ARC5935: Material and Visual Studies of Modernity
(listed as Special Topics: Material and Visual Studies of Modernity)
Fall 2010
Wednesdays, 1:00-3:30pm
Labor Center 301. Please note that several classes will meet at The Wolfsonian-FIU,
and that one class will meet at the Coral Gables Museum and one class will meet at
the Frost Museum.
Office hours, PCA383b, Monday and Friday, 11:00 – 1:30
Dennis Doordan, University of Notre Dame, Mellon Visiting Scholar
David Rifkind, Assistant Professor, College of Architecture and the Arts
Material and Visual Studies of Modernity presents a series of case studies in visual and
material culture as the basis for an examination of modernism in Europe and the
United States. The course draws on the diverse knowledge base of FIU faculty and
Wolfsonian staff, who will lead classes as guest discussants. The seminar will utilize
materials from the Wolfsonian library and object collection, and students will be
encouraged to use the Wolfsonian’s holdings as part of their semester-long research
projects. One subtext of the course will be methodological, as the various guest
discussants introduce students to their disciplines’ varying historiographic methods.
Wolfsonian Visiting Scholar Dennis Doordan will lead three class sessions which will
include demonstrations of first-hand work with materials from the Wolfsonian
library and materials collections. David Rifkind (Department of Architecture) will
organize the course, and will lead two class sessions focusing on architecture,
publications, and colonialism in twentieth-century Italy. Professor Jeffrey Schnapp
(Stanford and Harvard) will lead one class session based on his Speed Limits exhibit
at the Wolfsonian. FIU Architecture professors Marilys Nepomechie and John Stuart
will lead discussions at exhibitions they’ve curated at the Frost Museum and Coral
Gables Museum, respectively.
The course’s expected outcomes include a detailed understanding of the historical
materials discussed in the course, an acute understanding of the broad range of
historiographic methodologies employed by different disciplines, and an advanced
ability to examine, analyze and interpret works of design at numerous scales. The
course aims to help students develop an ability to read design critically, and to write
design history incisively.
The only prerequisite for the course is graduate standing. There are no co-requisites.
There is no course textbook. Required readings are available online at:
http://web.mac.com/davidrifkind/fiu/library.html.
ARC5935: Material and Visual Studies of Modernity
Schedule of classes:
[FIU indicates class held at FIU main campus, W indicates class held at The WolfsonianFIU, CGM indicates class held at Coral Gables Museum, Frost indicates class held at Frost
Art Museum]:
August 25 [FIU]
David Rifkind, Architecture
Historiography and methodologies
September 1 [W]
Jon Mogul, Wolfsonian
Material and visual studies primer
reading: to be announced
assignment due: term paper proposal
September 8 [W]
Dennis Doordan
Design history and material and visual studies
reading: Dennis Doordan, “On History,” Design Issues 10 (Spring
1994): 76-81.
Doordan, “On Materials,” Design Issues 19 (Autumn 2003): 3-8.
assignment due: term paper abstract, with bibliography
September 15 [W]
Jeffrey Schnapp, Stanford/Harvard
Speed Limits exhibition
reading: Jeffrey Schnapp, ed., Speed Limits (Milan: Skira, 2009).
Schnapp, “Fast (slow) modern,” 26-37; Jeffery Meikle, “Materials,”
58-65; Edward Dimendberg, “Capture,” 84-93; and “Rush City, A
Visual Essay,” 127-192.
September 22 [FIU]
David Rifkind, Architecture
Design and ideology
David Rifkind, ”Furnishing the Fascist Interior: Giuseppe Terragni,
Mario Radice and the Casa del Fascio,” arq – architectural research
quarterly v.10, n.2 (June 2006), 157-170.
September 29 [FIU]
Rebecca Friedman, History
Material Culture and Everyday Life in Revolutionary Russia
reading: to be announced
reading: Karen Kettering, “’Ever More Cosy and Comfortable’:
Stalinism and the Soviet Domestic Interior, 1928-1938,” Journal of
Design History, Vol. 10, No. 2, Design, Stalin and the Thaw
(1997), 119- 135.
Susan Reid,
October 6 [W]
Dennis Doordan
reading: Dennis Doordan, “Political Things: Design in Fascist Italy,”
in Designing Modernity: The Arts of Reform and Persuasion 1885-
1945. Wendy Kaplan, ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995):
225- 255.
assignment due: observation paper
October 13 [W]
Alex Lichtenstein, History
Images of Labor and Gender
readings: Katherine Archibald, Wartime Shipyard: A Study in Social
Disunity (1947). Introduction, “Women in the Shipyard,” and
“Negroes in the Shipyard.”
Margaret Culkin Banning, “Women for Defense,” Augusta H.
Clawson, “Shipyard Diary of a Woman Welder,” Mary Elizabeth
Pidgeon, “Women Workers in Transition from War to Peace,” in
Judy Barrett Litoff & David Clayton Smith, eds., American Women
in a World at War (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997).
http://americanhistory.si.edu/militaryhistory/printable/section.as
p?id=9&sub=3
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_
of_persuasion_intro.html
October 20 [W]
Gray Read, Architecture
Theater and public spectacle
reading: Gray Read, “Art Deco Shop Fronts and the Street: the
Other Modernism.”
October 27 [Frost]
Marilys Nepomechie, Architecture
La Habana Moderna exhibition
reading: Eduardo Luis Rodriguez, “Introduction,” The Havana
Guide: Modern Architecture 1925-1945 (Princeton Architectural
Press, 2000).
optional: Roberto Segre, "Havana: Shadows and Utopias," in
Cruelty and Utopia, ed. Jean-François Lejeune (Princeton
Architectural Press, 2005).
Vicky Gold Levi and Steven Heller, various introductions to Cuba
Graphic Styles (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002).
Paula Harper, "Cuba Connections..." Journal of Decorative and
Propaganda Arts, Cuba Theme Issue (1996).
assignment due: analysis paper
November 3 [FIU]
Oren Stier, Judaic Studies
The Visual and Material Culture of Nazism
reading: Steven Heller, Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century
Totalitarian State (London: Phaidon, 2008), pp.12-76.
November 10 [W]
Frank Luca, Wolfsonian
Contributions of President Franklin Roosevelt's 'New Deal' to the
American Architectural Landscape
readings: Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz, Democratic
Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, ch.6:
“Architectural and Visual Solutions: Convincing Drawing, Crowded
Sketches, and Final Intentions,” (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1984), 112-137.
Robert D. Leighninger, Jr., “Cultural Infrastructure: The Legacy of
New Deal Public Space,” Journal of Architectural Education (1984), Vol. 49, No. 4 (May, 1996), pp. 226-236.
Catherine C. Lavoie, “Architectural Plans and Visions: The Early
HABS Program and Its Documentation of Vernacular Architecture,”
Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 13, No. 2, Special
25th Anniversary Issue (2006/2007), pp. 15-35.
November 17 [CGM]
John Stuart, Architecture
The New Deal in South Florida: The Case Study of Coral Gables
reading: John Stuart and John Stack, eds., The New Deal in South
Florida: Design, Policy, and Community Building, 1933-1940
(University Press of Florida, 2008). Chapter 1 "The New Deal in
South Florida" pp. 1–30, and Chapter 2 "Constructing Identity:
Building and Place in New Deal South Florida" pp. 31–70.
assignment due: interpretation paper
November 24 [FIU]
Gail Hollander, Global and Sociocultural Studies
Food and globalization
reading: to be announced
Gail M. Hollander, “Re-naturalizing sugar: narratives of place,
production and consumption,” Social & Cultural Geography, Vol.
4, No. 1, 2003.
Mona Domosha, “Pickles and Purity: Discourses of Food, Empire
and Work in Turn-of-the Century USA,” Social & Cultural
Geography, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2003.
Susanne Freidberg, “Cleaning up down South: Supermarkets,
Ethical Trade and African Horticulture,” Social & Cultural
Geography, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2003.
E.M. Young, “Globalization and Food Security: Novel Questions in
a Novel Context?” Progress in Development Studies 4,1 (2004) pp.
1–21.
December 1 [W]
Dennis Doordan
research findings
reading: to be announced
ARC5935: Material and Visual Studies of Modernity
Class policies:
Course Evaluation
Grading will be based on the University System. The final grade will be determined on
the following basis:
Class Participation
10%
Written assignments
proposal
90% (see class schedule for due dates)
5%
abstract
10%
observation
25%
analysis
25%
interpretation
25%
Grades
94-100= A 87-89= B+80-83= B- 74-76= C 67-69= D+
90-93= A- 84-86= B 77-79= C+
60-63= D-
70-73= C- 64-66= D 0-59= F
Class Standards
Attendance and class participation are required at all class meetings (see Course
Schedule). Four (4) unexcused absences automatically result in a failing grade for
the course. An acceptable excused absence is defined by the student having missed
class due to extraordinary circumstances beyond his or her control and must be
accompanied by written proof.
Student Rights and Responsibilities
It is the student’s responsibility to obtain, become familiar with, and abide by all
Departmental, College and University requirements and regulations. These include
but are not limited to:
- The Florida International University Catalog Division of Student Affairs Handbook
of Rights and Responsibilities
- Departmental Curriculum and Program Sheets
- Departmental Policies and Regulations
Student Work
The School of Architecture reserves the right to retain any and all student work for the
purpose of record, exhibition and instruction. All students are encouraged to
photograph and/or copy all work for personal records prior to submittal to
instructor.