Fall 2010 - Syllabus
Tuesdays 4:00-6:30pm
LOC: Kolmar Seminar Room
Cindy Ott, PhD
cott3@slu.edu 314-977-3790
office location: Humanities 110
Office hours: Thurs 11am-1pm
& by appointment
ASTD 593.1: Public Art & Memory
The public outcry over the NEA’s support of the artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1980s. The
debates over Maya Lin’s use of modernist art for the Vietnam Veterans memorial in DC.
Conflicts over murals and sculpture in public spaces as different as the US Capitol building and
the streets of LA. This course will explore all these issues through its investigation of the
politics and aesthetics of public art. We will examine public art from the perspective of the
producers, including official sponsors and the artists themselves, as will as the different
audiences that response and engage with the pieces. We will use public art to explore tensions in
American culture over issues of taste, authority, and identity. Specific topics include
commemoration and remembrance, tourism, landscape design and earthworks, neighborhood
murals, 19th-century civic art movements, and 20th-century federal government-sponsored art
programs. The class will also explore the local public art movement here in St. Louis.
The objectives of the class are to have students learn to use art and landscape as sources to
explore larger political and community issues, to understand that ways history and art have been
used to create, perpetuate, or fight for a national and civic identity, and to interpret and identify
different artistic styles.
Week 1: Introduction
Aug 24
Course Overview
Case Study Analysis: Battle of Little Big Horn
Week 2: Public Memory
Aug 31
Reading:
David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge, 1999)
Week 3: Commemoration & Cultural Identity
Sep 7:
Readings:
Michael Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American
Culture (Vintage, 1993)
Week 4: Museums and the Nation
Sep 14:
Reading:
David Boswell and Jessica Evans, eds., Representing the Nation: A Reader (Routledge, 1999)
Week 5: 19th-Century Civic Art & Issues of Gender & Class
Sep 21:
Reading:
Melissa Dabakis, Monuments of Manliness: Visualizing Labor in American Sculpture, 18801935 (Cambridge, 1999)
Due: Public Art critique & in class presentations
Week 6: Place & Identity
Sep 28: SITE VISIT with STL Regional Arts Commission Director Rosann Weiss
Reading:
Delores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (The MIT Press,
1995)
Week 7: Slavery & Collective Memory
Oct 5: Students present public art critiques
Reading:
James Oliver Horton and Lois Horton, eds., Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of
American Memory (University of North Carolina Press, 2008)
Week 8: Art & Identity
Oct 12: SITE VISIT: The Pulitzer Foundation Director Matthias Waschek
Readings:
Miwon Kwon, One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity (MIT, 2004)
Week 9: Holocaust Commemorations
Oct 19: SITE VISIT: STL Holocaust Museum
Reading:
James E. Young, Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (Yale, 1993)
Email me with the name of public monument you want class to visit during our campus
tour on November 2.
Week 10: Memory & Consumerism
Oct 26:
Reading:
Marita Sturken, Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to
Ground Zero (Duke, 2007)
Week 11: Civil Rights Movement
Nov 2
Reading:
Renee Christine Romano and Leigh Raiford, eds., Civil Rights Movement in American Memory
(University of Georgia Press, 2006)
Campus Walk Art Critiques: see assignment for details
Week 12: The National Mall in Washington, DC
Nov 9
Kirk Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C. the National Mall, and the Transformation of
the Memorial Landscape (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009)
Due: Bibliography for historiographic essay
Week 13: Art Controversies
Nov 16
Reading:
Michael Kammen, Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture (Knopf,
2006)
Week 14: The Politics of Exhibitions: The National Museum of the American Indian
Nov 23
Reading:
Amy Lonetree and Amanda Cobb-Greetham, eds., The National Museum of the American
Indian: Critical Conversations (University of Nebraska, 2008)
Due: Exhibition Review
Week 15: Politics of Memory
Nov 30
Reading:
Andreas Huyssen, Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Stanford, 2003)
Due Friday, December 10: Historiographic Essay
Fall 2010
ASTD 593.01: Public Art & Memory
Cindy Ott, PhD
Course Requirements
Grading:
20% - Public Art Critique
17% - Book Review
17% - Exhibit Review
30% - Historiography Essay
16% - Class Participation
This is a readings course, which means there will be no research paper due. Instead students will
develop their critical interpretation, analytical and writing skills as they create four different
types of review essays. We will visit many local public art sites around the city. Class
discussions will center on these assigned readings, site visits, and student projects, Students are
expected to attend all classes, to have read the material, and to be prepared to discuss it. Your
fellow students depend on you to create lively class discussions.
Readings will include scholarly works that analyze public memory, historic artifacts and
landscapes, public history and art controversies; and case studies of preservation movements,
museum exhibitions, and public art projects. Students are expected to be able to identify the
author’s main arguments and to gain familiarity with historic trends and ideas as discussed in the
readings. In most classes, I will also present some visual materials, such as images of historic
structures and districts, museum displays, and public monuments, which we can analyze together
in class.
Assignments: Assignments include a 3-5 page public art critique; a 3-page book review,
a 3-page exhibit review, and a 10-page historiographic essay.
Besides these written assignments, students must select a public monument on the SLU campus
to discuss on a campus tour during class on November 2. The main point of the assignment is
for you to lead the class in a discussion about how the monument or work of art functions and
the interesting issues you think the monument raises. Email your selection to me by October 22.
You are welcome to do any additional research on the monument. There is no written assignment
due for this project.
For the public art critique, each student will find and analyze an intriguing example of public
art in the city. Visit the site, take photos of it to show in class, and then visit local repositories
and newspapers to investigate how the city (and its various constituencies) gauged its reception.
You can select a work of art or a local landmark of any sort. The point of this assignment is to
use St Louis as a laboratory to explore the issues we are discussing in class. Analyze the
monument’s form, its meanings, and how the form and meaning influence each other, in other
words, how the monument functions, both intentionally and unintentionally. Focus your paper
(and your selections) on tensions and controversies that the monument has inspired, and the roles
that it has played in the community. The 3-5 page papers are due the day that you present your
findings to class on September 21.
The 3-page book review can be written about any of the assigned readings. It must be turned in
the day of the discussion of that particular reading. You are expected to review the author’s
main points and analyze one or more aspects of his or her argument. The objective is not to
summarize the article’s content but figure out what the author is arguing and respond to it. Feel
free to relate the article to other readings from in or outside the class.
The 3-page exhibition review is due on November 23. For this assignment, you must visit a
local museum and analyze one of its exhibitions in terms of what ideas it is communicating about
cultural and/or political identity. Determine the themes or “take-away” messages – both
intended and unintended, and analyze how the objects, text, and exhibition design communicate
these themes. Examine how the exhibition relates to larger issues of public history and memory,
as discussed in other readings and in class. I will provide examples of exhibition reviews, for
your reference.
The historiographic essay should be 8-10 pages in length and is due on the last day of the final
week of class, December 10. You must select a particular topic within the fields of public art
and memory and write a review essay of what scholars have written about the topic. You
determine the size of the bibliography needed to cover the topic properly. The purpose of this
assignment is to be able to read and synthesize a diverse set of works on a particular topic and to
be able to analyze how each work in a particular field or discipline relates to or, as the case may
be, builds on the other. Don’t just summarize each work, rather analyze the author’s main points
or arguments, see how they compare to others, and then discuss the differences and similarities.
The essay will help hone your critical reading and writing skills, and for PHD students, it will
prepare you for the literature review requirement. You may choose a particular monument to
write about, such as the Arch; a particular event, such as 9/11; a particular artist, such as Mia
Linn; a particular topic, such as historic landscape preservation. Be creative in your thinking
about your topic selection and relate it to your larger interests in the field of American Studies.
The bibliography for the essay is due on November 9.
Grading of the papers is based on the level of analysis, extent of research, creativity of
approach, and clarity of writing.
As always, I really look forward to working with you
Selected Bibliography (in addition to citations in class schedule)
Books & Articles:
Belcher, Michael, Exhibitions in Museums. Washington: Smithsonian Press, 1991.
Bronner, Simon, ed. American Material Culture and Folklife: A Prologue and Dialogue. Ann
Arbor: UMI Research, 1985.
Burns, John. Recording Historic Structures. Washington: American Institute of Architects Press,
1989.
Butcher-Younghans, Sherry. Historic House Museums: A Practical Handbook for Their Care,
Preservation, and Management. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Dean, David. Museum Exhibitions: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 1996.
Hosmer, Charles Bridgham. Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National
Trust, 1926-1949. Charlottesville: National Trust and University Press of Virginia, 1981.
Karamanski, Theodore, ed. Ethics in History: An Anthology. (Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1986.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and History. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1998.
Lemon, M.C. Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Leon, Warren and Roy Rosenzweig, eds., History Museums in the United States. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press, 1989.
Leffler, Phyllis K. and Joseph Brent, eds. Public History Readings. Malabar, FL: Krieger, 1992.
Murtagh, William J. Keeping Time: The History and Theory of Preservation in America.
Pittstown: Manstreet, 1988.
Pearce, Susan M., ed., Museum Studies and Material Culture. Washington: Smithsonian Press,
1991.
Pizer, Laurence R. A Primer for Local Historical Societies. Nashville: AASLH, 1991.
Schlereth, Thomas J. Artifacts and the American Past. Nashville: AASLH, 1980.
Wright, Gwendolyn. Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural
Conflict in Chicago, 1873-1913.
Journals:
CRM (Cultural Resource Management), National Park Service
Museum News
Preservation
The Public Historian
Websites:
American Association of State and Local History: www.aaslh.org
American Association of Museums: www.aam-us.org
H-Public discussion listserve: www2.h-net.msu.edu/~public/
Historic American Building Survey, National Park Service: www.nps.gov/HABS/HAER
National Council on Public History: www.ncph.org
National Park Service – Cultural Resources: www.nps.gov/crm
National Trust for Historic Preservation: www.nthp.org