(s) between paragraphs/sections.
3) Rate the letter's use of primary and secondary sources, 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement, perhaps a different source they might consider, a source they should get rid of, read more carefully, use in a different way, etc.
4) Underline the three strongest sentences in the letter with a straight line.
5) Underline the three weakest sentences in the letter with a squiggly line.
6) Is the introduction/first paragraph successful in framing the topic of the letter, summarizing the thesis, and giving a preview of the paragraphs that will follow? Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
7) Does the letter show a proper understanding of the rhetorical situation (writing to an arts committee)? Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
8) Does the letter show a proper understanding of the context of the hypothetical performance of Porgy and Bess (i.e. a UCI audience in 2009). Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
9) Does the letter present a strong & fair characterization of opposing arguments? Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
10) Does the letter successfully incorporate close analysis of select dialogue/characters/themes from the opera? Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
11) Does the letter successfully incorporate close analysis of select music/songs/instruments/styles from the opera? Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.
12) Does the letter have a unique personal voice/outlook/ethos. Rate 1-10. Give one suggestion for improvement.

Class #24 Postgame

2009-03-04T18:19:00.000-08:00

READING HOMEWORK FOR FRIDAY:

Finish Jacobs assignment from earlier in the week, Reader 102-05, 114-31

BLOG HOMEWORK FOR FRIDAY:

Photo that capture the essence of your favorite city with link, and why. Or cartoon that evinces a particular view of urban life, and what that view is. Or both for extra credit, but only if one of them is at least 200 words.

OTHER HOMEWORK FOR FRIDAY:

Print Google Map/Earth of your neighborhood that corresponds to your drawing (or sort of corresponds to it). Answer WWJJT, what would Jane Jacobs think.

PAPER 6 TIMELINE:

Outline Friday (email me)... this is optional but strongly recommended. Or you could turn in an outline with the working draft on Sunday night (EEE dropbox). But you have a much better chance of getting feedback if you do it on Friday. So yeah, working draft on Sunday night. Final draft Friday the 13th.

RANDOM BUT IMPORTANT THOUGHT ON PAPER 6:

You cannot reasonably presume that the other members of the arts board/council/whatever have seen Porgy and Bess, or that they are even all that familiar with it. That's why choosing a representative scene or two is so important.

FINAL EXAM:

I want to repeat my announcement that there will be a "passage analysis" section drawn from something we've read since the midterm, in addition to post-midterm short answer and a comprehensive essay. And remind you to save time in your schedule on the afternoon of Friday the 13th.

STAY TUNED:

For a rant on ways in which the Jane Jacobs material relates to previous aspects of the course. Possibly touching on Slumdog Millionaire.

CONTEMPORARY APPROPRIATIONS OF BLACK VERNACULAR:

In U.S. politics

U.S. CONGRESSMEN PERFORM REVISED VERSION OF SHAKESPEARE'S MIDSUMMER:

Remember what I've been saying about "unintended use" in city planning, and how it can also extend to theater, art, etc. Check this out. Oh, and here's another weirdo version of Shakespeare.

FOR THOSE OF YOU STILL INTERESTED IN THE GERMANS:

Review of an exhibit of pre-WW1 expressionist paintings.

HORRIBLY RACIST LOONEY TUNES THAT MAY REMIND YOU OF CHARACTERS IN PORGY AND BESS:

Class #23 Postgame

2009-03-02T15:50:00.001-08:00

Your neighborhood drawings were a huge hit in the staff meeting today. We were analyzing that s*** like it was the dead sea scrolls. The purpose of that exercise and the Porgy/Wire comparison was to bring you into Jane Jacobs' world, reading architecture and city planning as a form of making.

TUESDAY NIGHT: Finish your ideas draft! You must, must, must watch Porgy and Bess carefully, and select at least one scene to rewatch a couple of times. You're not going to be able to fake it any longer if you haven't seen it. Even one scene could be the main basis of a paper. For instance, is "I Got Plenty of Nothin" about the intellect, fierce determination, and community spirit of Catfish Row in the midst of hard times? Or is it about a bunch of black actors/singers reprising a minstrel-like song about how ignorance is bliss and they wouldn't want to have ol' massa's problems? And didn't Biggie also tell us that with mo' money come mo' problems? Same? Different?

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Class meets at its usual time. Get caught up on Jacobs (3-25, 29-34, 50-54, 58-65, 84-88, 89-111) and you'll learn way way more. Here are Lupton's study questions to help you orient.

WEDNESDAY WHENEVER: Here's the conference signup. Do this right now.

FRIDAY: The last reading assignments of the quarter, and I think you'll really like them. Reader 102-05, 114-31. Here are some more Lupton study questions that might be useful.

THE WIRE: is awesome (serious article), and especially beloved by white people (funny article... note the use of the term "authenticity")

A PLATONICITY ERROR THAT IS COSTING ALL OF US A LOT OF MONEY: the collossal stupidity of American Insurance Group (A.I.G.)

A TEACHER IS A PERSON IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD:

Class #22 postgame

2009-02-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

You guys were awesome today!

HOMEWORK FOR SATURDAY: Discovery task, if you didn't do it yet. Here's the info about connecting to library sources from off-campus.

HOMEWORK FOR TUESDAY: See ideas draft assignment in the previous post.

HOMEWORK FOR WEDNESDAY: Death and Life of American Cities 3-25, at minimum!... it would help if you could also read 29-34, 50-54, 58-65 and 84-88, and in a world far more perfect than this one, you would also read 89-111

Related: Nicholas' summary of the Irvine Park event (see reply to this post), and another Lupton event about Swedish design sensibility... for Bauhaus/Ikea fans

THE CONCLUSION OF THE "RENT" CONTROVERSY: Here... did I mention my wife is the one writing these stories?

RECENT CONTROVERSIES OVER RACIST IMAGERY: Obama, Obama, Obama

OBAMA/GERSHWIN/WONDER MASHUP: the question we really didn't pursue today, which you should consider your paper, is whether or not music can be "racially authentic" somehow, and if so, what music or whose music... note how Obama avoids the issue entirely, even though Stevie Wonder's best songs specifically addressed racial inequity... but then compare the criteria given in 2007 to those given in 2008

Ideas Draft #6

2009-02-27T04:10:00.001-08:00

Tuesday (3/3) p.m. = Ideas draft
Sunday (3/8) p.m. = Working draft
Friday (3/13) p.m. = Final draft

Look at the timestamp on this post... I'm pretty likely to make some mistakes here, so please let me know when you find them.

1) Read the prompt carefully.

2) What is the "arts committee" the prompt refers to, and who's on it? How does this effect your rhetorical strategy?

3) What is the racial climate at UCI? You do not need to limit your answers to black-white relations specifically. Note: there is no such thing as a "race" from a scientific standpoint, though there are obviously small genetic differences between groups of human beings. You are more genetically similar to me - about 99.99% - than to someone from the island of Vanuatu or from deep in the Amazon jungle - about 99.9%. Geographical isolation is the key to genetic differentiation, and given that we're all here in a major international urban zone, it can be safely said that we're all from ancestors who got around quite a bit. "Race" is mainly a social construction, but in this way we might say that it does really exist. I mean, "the economy" is a social construction too, and look how that affects our lives.

4) What would be different about performing Porgy and Bess at UCI than anywhere else? I mean, what would the specific context of the performance be?

5) Find one element of racial stereotyping (of blacks) in popular culture from 1855-1955. Maybe a Google Image search would help. Explain what you found.

6) Identify one element of racial stereotyping (of anyone) in popular culture in 2009. Explain.

7) What are the three strongest arguments for staging the play that came up in class debate?

8) What are the three strongest arguments for not staging the play that came up in class debate?

9) Find one primary source related to Porgy and Bess from the 1930s (other than the play itself). Who wrote it? What is the thesis? Pull one key quotation that you might use, and paraphrase it.

10) Repeat with a second primary source.

11) Repeat with a third primary source.

12) Find one secondary source related to Porgy and Bess from the 1950s-2000s. Who wrote it? What is the thesis? Pull one key quotation that you might use, and paraphrase it.

13) Research one performance of Porgy and Bess other than the Trevor Nunn version on the DVD or the first run on Broadway. What was unique about this performance? How would its audience have thought about the musical, specifically the racial aspect?

14) Identify two scenes in the musical that could/will be evidence for your argument. Pull a key bit of dialogue from each one, and explain why it could be interpreted as evidence for either side of the issue.

15) Identify two key bits of Porgy and Bess that you can analyze on the basis of the music only, rather than the dialogue, in a way that could somehow fit into your paper. You might use the same scenes as the previous question, and you might not.

Writing Rant: The Masses

2009-02-26T23:29:00.000-08:00

This is a phrase I saw in damn near half of your papers:

Propaganda was used to reach the masses. (or something like that)

Can someone please tell me where you are picking up this phrase and what you think it means? Who are the masses ? Germans? Are Germans in a mass? Aren’t they, rather, a number of distinct social groups with different or competing interests? Otherwise why would propaganda have to target them in different ways? So how can we then call them “the masses” as if they are undifferentiated? If you were referring, for instance, to the urban working class in particular, perhaps it would make sense to say "the masses," as this might be the majority of the population. But no, you're often using the term to refer to the middle class, or to farmers in the rural areas.

I take it that you've adopted this term because of our concept, in U.S. liberalism-capitalism, that we are all one big group of equals. "The masses" is different from some unspecified set of experts or elites. But anyone who actually depends on the American people to act in certain ways, for instance politicians or commercial advertisers, knows that regardless of their equal political status (in the strictest sense), Americans comprise many different groups, ideas, and interests. They are not one block. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE MASSES. Maybe if we are in medieval Europe and you are referring to the peasantry? This concept makes no sense to me whatsoever. Maybe someone can explain it.

As for the papers otherwise:

You did pretty well with this assignment, on the whole. I don't think it turned out to be much "easier" than the last, nor do the grades reflect that (average 2.85 vs. 2.78, a slightly higher B-)... instead, I think it had some very different challenges, in particular the need to research a lot of possibilities and choose between them, and the need for concision. The more important thing is that I think a lot of you liked doing the assignment and got a lot out of it. (I also felt kind of vindicated, because I'm starting to see that the way I approached the Shakespeare assignment has been helpful to you going forward.)

Class #21 postgame

2009-02-25T12:03:00.000-08:00

DISCOVERY TASK (FRIDAY):

My preference is that you turn this in to the EEE dropbox, but if you want to give me a paper copy, I guess that would be OK. The assignment asks you to find primary and secondary sources for analyzing Porgy and Bess.

DEBATE (FRIDAY):

Now that your last paper is over and you've had more of an opportunity to watch the musical, I want everyone involved in the discussion with minimal talking from me. As I said today, start by reading the essay #6 prompt. You will be arguing either that the play should be staged at UCI or that it should not. You can draw your arguments from personal opinion/experience, from the sources you found in the discovery task, and from the sources I'm providing below.

ADDITIONAL PORGY AND BESS SOURCES:

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - 1959 version with Sammy Davis Jr. as Sportin' Life

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - weird 1973 medley version where Davis sings as both Sportin' Life and Porgy

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - recent version from Warsaw National Opera in Poland

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - recent performance by Swedish jazz band

"It Ain't Necessarily So" - unreleased Tupac song

"Dere's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York" - weird Obama speech mashup

Kick Ass Student Paper about P & B - written for a different prompt last year

Recap of P & G's controversial nature - in London newspaper, 2007

Summary of P & G's performance history - from U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities

Interesting article in law newsletter - about copyright law as it pertains to making revisions to old plays

Another legal issue - a clause in the Gershwin brothers' will stipulates that P & G must be performed by an all-black cast

A bunch of other sources - from Moeller's webpage (login: moeller, moeller)

RESTATEMENT OF MY END OF CLASS RANT:

There is no intrinsic meaning in a work of art. There is nothing "there." The dilemma that art suggests, which surely bothered Plato, is that there is no such thing as an original, only a layered sequence of variations. Art is meaningful in a different sense; it is meaningful to particular audiences in particular ways at particular times. This is easier to see with live music and theater, which must be performed "new" each time. But it is also true of any form of art. Grosz, for instance, showed you how Botticelli's Primavera could mean something very different in 20th century Germany than it had in 15th century Italy.

So either way you frame your argument about Porgy and Bess needs to take this into account. There is no such person as Porgy, no such person as Bess, and no such "thing" as Porgy and Bess. There are, instead, a series of performances, a series of events, going back to its original performance. (And also further, if you consider that Gershwin has adapted the music from various classical, pop, and jazz influences.) So Porgy and Bess itself is a historically contingent event rather than a discrete "thing," and in restaging it you would be creating an entirely new event. Perhaps you think this new event would be valuable in some way, and perhaps you do not.

As we discussed today, racial stereotypes of the sort you see in the play are notoriously difficult to control. Even if a Robert Downey, Jr. or a Dave Chappelle (or a Gershwin) has the intention to challenge stereotypes, those stereotypes themselves must be presented/performed/recreated in order to do so. Recreating them for some audiences might be irresponsible, because the only difference between the stereotype and the anti-stereotype lies in the context of how an audience perceives it.

Class #20 postgame

2009-02-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

FOR TUESDAY NIGHT:

Paper #5 with works cited (see Easy Writer 204-225), acknowledgments, reflections to turnitin.com

FOR WEDNESDAY:

Watch Porgy and Bess DVD with the subtitles on ("libretto").

Answer your assigned study question (3, 4, 11, 12, 14, or 15) and "question X" (what is one major issue in U.S. aesthetics?).

Extra credit for attending this event about architecture and landscape design.

FOR FRIDAY:

Discovery Task #4

NEW EXHIBIT ON NAZI PROPAGANDA:

At the U.S. Holocaust Museum. In case you're, um, in Washington D.C. this month.

Class #19 postgame

2009-02-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

THE PURPOSE OF TODAY'S EXERCISE ON SOVIET AESTHETICS WAS:

Ankita asked me this after class, and I thought it was a fair question. The purpose was to, you know, learn about some of the specific aesthetic problems that came up during the Soviet revolution. But in a more practical sense, the purpose was to prepare you for a potential final exam question on Soviet aesthetics, and to use Soviet aesthetics as a tool of comparison/contrast to help you understand the other aesthetic systems we have studied / will study.

LECTURE HOMEWORK FOR MONDAY:

Watch the Porgy and Bess DVD!!!

WRITING HOMEWORK FOR SATURDAY:

From the sample papers I gave you, reduce the Preface from 191 words to 125 words, or reduce the Image 1 caption from 242 words to 155 words, or reduce the Image 2 caption from 220 words to 145 words, or reduce the Image 3 caption from 121 words to 80 words. Post your version to the blog below.

LEFTOVER HOMEWORK FOR SUNDAY:

Do the Oscars assignment if you missed Obama and the Grammys... what aesthetic theories were stated or implied during the Oscars ceremony? You might ponder, for instance, why the Best Picture winner was chosen instead of the other nominees. Also, in light of the Soviets, see how the Academy tries to justify itself as a special artistic/intellectual class.

AND OF COURSE:

Paper 5 final draft due to turnitin.com on Tuesday night at 8:00. You should have a works cited [see Easy Writer 204-225 for formatting guidelines], acknowledgments, and reflections.

CORONA DEL MAR "RENT" CENSORSHIP RUCKUS:

Continues in this New York Times story, which links it to related aesthetic debates in other U.S. high schools.

Class #18 postgame

2009-02-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

HOMEWORK FOR FRIDAY:

None... am I forgetting something?

HOMEWORK FOR SUNDAY:

The Academy Awards (Oscars) are on, so for those who missed the inauguration and the Grammys, you need to write a short post discussing how aesthetics came into play.

HOMEWORK FOR MONDAY:

Watch the Porgy and Bess DVD with the subtitles on (it's hard to understand what people are saying in operas even if it's in English... thus I've actually seen this before, but have no idea whatsoever what it's about). Pay special attention to Act II, Scene IV (chapter 24 of the DVD). Supposedly most of you bought this at the bookstore, but per the email you got last night, there will also be a screening on Thursday night from 6:30-9:50, in PCB 1100. Here are some good materials that Moeller gave to us at the last staff meeting, including primary sources like original newspaper reviews of the play. You might start looking at that stuff in anticipation of paper #6.

HOMEWORK FOR TUESDAY:

Final draft #3 to turnitin.com.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES ON SOVIETS:

On Moeller's website.... Including "Seventeen Moments in Soviet History," and more Brittanica. And a lot of other stuff as well.

More Shostakovich here, here, here, and here.

You're not a high school student... if you need/want to learn more, you have to take some initiative for yourself.

MORE SHEPHERD FAIRY:

Debate about his copyright dispute with the Associated Press, on the Colbert Report.

IS THIS ART?:

Corona Del Mar high school cancels performance of "Rent" over some objection to the content, replacing it with "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."

Class #17 postgame

2009-02-13T12:21:00.000-08:00

THE REVOLUTION WILL CONTINUE ON WEDNESDAY:

We didn't talk about the Soviets today because we focused on the paper. I ranted something or other at the start of class... Sarah promised she would post it to the reply here. But Moeller will do another lecture on Soviet aesthetics on Wednesday, focusing on Shostakovich's opera and why Stalin didn't like it. So you should (re)read 92-101, and you should read chapter 18 of the Guide, which is about "Analyzing Music."

THE OTHER THING THAT IS HAPPENING ON WEDNESDAY:

You will have a conference with me and two other students about your working draft. Sign up here. That means you need to upload the documents to the "shared student" section of the Dropbox as well as to the "assignment submission" section. If you're not using embedded images: please give the links, and you need to print copies of the images for the four of us to look at in the conference. The absolute latest deadline for uploading your working draft is, let's say, Tuesday night at 7:00. But I would be eternally grateful if some of you uploaded it in the morning, because then I can look at some of them on my flight back from Pittsburgh.

Yes, class will meet as usual on Wednesday in addition to the conferences.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND:

And happy Valentine's Day. (Adding to our ongoing discussion of holidays & festivals, Valentine's day is a minor Catholic holiday honoring a saint, which was appropriated by the flower, chocolate & greeting card companies in the post WW2 era in the U.S. to become the romantic/buying stuff bourgeois holiday that it is today.)

IS THIS ART?

Obama action figure... scroll to the bottom for him with an uzi and a samurai sword (?!?!)

Class #16 postgame

2009-02-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

EXCELLENT CONTRIBUTION TO THE HARVEST, COMRADES:

The level of participation in class today was great!

IDEAS DRAFT:

Thursday night, comrades! Friday morning at the latest. We must meet our quota for the next harvest!

HERE'S WHERE ALL THE NAZI-APPROVED ART LIVES ON THE INTERNET:

1055 images here (painting, sculpture, photography). Sadly I fear many of us are too racially degenerate to be able to appreciate it. Oh, and here's a Hitler original.

And here's an interesting/frightening radio story about the evolution of Neo-Nazism in today's Germany from a radical fringe movement to an increasingly mainstream political movement.

SOVIETS VS. NAZIS:

Can someone who took good notes remind me what we wrote on the board about the aesthetic/political similarities & differences? Here's what I remember:

-Soviet feminism vs. Nazi gender traditionalism
-Nazis using race to create a classless society vs. Soviets using "dictatorship of the proletariat" to create a classless society
-appeal to the collective will... it should be noted however that Soviets think everyone should be an artist whereas Nazis are more interested in regulating the production of a specific class of artists
-Soviet internationalism vs. Nazi nationalism (Soviet Union as "united states," Soviets consider nationalism & racism a bourgeois illusion)
-both use anti-capitalist rhetoric, but in different ways... in Germany it is often paired with anti-semitism, and it's not like the Nazis got rid of businesses altogether... I mean, think of Volkswagen for instance or the collaboration of the Nazis with Coca-Cola (no seriously)... vs. the entire basis of the Soviet Union is anti-capitalism... all the business are nationalized & state run
-Nazi's ambivalent attitude toward "modernity" in general and modern art in particular... the idea of a future return to a glorious past, nostalgia, with Weimar as a terrible wrong turn... vs. Soviets' total embrace of modernity (but Soviets didn't like some abstract styles of art because they found them confusing or symptomatic of bourgeois individualism... and remember, Soviets went right from being peasants under a monarchy to being communist revolutionaries... they didn't have that in between democratic / moderate phase, and they didn't want to continue any elements of the past)
-related... Soviet use of technological and urban imagery in their "realism" vs. Nazi's use of nostalgic and agrarian imagery in their "realism"
-use of propaganda... Soviets essentially believed that all art was political propaganda, while Nazis acted like only degenerate art was political (despite using art as political rhetoric themselves)

SENSUALITY VS. BEAUTY IN LONG BEACH:

This is the article Moeller was referring to about a dispute over a nude painting in Long Beach. I think my weirdo artist neighbor who lives next door actually knows this woman. (He's an interesting case in himself... he works as a painter on construction sites by day and paints art like this by night. Very Bauhaus I guess.)

IS THIS ART?:

Japanese water fountain.

SOMETHING ELSE TO PONDER:

I may use this for class discussion next week. Besides the M.I.A. + Jay-Z + Kanye + Lil' Wayne + T.I. and Radiohead + U.C.L.A. marching band mashups, the other interesting moment at the Grammys, to me, was the dull speech that the director of the organization gives every year. Except this time it wasn't dull because he called for the Obama Administration to create a cabinet level position for Secretary of the Arts (like Secretary of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy, etc.). Is this a good idea, because it would encourage greater funding for arts education? Or is it a bad idea for the political state to have regulatory power over the arts... isn't that what Hitler & Stalin are doing?

Class #15 postgame

2009-02-09T09:17:00.001-08:00

APOLOGY:

I'm sorry if anyone came to see me in my office from 12:00-1:15... I forgot about my weekly HumCore staff meeting... hopefully you saw the note on the door

SURVEY:

Most of you didn't take it yet... here's the link. Please try to come up with suggestions for my/our improvement. One person took the survey and basically chose "suck" for everything in the numerical part, which is totally fine, but then wrote something to the effect of "everything seems OK, no suggestions" in the written comment part. I found that rather confusing. If you have a grievance, elaborate. If you like something, tell me how to do more of it. Etc.

HOMEWORK:

-ask Goebbels a question about Nazi aesthetics in reply to this post... no more communist nonsense, today the teacher/fuhrer answers all the questions... you are free to choose from Moeller's own study questions if this is really what you want to know
-Reader 92-101 (Soviet Aesthetics)
-read Moeller's handout on primary vs. secondary sources (a simple demonstration is pg. 97 vs. pg. 100-01)
-read Guide ch. 15 & 16 if you haven't already

TIMETABLE FOR PAPER #5:

Thursday 2/12 @ 9pm = ideas draft (to submission dropbox... see below)
Tuesday 2/17 @ 5pm = working draft (to shared dropbox)
Wednesday 2/18 @ various = group conferences
Sunday 2/22 @ 9pm = final draft (to turnitin.com)

THIS MIGHT BE MORE HELPFUL THAN THE ACTUAL PROMPT:

Grading rubric the instructors were given (or in .pdf format if you prefer)

ACCEPTABLE ALTERNATIVES TO ARTSTOR, CALVIN, AND U.S.H.M.M. :

-Rifkind German Expressionist collection... some of this is online, but you could go to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, like I did this past weekend, and see all this stuff and more... sometimes it's easier to analyze a painting/poster/photograph if you're actually looking at it than a web image
-University of Minnesota World War poster collection (careful with dates)
-German Federal Archives

IDEAS DRAFT #5 (NOT AS LONG AS THE LAST ONE, BUT LONG):

You need to find six images. Five should come from approved databases [Artstor, Calvin, U.S.H.M.M., Rifkind, U. Minnesota]. Use at least two of the databases... you can repeat images from your Discovery Task, but be sure that they fit the theme you choose, and be sure that you have something interesting to say about them. The sixth image should be a contemporary one (from any source) that somehow fits your theme, even though it's not directly about Weimar.

Winter's 2 S's

Source: who publishes/curates the database this image came from? what is its focus? what are its motives? [do this once for each database you use]
Selection: what category or theme have you chosen to organize your exhibition/article [do this once]... note: one potential category we didn't discuss in class today was the work of a single artist... though it would be better if there was some variety therein

Moeller's 6 C's [repeat six times, one for each image]

Content: what do you see? (in detail... more work now is less work later)
Citation: who made it? how did s(he) display or publish it?
Context: what was going on at this particular place and time? (be specific... not every year in the Weimar period is quite the same, and not every city in Germany is quite the same)
Connections: does this remind you of anything else you've studied in Core this year? (hint: yes)? does it remind you of any other images/ideas (hint: yes)? copy out at least one short quotation from a pertinent primary or secondary source (like from the Reader)
Communication: what's the message, or rhetorical appeal, or propaganda angle? if there's none on the part of the artist/photographer, how might someone else interpret it as such? (example: Grosz calling Primavera bourgeois propaganda)
Conclusions: why is this image historically interesting/valuable? how does it relate to your theme? use it or lose it? (since you will be cutting down from six to three)

Midterm Grades

2009-02-09T03:04:00.000-08:00

As I am sometimes a tad harsher than I should be in grading exams, I factored in a bonus by making the different sections of the test add up to 102 total points instead of 100. (20 x 3, plus 14 x 3).

Everyone passed. The average grade was just below a B (2.92 on a scale of 4.00).

Students who have participated more actively in the class discussion, office hours, and the blog homework tended to score higher. This didn't surprise me, and it shouldn't surprise you. It's not a question of me favoring them... I grade the test more or less anonymously because I compare all the answers to each question and I don't look to see whose I'm grading. These are just the students who are getting more out of the class, basically.

Midterm Guide (Art Analysis)

2009-02-09T02:19:00.000-08:00

Alberti:

It wasn't necessary to write in the first person as your character, though some did. Most of you did quite well with Alberti, identifying certain elements of Botticelli's Primavera that he would like and arguing that Grosz's X would somehow degrade them. (Giving the title/artist of the original helped!) Some argued that Alberti would find some fault in the original painting, which I hadn't considered.

15 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 12.5 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 13 out of 14.

Alberti would not like this "revised" work of art. The painting itself was good as it follows every criteria that Alberti believes good paintings have; there is a clear istoria, the figures are depicted as nature gives, and the colors have been properly used. The black tape that has crossed over Botticelli's Primavera would be, to Alberti, classified as rape. There certainly is a message - one that indicates the artist's wish to tear down traditional aesthetic values - but this message completely goes against Alberti's own aesthetic values. He would spit on Grosz's attack on his philosophy of art.

Kokoschka:

This one was difficult for many of you. K clearly appreciates variations on traditional art, but to call Grosz's "X" an example of "expressionism" is using that term much too loosely. This is dada, a conceptual experiment. Had Grosz wanted to make an expressionist painting, he would have used his own earlier style and repainted the scene with contorted poses, darker colors, or what have you. On the other hand, some made Kokoschka out to be a strict traditionalist, which he was not... his main objection was to the politicization of art.

6 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 11.5 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 12 out of 14.

Oskar Kokoschka would agree with Alberti that the painting by Grosz would not be aesthetically pleasing. Kokoschka had voiced that paintings should be "untouched" and untainted by things like "bullet-holes." As an artist, he believes in expressionist [but still upholds the museum/gallery ideal of art]. He would not appreciate the tape which has "ruined" the artistic value of what is under it.

Gropius:

Those who bothered to read Gropius and study Moeller's lecture carefully referred to concepts of "building," geometric lines, functionality, the unification of the arts, etc. Though G isn't quite an expressionist or a communist, as some made him out to be.

9 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 10.1 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 14 out of 14.

Walter Gropius would not even care about the painting or the original idea behind it. He is an architect. As far as he is concerned, the painting is just eye-candy. What really matters to him is the frame and how effective the placement of the black tape is. Is the tape perfectly covering the center? If not, where is the focal point and why? Is it structurally stable? The only thing he might approve of in the painting is the legs of the fairies and the forest behind them. The legs are not completely realistic because of the use of many straight lines to represent a woman's usually curvy figure, and the forest also incorporates sharp and fine lines. Other than that, he would not care about the meaning of the painting.

Plato:

Most understood Plato's aesthetics, but some gave it generically rather than referring to the Grosz painting in particular. Some saw it as a kind of Platonic concept. Perhaps, though it is probably a sub-philosophical one. I'm not quite sure how Plato turned out to be a Marxist revolutionary in some of your answers.

7 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 11.6 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 12 out of 14.

Both of you are idiots. Who cares about "art"? It does nothing but fool the masses and give them something pretty to look at. If it's truth you're seeking then listen to your philosophers. How can you look for truth by presenting a distortion of reality? In my opinion Grosz did the world a favor in destroying the painting.

Hoch:

Successful answers found ways to connect her feminism, her dadaism, and/or her communism.

8 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 12.0 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 14 out of 14.

As a feminist-dadaist, Hannah Hoch would like this revised version of a Renaissance masterpiece. Although the message is quite clear in this image, an aspect of art that is vastly different from dada, she would appreciate the black "x" over the images of women that are drawn with feminine garments and long hair, an image of women she would despise. The painting is very busy, and the black "x" could be considered a form of collage - aspects of art that Hoch would value. Furthermore, Hoch would particularly dislike the first scene as it implies that the girl became a woman because of a man's grasp. She would argue that womanhood comes from a sense of self, not from a man's interest in her.

Heartfield:

This was one of the easier options on the test, as it related directly to one of Moeller's lectures. Heartfield is an anti-traditionalist, but might consider Grosz's version of dada unsuitable for communist propaganda.

6 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 11.4 out of 14. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 12 out of 14.

This is definitely a piece of art because of its obvious political message - the rejection of the traditional views of art that were invented by the bourgeoisie. This painting by itself - without the electrical tape - does not represent the current world we live in and therefore Grosz was clever to reject it.

Midterm Guide (Medium Answers)

2009-02-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

Question A:

You guys came up with a number of good ways of relating the subplots, including aesthetics, the fickleness of love, and the idea of making or fashioning people/things... the weaker answers ignored my plea to analyze "thematically or conceptually" rather than focusing on plot.

8 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 16.3 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 20 out of 20.

A Midsummer Night's Dream has three overlapping subplots to make the story more confusing so the reader can take part in the ever changing love triangles. Shakespeare included many different forms of love as the play was originally intended to be performed at a wedding. Theseus & Hippolyta symbolize a forced love, Oberon & Titania a jealous love, and Hermia and Lysander represent true love. Although the mechanicals do not have an apparent love interest, their group presents the audience with brotherly love which can be [intuited] when the craftsmen are depressed when Bottom disappeared. These groups are important to express different formations of love, which could have been included to make a point about how love should be reformed in Shakespeare's time period, when arranged marriages were more common. The three subplots relate together by their incorporation of love, which makes the plot all the more confusing for the reader to follow, just as the characters are endlessly confused throughout the play with the help of fairy interference and love potions.

Question B:

It was difficult to answer this question in a satisfactory way without making some reference to Aristotlean style cultivation of virtue, or to humanism, though some of you managed to approach this in a more general way by talking about life experience. The better answers were grounded in actual statements by Alberti, though some (weaker) answers discussed istoria, composition etc. while avoiding answering the question about humanity and affability. There's no excuse for dodging the question if I give it to you ahead of time.

10 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 16.8 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 20 out of 20.

Alberti advised the painters to "take from nature that which [they] wish to paint." He meant to include painting in humanistic studies becausd he believed that music, mathematics, etc. improved the soul, and that painting did too. His technique in painting was to use geometry to make the painting look as realistic as possible. Using geometry would improve perspective and an improved perspective would result in a realistic painting. If the painting was realistic enough, it would "hold the eyes and the soul" of the audience. Just the technique would benefit the painter. But the "benevolence of the citizens" would do more good to the painter than his skill alone because then he would have a firm guard against povertly. This benevolence could only be achieved if the painter had an approachable personality. Alberti wanted the painter to develop good habits like humanity and affability by associating with poets and rhetoricians who had a broad knowledge about everything. They would give his painting the... istoria which could help him relate his work to the audience and engage their souls as well as their eyes.

Question C:

The better answers were able to link the historical moment to multiple artistic developments (such as expressionism, dada, bauhaus, etc.) For those who are still confusing the working class with the middle class, or the upper class with the "bourgeoisie" (middle class), you really need to see me in office hours... you've really missed the boat.

9 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 16.4 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless (there is a mistake in assuming these new styles of art met with instant popular approval, as Moeller's articles about the Nazis show), but it received 20 out of 20.

Art, like politics, can be shifted dramatically according to the will of the people. If people are unhappy with their government, they will revolt to change it; likewise their forms of expression, or art, will follow suit. After World War I, the concept of communism began to flood into the minds of the German working class; a classless society of equal distribution appealed to them ideologically. Rejecting the notion of the upper classes, they began to express their discontent publically. This discontent was brought about by a disillusionment with the nation, with its ailing economy... and its loss in the war. As such, new forms of expression, along with the rejection of old forms, started to formulate. Art was meant to be enjoyed by the bourgeoisie, a depiction of an idyllic life as seen in impressionist paintings, with relaxing backgrounds and such and such. However, the working class decided that art should be brought into their hands, and many new art forms emerged to express this mentality. The Dadaists believed that art was a weapon, utilizing photomontage to gather support for their cause. Meanwhile, the Bauhaus movement declared that art should be reintegrated with crafstmanship, producing cheap, easily reproducible art for the working classes. The Weimar Renaissance, brought on by the new Weimar Republic in 1918, shows that the affiars of the nation are related to art, as modes of expression change with the state of the nation.

Question D:

It seemed as if some of you understood the propaganda function of photomontage better, and some understood the purely dadaist function better (nonsense, undermining traditional ideas, etc.) But some did pretty well with both. Examples were helpful too. I was a bit disappointed to see that very few mentioned the dadaists as being humorous or satirical.

9 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 16.3 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 16.2 out of 20.

Some photomontage is good dadaism because it effectively depicts the chaos and disorder that is plaguing the Weimar Republic. For example, John Heartfield's early photomontages and Hannah Hoch's "Cut with Kitchen Knife" demonstrate through the use of abstraction the state of Germany following the war and economic struggles. Both artists are able to use dadaist photomontage to present the dadaist point of view and be critical of the Weimar Republic and the war. Some photomontage is good communist propaganda because it criticizes the enemies of the communists. For instance, Heartfield's photomontages about the "Heil Hitler" support the communist cause in mocking Hitler and attacking the Nazis. The difference between the photomontages, then, is the relative ease and clarity with which the works present their arguments. The communist propaganda were generally more blatant in their messages, whereas the dadaist photomontages looked like chaos before looking like a messsage.

Question E:

Weaker answers said that something wasn't art but didn't really explain why;
this question was really a definition in reverse. Thus several theories of art emerged in your answers: expressive, representational, technical, and purposive/rhetorical, to name a few.

4 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 16.5 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 18 out of 20.

Racecar driving is not an art because it does not require any expression. Although there are techniques required to drive keenly and safely, it does not serve a purpose other than the race itself. To me, art is something that can be defined in different ways depending on who is producing it. Like Alberti, I believe that art is something that demonstrates an end; and that end must be related to what that artist believes in. In a way, art is political. Whether it is done intentionally or unintentionally, the art is very much influenced by the experiences and ideas of the artists. A racecar cannot demonstrate a driver's experiences or ideas. He cannot drive slow, even if he is innately a calm, mellow driver. He will lose if he decides to go with his instincts. In racecar driving, a driver may go against what he believes in (it might be safety, not crashing into other cars) to win the race. Other types of sports such as basketball or gold are more artistic than racecar driving because a player can express his style more distinctly.

Question E:

This question was rather broad, so examples were useful. Some of you gave examples that didn't fit very well with the point you were making, though.

14 of 18 answered this question for an average score of 14.4 out of 20. The following answer is by no means flawless, but it received 20 out of 20.

Makers are not always doers. Even though Professor Moeller seems to believe that makers are always doing something. Ever heard of "art for art's sake"? Well that is definitely not "doing" something. I think of doing as helpful toward others, philanthropic, or like an action. A good example of an artist who is not doing that is Monet. Yeah, he painted some great landscapes. Yeah, he used this crazy new technique that is really pretty. OK, his art is still sold around the world. What does the art do? What did Monet do with his art? He didn't do anything. He made paintings for the sake of putting a brush to canvas. I use painting as an example because most other forms of art are making and doing. A culinary artist makes food that's purpose is to feed people. (I guess nobody really eats those fancy watermelon swans.) A building "maker" is doing something for the people that will need the building. Makers can be doers, but they are not ALWAYS the same.

Midterm postgame

2009-02-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

HOMEWORK: Reader 43-91... full-on Nazi blitzkrieg attack... and don't forget the Grammys on Sunday night (see next post below for explanation)

PAPER #5: I will discuss the timetable for the Image Analysis paper on Monday. Your ideas draft will probably be due on Thursday (Feb. 12), and your working draft the following Tuesday (Feb. 17).

SURVEY: Perhaps you recall my amusement at Aidin's comment on the first day of class about the UCI parking director being his [employee]. I'm not your employee... I work for the state of California if you look at my paychecks, and I work for, uh, humanity if you look at the subject I'm teaching. That said, I am very interested in collaborating with you to make this a good class. Your input will be helpful to me during the rest of the quarter, for my section next quarter, and for my future teaching. So please take this anonymous survey by Monday at midnight... this gives you the opportunity to wait for your midterm grade if you prefer. Please be honest and give it some thought. I have been teaching for six years and won awards, etc. You are not going to make me feel bad. (Likewise I critique your essays and exams as honestly and thoughtfully as I can with the aim of helping you improve, rather than making you feel bad.)

CHRISTIAN BALE UPDATE:

Bale to LA Times, "I acted like a punk... I mixed up fact and fiction."

"Christian Bale and I Are Done Professionally" t-shirt... I think Bottom should get one that says "Philostrate and I Are Done Professionally"

Stephen Colbert and Steve Martin re-enact the Bale rant:

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Stephen Verbally Thrashes Steve Martin

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Paul McCartney Appearance

Funny Political Videos
More Funny Videos

Class #13 postgame

2009-02-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

REMINDER: post one "character's" reaction to the Grosz painting here.

REMINDER: Midterm exam Friday, regular class time & place.

Please email me any questions/concerns about the midterm, and use the blog & listserv to get some discussions going (see midterm tip #3).

Like I said, I would prefer if you brought a bluebook. I like the small ones for some reason.

ANNOUNCEMENT: If you recall, I mentioned the Inauguration (Jan. 20), the Grammys (Feb. 8), and the Oscars (Feb. 22) as opportunities for extra credit. I am going back on this promise... these are now regular homework. You have to do one of the three of them, so if you already did the Inauguration rhetorical analysis, you're in the clear. You can get extra credit for doing a second one. You can do the third one, but it would be just for fun. (Yes, fun!) The Grammy & Oscar assignment is to identify and analyze at least one stated or implied theory of aesthetics presented during the show.

MORE ON THE BALE CONTROVERSY: Requiem for a Dream / The Wrestler director Darren Aronovsky weighs in

On False Universals

2009-02-04T00:51:00.000-08:00

I promised I would write a blog entry to give some additional insight about what the communists thought about "bourgeois art." Be sure to re-read "En Avant Dada" and "The Art Scab" too.

The first point we can make is pretty literal. A bourgeois (i.e. middle class) economy is based on a fluid exchange of commodities, and the person who controls the most commodities has the most social power. Art has thus been reduced to a commodity, like coal or shoes. Albeit a "fine" or "valuable" commodity that gives great social distinction to those individuals who possess it (it's worth a lot of shoes!). This makes the bourgeois usage of art different from the medieval/feudal usage, where works of art were created by and for the entire community. (The Renaissance began this process, but I'm sure Alberti, Shakespeare, Descartes et. al would be horrified by how it turned out.) Obviously the medieval economy isn't egalitarian... I mean they have kings and popes for crying out loud. But that community is nonetheless a whole rather than an aggregation of individuals, and the art is meaningful for the whole community, and they can access it. In the bourgeois world of the late 19th century & early 20th century, art (specifically paintings) is largely owned by wealthy individuals and displayed privately. And you have to have a special education to appreciate it, because it's either historically alien (e.g. 15th century Italian painting), referent to things historically alien (e.g. classical mythology, or imitations/modifications of 15th century Italian painting), or weird and avant garde (e.g. like impressionism and then expressionism when they first came out.) This makes art a private world, a world that is only accessible to the eyes and the minds of a certain set of people. And if these people gain power as a result of this access, then art is a tool of exclusion REGARDLESS OF ITS CONTENT. It creates a system where the new urban working class is stupid for not appreciating it, and inferior because they spend their time shoveling coal and making shoes instead of making and appreciating "art."

The second point is a bit more difficult, because it has to do with content of the art in question. The communists believe that the bourgeois class is essentially parasitic, since they do none of the work but take most of the profits. They live in a kind of dreamworld. So it figures that the content of their paintings very often relates to fantasies, particularly highly individualized ones (e.g. impressionism), ones that pine nostalgically for the past (e.g. agricultural scenes, or a love of classical and renaissance art and themes). Anything but what is actually happening, because what is actually happening is the exploitation of the working class, mainly in the cities, where the factories are. Indeed, it could be said that late bourgeois paintings really have no substantive content, in the way that medieval paintings and renaissance paintings did. How could parasites have anything substantive to say? Look at what the parasites think about real art from those earlier periods... they don't get it. They either think it's a bunch of technical rules, or something witty to reference at their cocktail parties. They've lost the reality of it.

On the other hand, and this is the really tricky part, communists do believe that bourgeois art has real content. Its content is the exploitation of the working class. Because that's the real shit that's really going on. This is never its stated content, because its stated content doesn't show this at all; it shows classical mythology, or curvy sunflowers, or whatever. So its content is hidden or beneath the surface. The trouble with the bourgeoisie, like any dominant ruling class in any political/economic situation, is that it won't admit that its dominance is a big deal. It pretends that its dominance is normal, the way things should be, always have been, and always will be. This is what I mean by a false universal. Any ideology has a false universal. This is why when you ever hear someone use the word "ideology" or the word "rhetoric," they are always talking about someone else's ideas. Someone else's ideas are lies. My ideas are the truth, so they're not really my ideas, they're just the way things are. They're real, they're normal. Recall the way that the ideology of racism functions through movies and advertising images in The Bluest Eye. Remember the Dick and Jane passage? (which is very dada, incidentally) The book doesn't say people with blonde hair and blue eyes are racially superior (as the Nazis would say... hey didn't we just fight a war with the Nazis?). It doesn't say anything about that at all. It just shows us that these people, this life, is normal. It's universal. This is just the way things are. Why, for instance, do we hear models described as "ethnic"? Is white not an ethnicity? No, because it's just normal. Suppose I say, I'm making a movie about a person who goes on an adventure in outer space, close your eyes and tell me what that person looks like. In all likelihood, based on all of the other movies you've seen, you're imagining that the protagonist is a white male. Because that's "normal"... that's the false universal in this case.

So to the communists, bourgeois art, which includes all of the styles and periods of art that win approval from the bourgeois (who are actually rather stupid and, for all of their rules and labels, can't really understand what they're about), is a false universal. It pretends that it's the only sort of art there is, can be, should be, and will be... that's what the term "human culture" means in the Kokoschka quote, say Grosz and Heartfield. It doesn't mean human culture in the universal sense... it means middle class culture. And that's a very dangerous lie when you take into account this art's aforementioned tendency to be private or exclusive. So that's what the dadaists mean when they say they reject aesthetics. They reject this false universal. Our job is to figure out what they're trying to do about it... for the sake of comparison, you might try reading this article about a recent New York subway vandal/artist.

Christian Bale on Aesthetics

2009-02-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

He proposes a Bottom-like analogy between stage construction and acting... note his continued emphasis on "professionalism." But his tone and his language suggest that he believes himself superior to this "hard-handed m[a]n... which never labored in [his]mind"(MSND 5.1.72-73).

Bonus: dada-esque techno remix of Bale's profanity-laced tirade

Class #12 postgame

2009-02-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

REMINDER: Reader 43-51 will help you make sense of Moeller's lecture tomorrow, but there will be no Nazis on the midterm. Moeller also sent this timeline to the instructor listserv. And this one.

REMINDER: Discovery Task #3 due to the Dropbox tonight. I recommend choosing images that are interesting/challenging so you can get a head start on your next essay (image analysis). In other words, don't just choose the first thing you find... peck around a little bit. But anything from Germany 1918-1933 will work for the discovery task. Example: we had this whole discussion in our instructor staff meeting today about a student who got a D on the essay last year. He chose the theme of hyperinflation and the image he selected was a 100,000 deutschmark bill from the Wikipedia article on "Weimar Republic." His analysis was like, "there was inflation, so the number on the bill is high." You might find something a bit meatier than that for your paper, and like I said, you might as well get started looking for it.

REMINDER: Watch this space for a rant on why communists reject the notion of a separate realm of aesthetic value. (As seen in "The Art Scab.")

REMINDER: Midterm Friday. (I will provide some kind of study aid on Wednesday, but you can start by going back through your lecture notes, class notes, and all the blog posts.)

STRAY THOUGHT: Today is Groundhog Day, which is a great movie if you've never seen it. But it's also another of those really old European folk holidays, as it so happens... it's halfway between the winter solstice (Dec. 22ish) and the spring equinox (March 22ish), so it means spring is coming soon. Mayday, if you recall, is the halfway point (May 1) of the spring equinox (March 22ish) and the summer solstice (June 22ish)... that's the moment of transition you see in Botticelli's painting, between the early spring and the late spring (cf. to the modern "spring break" bacchanalia). So apparently the festival calendar is divided into eighths as well as fourths... I wonder if the capitalist/corporate holidays of Super Bowl and Valentine's Day could be considered mid-winter holidays?

Class #11 postgame

2009-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

Good job on the presentations today! It's really helping me put the pieces together, and maybe the same for you. The only thing I would change for those who haven't presented yet is to be sure the links for your images work.

(The picture is Bauhaus, which is also the name of an 80s band somewhat similar to The Cure... or I guess you could see them as a precursor to Nine Inch Nails or contemporary versions of goth rock... I'm not sure why they chose that name, as they're British... David Lloyd George would surely not approve)

REMINDERS:

-Check the dropbox for grades & comments on paper #4... I also wrote a long comment about it in last night's email... feel free to see me in office hours if you want to discuss it further
-We will discuss (most of) the remaining Weimar "characters" on Monday
-You should revisit the Reader article about the Bauhaus (pgs. 32-35)
-Read the Paper #5 prompt so you know what we're dealing with... but the paper won't be due for another few weeks
-Discovery Task #3 is due on Monday night... it connects to the character exercise and to the paper, as you will see... you may need to do it from a library computer... upload your paper to the EEE dropbox if you don't mind
-If you want to read ahead, the midterm is supposed to go up to Reader pg. 51, which means that it will have a bit about the Nazis on it

Crazy Role Play Exercise, a.k.a. The HH 214 Revolution, Take Two

2009-01-27T23:59:00.000-08:00

Each of you is assigned to one historical "character."

If your character is mainly an artist or aesthetic theorist, you should start by finding one piece of art he would like and another he wouldn't (the "like" could be his own art). Explain why in 2-4 sentences. Then try to figure out how that art might relate to his political stance. Theorize in 2-4 sentences... you may have to guess his political beliefs. If your character is mainly a political doer, you should start by sketching her political beliefs in 2-4 sentences, then try to find one piece of art she would like and another she wouldn't. Then explain why this would fit with her political stance in 2-4 sentences.

You should all do this assignment for Friday and post it to the blog in reply to this entry. If there is a * next to your name, I will ask you to present your images & explanations at the podium on Friday. If there isn't a * next to your name, you'll present on Monday. I know students are scared of presentations sometimes, but this really isn't a big deal, and I'll guide you with questions as you present. Just be prepared to say something about/as your character.

I recommend Artstor for finding the images... this will actually give you a head start on the next "Discovery Task"... in fact, you'll be about 1/3 done before you even start. It will also give you a head start on the next essay, which is about analyzing visual images. On the Artstor site, click "enter digital library." You have to register and make a password, and the first time you use it, you have to do it from on campus.

READING REMINDER: Be comfortable with Reader 9-42 and Guide ch. 15

Disclaimer 1: We are focusing heavily on visual art because it ties into essay #5, and because it's easier to view on the projector. But playwrights, composers, poets, etc. were equally important to these various social and political movements.

Disclaimer 2: The other problem here is what is known as the "great man" distortion... the idea that history boils down to a small number of important thinkers/makers/doers, a small number of geniuses, heroes, or villains... Moeller already warned us against that kind of thinking in his agitprop trial against Lupton... still, it's a useful shorthand... we should just remember that we're dealing with a lot of thinkers/makers/doers who rejected this idea, in particular the various socialists and communists who saw the entire people or entire working class as the "hero" or major historical actor

"Thinkers" (Political Theorists)

MARXISTS:

*Karl Marx [Sarah]

(Marx famously rejected the distinction between thinking and doing, however... these terms can be reductive)

"Doers" (Politicians/Activists)

GERMAN EMPIRE:

*Wilhelm II [Yen]
-Paul von Hindenberg [Scarlett]
-Max von Baden [x]

MODERATE SOCIALISTS: (a.k.a. "Majority" and "Independent" Socialists):

*Friedrich Ebert [Lorena]
-Philipp Scheidemann [Thao]
-Matthias Erzberger [x]
-Walther Rathenau [x]

SPARTACUS LEAGUE (a.k.a. KPD, Communists):

*Karl Liebknecht [Grant]
-Rosa Luxemburg [Connie]
-Alfred Kimenyi [x]... a.k.a. "Durus"... not a perfect fit here, but kinda

POST-IMPERIAL RIGHT-WING (a.k.a. Army, Freikorps):

-Hermann Ehrhardt [Rante]
-Wolfgang Kapp [x]

ALLIED NATIONS (a.k.a. Germany's World War I enemies, creators of Versailles Treaty):

*David Lloyd George [Chris]
-Henri Poincare or Georges Clemenceau [x]
-Woodrow Wilson
-Nicholas II [x]

SOVIET COMMUNISTS (a.k.a. Bolsheviks, October Revolution):

-Vladimir Lenin [Aidin]
-Leon Trotsky [x]

"Makers" (Artists or Aesthetic Theorists)

ACADEMICS (e.g. Dresden Academy of Fine Arts)

*Oskar Kokoschka [Nicholas]

BAUHAUS (affiliated with November Group & Worker's Council for Arts):

*Walter Gropius [Martha]
-Max Pechstein [Alyssa]
-Friedrich Wolf [x]... kinda sorta... I think he fits best here

EXPRESSIONISTS:

*Max Beckmann [Amanda So]
-Otto Dix [Amanda Hansen]
-Kasimir Edschmid [x]
-Theodor Daubler [x]
-Kurt Hiller [x]

DADAISTS:

*George Grosz [Ankita] (a.k.a. Georg Grosz)
-John Heartfield [Marko] (a.k.a. Helmut Herzfeld)
-Hannah Hoch [Alyssa]
-Tristan Tzara [x]
-Hugo Ball [x]
-Raoul Hausmann [x]
-Jean Arp [x]
-Marcel Janco [x]

NAZIS:

-Adolph Hitler [x]
-Joseph Goebbels [Aaron]

On Relativism

2009-01-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

Relativism is a philosophical view that says all opinions are equal. (You might as well call them "opinions" if they're all equal, rather than arguments or positions. Because you can't dispute opinions.)

Relativism is closely entangled with our contemporary consumerist version of capitalism. Each of us is encouraged to be an "individual" with certain beliefs, tastes, or desires different from everyone else's. That's "just the way we are" or "just what we're into." I'm Jewish, you're Hindu. I like Lebron James, you like Kobe Bryant. I like pie, you like pi.

This leads to a bit of a paradox. Can we call relativism a philosophical view at all? After all, philosophy in the usual sense depends on arguing which view is more valid. And here all views are equally valid. So if we are philosophers, we can't really characterize relativism as one among many competing philosophical positions, because it rejects this framework entirely. And if we are relativists, we wouldn't want to characterize it as one among many competing philosophical positions, because applying our relativism we would consider all of these "positions" to be mere opinions, tastes, turn-ons, etc. rather than mutually exclusive arguments.

In most areas of philosophy, it is fairly easy to dispense with relativism. In ontology (the study of being, what is, including physics), we might admit that we have imperfect knowledge of what kind of stuff the universe is made out of, but we would defend one theory against another based on our best knowledge & best reasoning, supposing that there is something true or valid, whether or not we are actually capable of accessing it. In ethics, we might admit that there are many ways to live one's life, perhaps even many good ones, but we commit ourselves to one in particular and therefore choose against certain others. Aesthetics is special because, as Immanuel Kant said, it is an area in which we talk as if we are speaking of objective truths when we are actually speaking of subjective truths. Have you ever argued with your roommate about whether Band X is better than Band Y? Is one of you right or wrong?

This is an incredibly difficult question. A lot of people think that the humanities is the domain of completely arbitrary arguments, unlike the sciences where one appeals to evidence. But this is not true. You still argue and produce evidence in the humanities, and while it is difficult to say conclusively that an argument is "right," it is not difficult to say conclusively that an argument is wrong. Shakespeare did not write Hamlet as an allegory for Kobe's struggle with the legacy of Michael Jordan, or as an advertisement for pie. Those are stupid and wrong theories about Shakespeare, because you will never find the evidence to prove them. Yet, what evidence do we appeal to when arguing aesthetics? Whether or not someone likes something? It's tricky.

Some of you raised a similar question last week. Are all aesthetic theories equally valid? Are they mutually exclusive? It seems to me that some combine well and some are quite opposite. I'm going to stake out an intermediate position for the time being, by sticking with Kant. Aesthetic theories propose that they are valid and that alternate or opposing theories are invalid. And you can certainly misunderstand them, which makes you wrong. But from a strict philosophical standpoint, it is difficult to contend that an aesthetic theory itself could be wrong.

On the other hand, when you combine aesthetics with something else, then you're out of the relativist jam. Think of the relationship between aesthetics and ontology in Plato (art is a lie, a distortion of reality) or between aesthetics and ethics in Austen (reading good books will help you lead a good life, reading bad books will make it harder for you to lead a good life) or between aesthetics and politics in Lenin (art that fosters the workers' revolution is good, art that hinders it is bad). So if we attach aesthetics to any other domain, then it does become arguable, and there is right and wrong, good and bad. But aesthetics per se (in and of itself) seems to entail relativism, which is why most people with another theoretical axe to grind reject aesthetics per se or "art for art's sake." What would Lenin say to the moderate relativism of Kant (where art alone is relative, but ethics and ontology, etc. are not)? Obviously he would say that even Kant's aesthetic theory is a product of middle class ideology, capitalism, etc. He would explain aesthetics by taking it out of the aesthetic domain... he would see the insistence on aesthetics as a separate category (like Plato would for other reasons) to be a "false consciousness" or manipulative lie.

There's another way to get out of the relativist jam when it comes to aesthetics, which is to ignore the broader philosophical framework, and treat aesthetic judgments like ethical commitments. Remember, Kant says we can't help but do this. In other words, you think Brittney Spears is teh awesomest, OMG!!! and I think Radiohead is teh awesomest, OMG!!! I say you're wrong. You say I'm wrong. OK, so we have different tastes, but then why don't you have my same taste? If you're not wrong and I'm not right, then why don't I just switch my preference to Y? I won't... because I'm not being a relativist when I make this judgment, when I choose this commitment... I really think Band X is better than Band Y. Otherwise, why the hell am I listening to it?

In summary, I point you to this short clip from the 1998 movie, Big Lebowski, where we see a battle between two political positions (Lebowski as "hippie" vs. the Malibu police chief as "fascist") followed by a battle between two aesthetic positions (the taxi driver likes The Eagles vs. Lebowski prefers Creedence Clearwater Revival).

Class #9 post-game

2009-01-26T13:07:00.000-08:00

Things we learned today:

-All credit is due to Grant and Sarah for braving the podium and to those who helped get the discussion going, but I think it's fair to say we learned that revolutions do not occur spontaneously (in this case, students will not spontaneously direct a class toward their own collective interests by simply removing the teacher)... some form of education or preparation is necessary or they will fizzle out... the question many of the artists and aesthetic theorists we are now studying will ask is, "What role does art have in preparing a social revolution?"... what sort of art helps? what sort of art gets in the way?... we know art can be used as a "weapon" for war propaganda, but what else can it be used for, or used against?

-Even though I will return to a more teacherly role in class on Wednesday (I am done with ties for the moment), I am not teaching the class to myself... the class works better when you provide some of the questions for us to discuss... we can't begin to form answers without forming questions, and those come from reading & lecture... so although your final draft is due tomorrow afternoon, I expect you to be prepared to discuss pgs. 9-42 of the Course Reader on Wednesday, along with Moeller's lectures

-This material is dense and most of us are encountering it with a somewhat spotty memory of high school history classes... we can start with Moeller's notes, study questions, and glossary (login: moeller, password: moeller), but even then we need to divide the work somehow... so I will be dividing you into social/political factions on Wednesday... each faction will need to research its social/political positions in more detail, along with its corresponding aesthetics

-As a whole, this particular class is strongly disinclined to attending voluntary office hours :( somewhat average at active in-class discussion :| , but impressively diligent and incisive in the use of the homework blog ;) so I will lean more heavily on that for the remainder of the quarter... you're going to do better, especially on the midterm and final, if you participate in this blog and read the entries by me and the other students

-Whereas a resource like Encyclopedia Britannica is edited by individual experts, and a resource like Wikipedia is edited by a collective process that involves both experts and non-experts (or calls into question the difference), Google is just an aggregator that groups searches by popularity and meta-tags without any sort of editorial plan... thus Google Images is a limited tool for serious study, though it can help brainstorm or locate unexpected connections... we're going to use some better tools like Artstor to do our research in coming weeks, much of which pertains to analyzing images (i.e. essay #5)

Class #8 post-game

2009-01-23T10:28:00.000-08:00

OBAMA INAUGURATION PHOTOSYNTH:
-view here... you might have to download some plugins to make it work
-more on how photosynth works

REMINDER:
-Course Reader (yellow textbook) pgs. 9-28 for Monday... don't fall behind
-Answer the review question you selected
-Finish targeted peer edit by Sunday night at 9pm. (EEE Dropbox-> Working Draft #4-> Shared Student Files)

REMINDER:
-Final draft #4 is due Tuesday at 3pm to Turnitin.com,including acknowledgments and reflections

TARGETED PEER EDIT INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Read the essay all the way through.
2) Underline the three strongest sentences with a straight line.
3) Underline the three weakest sentences with a squiggly line.
4) If any references to ethos, logos, or pathos are used, do you feel that they contribute to the essay, or would it be better off without them?
5) Are the terms "aesthetics" and "art" used properly? If not, give suggestions for revision.
6) Are plurals and possessives used properly? If not, give suggestions for revision.
7) Give a revision suggestion for each sentence involving a primary quotation (i.e. quotation from the play). By suggestion, I mean actually rewrite the sentence, using the techniques from the handout I gave you.
8) Which of the three tasks (formal, historical, revisionary) is best developed in this draft? Which of the three tasks is least developed?
9) For the least developed, try to paraphrase your partner's main point in that section (or what you think is the writer's main point) in 1-2 sentences.
10) Special request (partner's choice)

Class #7 post-game

2009-01-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

That was fun comparing the paintings. You can expect a similar type of exercise to show up somewhere on your midterm, I think.

REMINDERS:
-Bring in an unmarked copy of your latest paper draft for class on Friday
-Quotations exercise... the front of the sheet is tips & strategies, the back of the sheet is the exercise... take the two long blocks of quotation and condense them into 2-3 sentences each by using the techniques on the front of the sheet.
-Aesthetics exercise... make a grid with "Aristotle," "Alberti," "Shakespeare," and "[Your Name]" as columns and "essays," "soup," "decisions," "playing music you wrote," "playing music someone else wrote," doodles," "necklaces," "photographs," "web pages," "posters made by hand," "posters made with PhotoShop," "making people happy," "paintings," and "clothing" as rows. Mark yes or no whether the aesthetic thinker in question would consider that activity/thing to be art. Pick one of the cases that you consider to be intriguing or questionable and discuss in more detail why the four people would argue in that particular way.

FINAL DRAFT CHECKLIST (for Monday night):
-your paper should be submitted into Turnitin.com... you don't need to submit it anywhere else... I'm sending the log-in instructions to Scarlett because she asked for them, but if anyone else is unfamiliar with the website, please email me
-the classID is 2585283 and the password is istoria
-this is the UCI policy on academic honesty, f.y.i.
-your paper should include Acknowledgements (I'm quoting from the syllabus now: "If you receive any help at all with an assignment, from your classmates, roommates, study group, LARC, CWC, parents, siblings, other teachers, dead celebrities encountered through astral projection, etc., you are required to include written acknowledgment. No one else should generate the language of your papers.") Paste this at the end of your paper rather than making a separate document.
-your paper should include Reflections... the questions students usually consider are: a) what elements of the paper do you consider successful?, b) what elements of the paper do you consider unsuccessful?, c) is there anything that happened during the writing of the paper that I should take into consideration? tragedies, comedies, etc., d) what grade would you give yourself for the assignment? But you can reflect on other things as well if you like. Paste this at the end of your paper after the Acknowledgments rather than making a separate document.

Aristotle on theater

2009-01-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

I mentioned this to a couple of you in office hours... it's a handout I gave to a class I taught a couple of years ago. Definitely not required reading, but if your paper has more of an Aristotle focus, this might help.

(The picture is a detail from Raphael's School of Athens... I thought it would be appropriate for a post about Aristotle... he's the guy in the red toga, talking to Plato. The full painting is here. It's Alberti-licious.)

I think I promised to post something else, but I can't remember what it was. Can someone remind me?

Class #6 post-game

2009-01-16T12:00:00.000-08:00

REMINDER
-There is no lecture or discussion on Monday, which is Martin Luther King day.
-Extra credit if you watch Obama's inaugural address and give at least two instances (with brief analysis) of ethos, logos, and pathos... extra credit means I will let you skip a future homework assignment

REMINDER:
-post your group's answers to the Shakespeare motives exercise in reply to this post
-you can also read Ankita's summary of today's Lupton forum if you click on the replies

REMINDER:
-Read Alberti 89-98
-Answer the last discussion question (about Alberti & Aristotle) here and post it in reply to this post
-Find one painting Alberti would love and one he would hate... I think it would work best if you posted those as web links in reply to this post... then I could use them in class

REMINDER:
-Sign up for Wednesday conferences here
-Working draft #4 due Monday 9pm to EEE dropbox

TIPS FOR WORKING DRAFT:
-Be selective... there's no way you can include all your ideas in each section... there is no need to be complete or comprehensive... better a couple of ideas in each section, developed in detail
-Be sure to pay attention to the detail of Shakespeare's language/word choice, especially in task A & B
-Your organizational scheme (intro, transitions, conclusion) should reflect your own ideas and your understanding of the assignment... in other words, your paper needs to justify its purpose... you need to write as if you have something important to say rather than you're just doing it because it was assigned
-You can put tasks A, B, C in whatever order makes sense to you, and you can give them slightly different proportions in length if necessary

Class #5 post-game (left: classic works of art)

2009-01-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

Sarah wondered what the point of today's exercise was (a good question). You can think of it as a model for a process of active reading (cf. Guide chapter 13). In other words, it trained you to approach the scene with particular questions in mind. This is a useful tool for reading in general, but it should also be apparent that it specifically gives you a way to actively read Act 5 of Midsummer with an eye toward Task A of your paper. Though we also ventured into some aspects of Task B, which we will revisit on Friday along with Alberti.

REMINDER: Buy Alberti's On Painting if you haven't already, and catch up on the reading that Lupton discussed (39-40, 63-85).

REMINDER: Essay #4 working draft due Monday night at 9pm, so if you still have more work to do on your ideas draft, time's a'wasting.

REMINDER: Regular attendance at office hours correlates to higher grades, and probably causes higher grades. (Does not guarantee higher grades.) Alberti, as a humanist and a follower of Aristotle, believes that virtue requires cultivation. I.e. requires practice. Wouldn't more practice, in this case promote greater cultivation of virtue? The same observation is true of working with other students in a study group... why not finish the exercise we did in class today, through the end of the scene?

BONUS: More news about the emerging science of love potions... could there be an anti-love potion? I know we have pretty much left this theme aside in our reading of Midsummer. But it's worth thinking about art as the ability to cause transformations of the ordinary to occur. This is something that festival can do, also magic, religion, or science depending on what you believe.

Class #4 post-game

2009-01-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

Today's discussion was excellent... you guys were really on point, and I think we sorted some things out.

Please don't be afraid to ask questions in class, and please come to office hours! I'm literally just sitting here doing nothing, so if you want extra help on your paper, all you need to do is take a little initiative. All of the students who came to my office hours consistently last quarter got higher grades, because they got their specific questions answered and they got more hands-on learning. It's not that complicated.

REMINDER: Finish ideas draft. Yes, you can repost it to EEE. Is it "graded"? Not really; I believe that draft submissions accounted for 3% of the writing grade in my section last quarter, so technically Ideas Draft #4 counts for about half of 1% of your writing grade. (Completion only.) But that's practically nothing... your main motivation should be working toward a better final draft, and the more work you can do now before your other classes get more demanding, the better.

REMINDER: Read Alberti's On Painting (pgs. 39-40). This should be available at the campus bookstore now if it wasn't before. If you want to get a further head start on Alberti, the official assignment also included 63-85. Read what you can; we'll catch it up once we get a better handle on Shakespeare.

Instructions for posting ideas draft to EEE dropbox

2009-01-09T12:21:00.000-08:00

1) Click the link on the left that says EEE dropbox, or click here
2) You may need to sign into EEE... if you don't know how, instructions are here
3) When you get inside the DropBox, you should see a series of choices on the upper left... I can't see this from my end, so I'm not quite sure what it looks like
4) Click on my class (?) and then click "Ideas Draft #4"
5) Click "Assignment Submission"
6) Click "Upload Files"... it should be on the upper right (?)
7) Upload your ideas draft file... I would prefer .doc, but .rtf, .txt, and .pdf are also acceptable... sometimes my computer has problems with .wps, so save those as .rtf
8) If you have any problem with this whatsoever, please email me over the weekend or tell me on Monday... I really want to make sure this is working before the working draft happens the next week

Class #3 post-game (and Essay #4 stuff)

2009-01-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

First, I want to make an apology for how fast the class has been going so far. There's not a lot of leeway in the schedule because there are so many readings and assignments later in the quarter. So we have to go warp speed into Shakespeare even as we're doing meet and greet, figuring out how to use the different electronic tools, and figuring out what the class is going to be about. I anticipate that things will slow down in a week or two. I would highly recommend attending my office hours, and/or making a study group with other students, if you're having trouble keeping track of all the different ideas Lupton and I are throwing at you. And definitely read/use the blog.

I also want to give you guys credit for the good work you've been doing in class discussion so far, even though some of it may still be over your head.

And speaking of going too fast... Am I forgetting, or did the group who had study question #7 not get a chance to talk today? They should post their answer in reply here. And you guys should read it, because it will be pertinent to your paper.

HOW ESSAYS WORK IN THIS CLASS
---------
-Step one: reading, lectures, class discussion, homework, blog, etc.
-Step two: ideas draft (due to EEE dropbox, graded as for completion only... do not concern yourself with proper grammar, spelling, etc. etc., or anything else that will inhibit you from using this to get your ideas out... often these are a kind of checklist of mini-assignments rather than one paper)
-Step three: working draft (due to EEE dropbox... graded for completion only, but do concern yourself with clear expression and with putting this in the form of a unified paper)
-Step four: teacher conference and/or student peer review
-Step five: final draft (due to Turnitin.Com... this is the one I grade... there are a couple of additional requirements, like self-reflection paragraph and an acknowledgements paragraph... I'll provide full details later)

TIMETABLE FOR ESSAY #4
---------
-Step one: generating ideas... we've already started this, and we will continue next week
-Step two: ideas draft (due Monday morning, 9am to EEE dropbox)
-Step three: working draft (due Monday Jan. 19, 9pm to EEE dropbox)
-Step four: conference with me on Wednesday Jan. 21, probably a peer review exercise on Jan. 21 or 23
-Step five: final draft (due to Turnitin.Com on Sunday Jan. 25, 9pm)

ESSAY #4 PROMPT
---------

Perhaps I exaggerated the differences between this and the official prompt. You could say the emphasis is different. But for future reference, my tweaks for Essay #5 and #6 will be smaller. As I said, I think this one is somewhat ill-conceived.

Task A. Pick a character who appears in Act 5, scene 1. Explain what his/her theory of aesthetics is (i.e. his/her theory of what artistic "making" is, what it might be good for or bad for), how it may agree/disagree with those of the other characters in the scene, and how he/she tries to make an argument for that theory. You do NOT need to limit yourself to ethos, logos, and pathos, though you may find these to be useful tools of analysis. The more you can work inductively on specific details like word choice, the better.

Task B. These characters are not real people. But the playwright, the actors, and the audience are. What do you think Shakespeare's theory of aesthetics is, and how is he using this particular character to argue for that theory (or to criticize, question, make fun of, etc. other theories... again, specific detail is helpful.) How do you define Shakespeare's rhetorical motives with respect to his audience and his time period, and how is he trying to accomplish them? (Again, ethos, logos, and pathos may be pertinent, but don't limit yourself.)

Task C. If we assume that plays are at least partly rhetorical, how could you make a restaging of Midsummer Night's Dream to accomplish your own motives? Consider who the audience would be, the occasion, whether you would change the dialogue and if so how you would change it, the stage, the lighting, the costume, the medium (play? film? something else?), and, especially, consider how you would make the notion of fairies/folk-mythology/festivals meaningful to a contemporary audience in the way it would have been in England 400 years ago. (When I say "consider," I don't mean each one, just whatever you think is most important.)

Putting it together. Tasks A, B, and C will bring their own challenges, but I'm confident that you can do them, and I give very specific suggestions below for how to start doing them in the ideas draft. But the greater challenge for this essay - much like Schwab's Essay #1, you might notice - will be fitting the pieces together into a whole. We will do a class exercise to help you with this at some point. To preview, you will need a couple of transition sentences from A to B, and then from B to C. And of course you will need an introduction and a conclusion. Vague enough? Let me explain. What you are doing in this paper is three different analytic maneuvers or we might say three different levels of analysis. The first task/maneuver/level is a "close analysis" or formal analysis, an internal analysis. It happens in a fictional forest outside of fictional Athens, "inside" the play, so to speak. Characters speaking to each other. The second task/maneuver/level is a "historical reading." This happens "outside" the play, in London in the 1590s. It's mainly about Shakespeare's world and how the play relates to it. Characters as mouthpieces for various ideas of the time. The third task/maneuver/level is a "revisionary" or reinterpretive reading. This happens in our world. You use the characters as mouthpieces for various ideas of our time. And I'm guessing your concerns are somewhat different than Shakespeare's. So your transitions will likely take the form of signaling "I am going to move from this one level/type of analysis to this other one." You might want to say why, give a justification for the move. The introduction, I should think, will say something about why Midsummer Night's Dream provides us an opportunity to think about aesthetics and rhetoric in several different ways. We'll refine it by the time of the working draft... we're being inductive, remember.

IDEAS DRAFT #4 INSTRUCTIONS
---------

This is not an outline for your essay. You cannot possibly include all of this in the working draft, and you will have the additional task of organizing it and stitching it together. What this is, though, is an extremely detailed to-do list that will put you in a strong position to write your working draft, and give you lots to draw from so that, when it does come time to do the working draft, you won't experience the suffocating fear of a blank word-processing screen that we all suffer from. As I said already, you shouldn't worry overly much about complete sentences and so forth with this. Write without fear of consequence or judgement. And take heart, there are many simple yes/no questions and some that are not questions at all.

THEORETICAL WARM-UP:

1) Should an eight-year old child be allowed to play Grand Theft Auto IV?
2) Why or why not?
3) Watch this YouTube video.
4) Which debater do you most agree with and why?
5) Re-read my January 5th blog post
6) What does the term "aesthetics" mean, in your own words?
7) What is the Platonic theory of aesthetics, in your own words?
8) What is the Aristotlean theory of aesthetics, in your own words?
9) Present at least one other possible theory of aesthetics, in your own words. (It can be from Midsummer, from the Hip-Hop video in question #2 or whatever.

TASK A (FORMAL READING)

10) Read Guide ch. 13 (pgs. 104-08 only) for another good demonstration of an inductive reading method.
11) Read Guide ch. 14 for a more detailed explanation of what "rhetoric" means and how you analyze it
12) Read the play a second time, as assigned for homework.
13) Read Act 3, Scene 1 and Act 5, Scene 1 a third time. Preferably aloud, with partner(s).
14) Highlight/underline at least six bits of dialogue from this scene that are somehow weird or interesting, and copy them here.
15) Write a question that occurs to you about each one.
16) Answer it.
17) Pick a character who seems to have some kind of opinion about aesthetics.
18) Who is your character (status, profession, or what have you)?
19) What does he or she want in general?
20) What does he or she want in this particular scene?
21) Highlight/underline at least four bits of this character's dialogue that seem to relate to aesthetics and copy them here.
22) What do you think your character's view of aesthetics is, in your own words?
23) Why might your character's status, profession, or what have you, lead him/her to that view?
24) Take the four bits of dialogue from question #18 and paraphrase each one of them into the way that you and your friends talk.
25) For each of the four bits, who is your character talking to?
26) For each of the four bits, why might your character use these particular words? (Shakespeare's, I mean) Select a limited number of individual words or phrases if you want to save yourself time.

TASK B (HISTORICAL READING)
27) Read xxvi-xxxiii, xxxvi-xliii of the introduction to the Signet edition (the UCI bookstore one... or click here)
28) In your own words, what are the three most important historical facts you learned?
29) Name at least five distinct motives Shakespeare might have in staging MND.
30) What are the major aesthetic theories of Shakespeare's time?
31) Who supports them?
32) Why?
33) What do you think Shakespeare's theory of aesthetics is?
34) Which of the characters in Act 5 Scene 1 has the view of aesthetics that is closest to Shakespeare's?
35) Which has the view that is most different from or most opposite to Shakespeare's?
36) If your character is not one of those two, to what extent does Shakespeare agree with your character's view?
37) Underline/highlight, and copy here, at least three bits of dialogue from the scene from other characters that seem to relate to Shakespeare's own view of aesthetics.
38) Read Guide ch. 11.
39) This play is a comedy. Name one advantage of the comedy genre as a vehicle for getting across whatever message you think Shakespeare is trying to get across
40) Name one disadvantage.

TASK C (REVISIONARY READING)
41) What medium would you use to revise MND... play? film? something else?
42) Who would your audience(s) be?
43) Where are they and why are they watching?
44) What is your particular message or focus in this hypothetical production?
45) Would you alter/modernize the dialogue?
46) If not, why not. If yes, how?
47) Using details of stage/set/background/scenery/lighting etc., what does your "Athens" set look like vs. what does your "Forest" set look like?
48) Why?
49) What is the equivalent of fairies in 2009?
50) Why?
51) What is the equivalent of the midsummer festival in 2009?
52) Why?
53) What are the fairy costumes like?
54) What about the costumes of the Athenians?
55) The costume of the "mechanicals"?
56) Why?
57) What does Bottom get transformed into?
58) Why?
59) What is the transforming agent... is it a potion?
60) Why or why not?
61) Give at least one further detail that you would revise in your staging/production
62) Explain why.

Class #2 post-game

2009-01-07T10:23:00.000-08:00

On Friday we'll revisit the philosophy of making (aesthetics), see the rest of your plates, and start talking about the upcoming essay assignment.

-Finish reading MND. Pay special attention to pp. 70-71 and 85-86 for Shakespeare's staging of classic/philosophical and contemporary/political debates about aesthetics
-I assigned each of you one of these study questions in class. Post your answer in reply below... we'll also discuss them on Friday.
-Read Guide ch. 12 and ch. 14... you don't need to do the exercises at the end of ch. 14, and I can't for the life of me figure out what the function of pp. 101-103, so you can skip that too

Further note on today's class discussion:

1) The thing I wanted to say when time ran out. I kept asking "what is this, what is that?" about the plates. In other words, what does the picture or some part of it represent. But not all art is representational. If so, what kind of questions do we ask about that art? And then back to music again... could it be considered representational? And what category do we put necklaces in? What's the difference between art and decoration?

2) We did some shovel work on rhetoric and some on setting, but we treated them as separate topics. How do they relate? For one thing, settings provide occasions. Social rules operate differently (or not at all) in certain places and at certain times. That's the whole point of the midsummer holiday in European culture. It's what the Romans called a "saturnalia"... cf. to Mardi Gras, Carnival, Spring Break, etc... it means the usual rules are suspended. You can smart off to your social superiors (dukes, teachers, parking directors). You can hang out with people you're not supposed to and do things you're not supposed to. As with time, so too with places. The "liberties" or red light district on the outskirts of London is a place where the usual laws do not apply. You can even socialize (touch? more?) with people from other social classes. Occasions, as we saw, relate to rhetoric. Certain kinds of ethos or rhetorical persona are fitting for certain occasions, certain situations. Or, to look at things from a very different perspective, you could see Shakespeare's use of folk holiday traditions, folk mythology about fairies, etc. as a form of rhetoric, like a tool that he is employing towards some purpose. But what purpose?

3) Every Rose Has Its Thorn (not actually Guns and Roses as it turns out). Do yourself a favor and watch this... it's completely hysterical.

4) Maybe the love potion in MND isn't that far-fetched.

Online Literacy Quiz

2009-01-07T00:57:00.001-08:00

There were a lot of plagiarism cases last quarter (one in my class in fact), so the HumCore directors asked us to give you guys this exercise.

In a nutshell:

1) ask me if you feel that you have wandered into a gray area

2) It's better to cite things
-especially if they provide specific information or ideas that you use
-especially if they make original interpretive claims

3) Some sources are better than others
-if they're more recent
-if they're more reputable
-if they're more pertinent to what you're arguing/writing

All the questions are kind of tricky on purpose to make you think through the situations. It would probably be hard to get each one right on the first try, but do go through the answer key when you finish.

The one that I feel I should clarify is #12. They're not saying that properly citing a student paper from the internet constitutes plagiarism. How could proper citation be plagiarism? What they're saying is, it would be better for you to consult other resources, because this is a resource that's particularly hard for freshmen to use properly.

Plato/Aristotle Rant

2009-01-06T17:32:00.000-08:00

I had intended to express this in plate form, but I left the magic markers in my office on Monday, so you are spared a demonstration of my (lack of) artistic skill.

Speaking of which, check out the plates that your classmates made... we'll be looking at these on Wednesday.

If I recall correctly, my objective was to link some of last quarter's philosophical concepts to the issues we're going to discuss in Winter quarter, in particular Shakespeare's MND. Here goes:

As you may have discussed with your instructor last quarter, there are many different areas or branches in philosophy, including ethics ("what is the good life?"), ontology ("what is everything made out of?"), and epistemology ("what do we know and how do we know it?"). Most philosophers deal with all of these areas (Aristotle is a good example), though some have particular concentrations or avoidances (note Descartes' concentration on epistemology and avoidance of ethics). And obviously these areas relate together; for instance it makes sense that Aristotle views ethics as developing oneself towards a telos just as he views physics (sub-branch of ontology) as a system in which non-human objects develop towards a telos, or that he views biology (sub-sub branch of physics) in terms of which things are more or less self-sufficient and also politics (sub-branch of ethics) in terms of which people are more or less self-sufficient. And furthermore, you can look at a writer like Austen or Morrison and see them exploring issues of ethics, epistemology, ontology, etc. even though they don't use the typical forms of philosophical expression.

There is one particularly tricky branch of philosophy that relates to these others, called aesthetics, which is the study of art, or as some philosophers put it, the study of beauty (Western art stopped trying to be beautiful about 100 years ago, so one has to be careful using this term.) You can go back to all of the major philosophers and they will have something interesting to say about aesthetics. Indeed in many cases it's what they say about aesthetics that either helps them clarify some of their other ideas or kind of screws up some of their other ideas. Think about Morrison's version of aesthetics in Bluest Eye, for instance, and how it relates to her ideas about ethics, politics, and epistemology. Are the little blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls in the 1940s movies really beautiful? Why? To whom? Etc. That's an aesthetic question.

In Shakespeare's time, many of the classic Greek and Roman books were being reintroduced into Europe (a.k.a. the Renaissance... many of these books were preserved by Arabs during the Middle Ages which is an interesting story in and of itself). And you know from reading Descartes that Aristotle, and to a lesser degree Plato, were read by intellectuals (i.e. Catholic clergy) all along anyway. So the point being, people be loving their Plato and their Aristotle in Shakespeare's time (circa 1600 A.D.). These two philosophers were still considered authorities on a wide variety of topics, including aesthetics.

What does Plato say about aesthetics? The Symposium gives you a bit of a clue because it provides a theory of ethics. He argues (through Socrates and Diotima) that to be a good lover, you must move from concrete, physical objects of love (like hot young boys) to abstract, philosophical objects of love (like philosophical concepts). Thus you lead a better life. But this is also a theory of ontology, because he's implying that IDEAS are more real than OBJECTS. Which is an odd way of looking at things, but he has his reasons. This is Plato's ontology, more or less, and you will recognize that it fits with the idea of a "ladder of love" ascending upwards.

Real: concepts/ideas/forms (e.g. "love," "justice," "truth," "courage," the treeness of trees, the dogness of dogs, the chairness of chairs)
Almost Real: mathematical figures and forms (e.g. "six," "eleven," "triangle," "oval")
Not that Real: physical objects (e.g. this table, that chair, this tree, that dog)
Fake Fake Fake: art (painting, sculpture, theater, etc.)

Art is the furthest thing from reality to a Platonist. It's like making a copy of a copy of a copy. It's just a way to manipulate stupid people, more or less. If philosophers are doing the manipulating, that's probably OK. Some people are just hopeless anyway, like sheep. But if non-philosophers are doing the manipulating, that's bad. Even sheep need to follow true ideas rather than false ones, and if the only place they're getting their ideas is art, then those sheep are going to graze in the wrong direction. That's why Plato proposes that all artists be thrown out of Athens. They're good for nothing, or perhaps worse. Plays, for instance, merely excite people's emotions with images of sex and violence. (Sound familiar? This is a common argument against Hollywood, video games, etc.) Plato is OK with music, but only because he considers it a sub-category of math. (If you know anything about music theory, this will probably make sense to you.)

Aristotle disagrees with Plato's view of aesthetics. You might expect this, given his disagreements about ontology. He doesn't believe in pure ideas or concepts, but rather that the idea must be embodied and that the body must be animated by the idea (soul, telos). Potentiality plus actuality. Hylomorphism. So likewise for an art form like theater, the body here is the actors and the stage, the costumes, the lighting, the dialogue, etc. etc. And the soul, the telos, is the plot. The idea that animates and actualizes the whole thing. So in that way, art can be educational... an indirect method of conveying ideas. Even if it deals with irrational images of sex and violence, at the very least it provides an emotional release for those impulses so that people can think more clearly afterwards. So art isn't good in and of itself, like philosophy is, but it is fairly good if it can be kept within certain boundaries.

As you know from reading Morrison, there are other views of aesthetics, some which question the distinction between the body and the spirit that Plato proposes and Aristotle kinda sorta preserves. Some philosophers have even argued that anything people do is "art," even philosophy. (Friedrich Nietzche is a good example of this position, or the playwright Oscar Wilde.)

In Shakespeare's time, though, it's Plato vs. Aristotle. And this isn't just some intellectual debate. It has real political consequences. Who's in London, or in England more generally? To make things really simple, five groups of people. The monarchy, the aristocracy, the middle class, the urban laborers, and the rural peasants. The middle class is gathering power... you see what this trend looks like 200+ years later in Persuasion. One of the main factions in the middle class is the Puritans. Remember them from American history class? They are trying to reform British religion and British politics, and so far as art goes, they are Platonists. They want to close down the theaters, for instance. They think they're a health hazard (fire and disease transmission). But they also think they're morally dangerous (again, sex and violence).

It makes some sense to see plays as hazardous in this way... most of them are performed on the outskirts of town, in the area known as the "liberties" (i.e. red light district). Where some of the other artistic entertainments include prostitution and bear-baiting. And where much of the audience is urban laborers. Classes even mix together. The horror.

Shakespeare, as an artistic professional, a theater writer, director, and performer, obviously has a vested interest in defending his profession from this attack. (How would you feel if someone called you a "caterpillar of the commonweal" and threw recycled arguments from Plato at you? I'd be pissed, personally.) One way he can do this is by aligning his professional interests with those of the upper classes, especially the monarchy. Which is why his company of actors is basically the queen's house band. It may seem strange that the queen is down with this illicit activity that usually takes place in the bad part of town, but that just goes to show you the rising influence of the Puritan middle class (who have major issues with the monarchy). This is a fight over zoning, in effect. (We'll study this notion in more detail when we read Jacobs.) So you might think of Theseus & Hippolyta as representations of monarchs. They're equivalent to the audience that the play was first performed for (at an upper class wedding).

The faeries are more complicated. Because as Lupton is showing us, they also relate to "the old England," the ancient traditions, and so on. But they're also kind of sexy and magical and live in the outskirts of town. In the liberties. Where there are no rules. So that's another way Shakespeare can try to make his profession more legitimate, is to appeal to ancient folk traditions.

What's another way? Why am I writing this rant?

Aristotle. He can, and does appeal to Aristotle as an answer to the Puritan attack on art, which is an attack on his very livelihood.

So as you read the play, see if you can detect places where this intellectual debate between Platonists and Aristotleans is peeking through, and places where the political debate about who should control the city, and what kind of art is permissible, creeps through. I'll point to some examples in class.

Welcome

2009-01-04T11:57:00.000-08:00

Here is the blog I was talking about. Please post a comment below so I can make sure it's working. It was nice meeting all of you today!

Other Reminders:

-Read Midsummer Night's Dream Acts I-II
-Read Make a Plate syllabus and bring in any questions
-Ask a question to the class listserv
-Take the EEE quiz on Online Information Literacy

Footnote: I mentioned in class on Monday that Shakespeare's audience generally knew the plot of his plays before even seeing them. (For instance, Julius Caesar is going to get assassinated. He just is. He is not going to, you know, form a dance crew with Marc Antony and persuade Brutus and Cassius that anyone with such outstanding choreography deserves to be emperor.) But check out pp. 89-91 of the Signet edition of MND that most of you bought at the bookstore. Apparently, this is one of a small number of Shakespeare's plays that do have semi-original plots, although it is cobbled together out of bits and pieces of other plays and stories. Interesting, but does it invalidate my argument that those who have read the play before should do so again? Uh, no.