Cultural Foundations 3
SUBLIME
REVOLUTIONS:
0
The Modern Age
and its Discontents
SYLLABUS AND COURSE GUIDE
Spring Semester, 2011-2012
Instructor: Dr. Theresa (Terri) Senft
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Essential Information Page
Table of Contents
3
Introduction to the Class
4
Books you need to buy for this class
6
Films you need to watch in full for this class
6
Using Blackboard to access class readings
6
Using Blackboard to submit writing assignments
7
Museum visits for this class
8
Terri’s Office Hours and Email policies
8
Absence Policies per NYU Guidelines
9
How will this course be graded?
10
How will writing assignments be graded?
11
How should all writing be formatted?
11
Policy on Late Submissions
11
Policy on Plagiarism
11
How will Class Participation be Graded?
12
Policy on Disabilities and contacting Moses Center
14
Contacting Campus Security and Student Wellness Ctr.
14
Our class schedule and your assignments, day by day
15
2 Essential Information Class Title: Cultural Foundations 3 Semester: Fall Instructor: Theresa (Terri) Senft CLASSROOM MEETING INFORMATION Class Meetings: Day and Time Catalogue Number: Academic Year: Instructor’s Email: 2011-­‐2012
terri.senft@nyu.edu Class Meetings: Location Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-­‐10:45 a.m. Waverly 370 TERRI SENFT’S CONTACT AND OFFICE HOURS Email Phone Office Extension 26994 Terri.senft@nyu.edu note: I prefer email CFIII-­‐UF 103 Office Hours 726 Broadway, Room 615 Fridays 2:00-­‐4:00 p.m. Other times by appointment only Skype/Yahoo chat by appointment GRADING INFORMATION Description Word count % of Mark Date Due Exam focused on a key terms developed by students over the course of the semester. Proposal and Literature Review for Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. Proposal and Annotated Bibliography for Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. 1,000 1,600 10% 10% Monday 3/5 Tuesday 3/20 1,200 10% Friday 4/6 2,000 20% Monday 4/18 Research Essay 2 Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. 2,000 20% Friday 5/4 Final Exam This exam will be a prompt-­‐based essay, TBA 1,000 10% TBA Class Participation This includes both daily class discussion participation as well as performance as “class expert” for weeks chosen by student. We will discuss this further in class. 20% Daily Mid-­‐term Exam Research Essay 1 Proposal and Lit Review Research Essay 2 Proposal and Annotated Bibliography Research Essay 1 3 NA INTRODUCTION TO “SUBLIME REVOLUTIONS: THE MODERN AGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS” Like other Cultural Foundation classes you've had, this class will cover three things: art, ideas, and history. Like any class I teach, this class will also be about politics and social power. The specific historical period we'll be covering runs from about 1750 to 1960. That's a huge chunk of time, with many competing ideas. For this class, we'll focus our attention on two: the political concept of revolution, and an aesthetic concept called "the sublime" (more on this in a moment.) We begin with revolution, a term which (depending on which historian you ask) signifies either the downfall of the Age of Enlightenment, or the logical extension of its values. What is a revolution, exactly? How do we distinguish revolutions from things like riots? To get at these questions, we'll be examining debates concerning revolutions in France and Haiti that were raging at the time, and comparing those debates to recent representations from Egypt and London. We'll also look at paintings and photos from then and now to discuss how debates get framed through images. In addition to looking at who is included in discussions of the "Rights of Man" in the eighteenth century, we'll ask: Who is left out, here? Specifically, we'll look at historical essays like Wolstoncroft's "Vindication of the Rights of Women," comparing them to recent U.N. data on women and global poverty (one statistic: women currently own 1 percent of the world's land.) Any serious discussion of the question of revolution reveals that in popular vernacular, at least, the term has multiple meanings: we routinely speak about revolutions in thought, in imagination, in sexuality, in artistic practices. How do these sorts of "non-­‐political" revolutions operate, and how can they be related to political questions of social power and control? To get at this question, we will spend the remainder of the semester thinking about art, music, film and performance that in its day was deemed revolutionary, or "mind blowing." To better understand the blown minds of yesterday, and to help us better theorize how and why our minds get blown today, we'll be using a philosophical concept known as the sublime. Philosophically, the sublime is a slippery thing: sometimes it means shock, sometimes awe, sometimes terror, sometimes worship. Sometimes the sublime refers to the feeling we get when we are the absolute edge of something, teetering off the precipice of life and death, or sleeping and waking. Other times it means the feeling we get when hover between those states, as in a narcotic haze. Although the term has been around since Greek times, in this class, we'll chiefly talk about the sublime by way two major philosophers of the Enlightenment: Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, and we'll follow theorizations of the sublime as they have moved us to the current day. These include: 1. The sublime as the terror of the mob (writing around French and Haitian Revolutions) 2. The sublime as heroic awe for those who lead the mob, or suppress it (Historical painting and "great man" theory of history) 4 3. The sublime as the blinding light of nature as it conquers technology, or as nature's power to occlude rationality through darkness (e.g. Turner's landscapes; all Goya's painting) 4. The sublime as the power of sound in general, and music in particular, to transcend what is seen and what others tell us is possible (Mozart's Jupiter Symphony; Beethoven's 9th) 5. The sublime as reverence for "noble" savages (West's General Wolfe painting; Dickens critique thereof) 6. The sublime as fascination with the display of "primitive" art and bodies (African masks, the display of the African woman dubbed “Hottenot Venus”) 7. The sublime as an attraction/repulsion with science and "monstrous invention" (Shelley's Frankenstein) 7. Sublime as narcotic splendor (“Opium” poetry of Poe, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique) 8. The "Inscrutable Orient" as sublime exoticism (Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn, the Opium Wars) 9. The sublime as reverence for African American music as the authentic voice of the outlier (Gilroy calls this "slave sublime") 10. The sublime as awe over the power of the photograph as a "reality technology" (daguerreotype and other early documentary photography) 11. The sublime as the compulsive power of consumption, particularly when consumer is female (Madame Bovary as bourgeois sublime) 12. The sublime as the unconscious in general and dreaming in particular (impressionism and symbolism in art and music) 13. The sublime anxiety about the New Woman in general, and the hysterical female in particular (Strindberg's Miss Julie, Charcot's photos from his Theater of Hysteria) 14. The sublime as fascination with the supernatural power of early cinema (as in Edison's 1910 Frankenstein, and Méliès Man on the Moon)
15. The avant-­‐garde's reverence for the artist as shocking transgressor (Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, performances of Marcel Duchamp, etc.) 16. The avant-­‐garde's figuration of the prostitute as sublimely transgressive (Picasso’s "Les Demoiselles" et al) 17. The sublime as the modernist architectural belief in "pure form" (modernist architecture and design; the development of font faces like Helvetica) 5 18. The sublime as shocking realization that modern ideals about the potential of man-­‐-­‐including those articulated through art-­‐-­‐generally culminate in state-­‐sponsored violence ("No poetry after Auschwitz") 19. The sublime as terrified (as in "War on Terror") comprehension of the eventual retaliation of the masses, now operating in networks (Battle of Algiers) 20. The deployment of magical realism as a politics of the sublime, enabling those left out of traditional revolutions to spark revolutions of thought by reshaping notions of language and meaning (Kingdom of this World) As we move through each of these instances, we'll continually return to the questions: How are aesthetic notions of the sublime being deployed here? In these deployments, who benefits (emotionally, financially, politically), and who does not? Where are we at today, with respect to these issues? Do they still matter, or not? If not, why not? If so, why? Books You Need to Buy (any edition) • Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert • The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier • Art History, Volume 3, by Marilyn Stokstad (you should already own this) Films you will need to watch in full (All available at Bobst) • Metropolis (Fritz Lang, dir.) • Shock of the New, Episode 1 (BBC documentary with John Hughes, 1982.) • Shock of the New, Episode 4 (BBC documentary with John Hughes, 1982.) • Your choice: Either Rashoman or Rhapsody in August (Akira Kirosowa, dir.) • Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, dir) • Links to YouTube selections of other films (no more than 10 min or so) will be posted on Blackboard throughout the semester. Reading materials from Blackboard Because we are looking at cutting-­‐edge scholarship in our area of inquiry this semester, the vast majority of our reading will be from academic journal articles and recent book chapters. To save you the cost of buying these, I have posted materials you’ll need to have read each week in PDF format on our class Blackboard site. To find those materials, look under “Documents,” and then search by class date and author name. You are expected to print out required reading from Blackboard, and bring it to class on days it is being discussed. If you cannot print all the material, you are at least expected to have copied selections that you plan to talk about in class if asked to do so. If you have a laptop computer, you can keep materials there and bring your computer to class for discussions. 6 I realize that some of you find doing scholarship via Blackboard to be tedious, while others find printing materials off the web to be consuming and costly. Please know that if I had the time I would have compiled a course reader for you, but also know that the cost for that reader probably would have run well into the 100 dollar range. Submitting your assigned writing via Blackboard Throughout this semester, you’ll be required to submit all your writing assignments via Blackboard. Blackboard gathers all your writing in one place online on the off-­‐chance you have a computer meltdown somewhere this semester. It also allows me to produce a spreadsheet for you so you can track your grades and weighting. Just so you know, our Blackboard space is a password protected website to which only your instructor and other registered classmates have access. No WebCrawler may search our site, nor may outsiders view its content. Registered class members have privileges to upload, edit, or delete documents under their own name, but cannot alter the material of others. To submit assignments through Blackboard, take the following steps: 1. Log on the NYU Blackboard site and find our class. 2. Click the link that reads “Assignments” 3. Click the link corresponds to the Assignment Name (e.g. Essay 1) 4. Upload your work and click “Submit” NOTE: Be sure to click “submit” and not “save.” NOTE: Always save a copy of anything you submit on your hard drive, just in case To be sure what you submitted has been saved on Blackboard, do the following: 1. Go to left hand menu and choose “Tools” 2. Click to “My Grades” 3. Check to see that your submission has been logged under the correct due date NOTE: If you are experiencing MAJOR technical difficulties beyond “I don’t understand this!”, you can always email a copy of your work to Terri at terri.senft@nyu.edu. Please understand that this is just to demonstrate you submitted materials in a timely way—
you’ll still be expected to upload what you’ve written to Blackboard at a later date, when the system is in a better mood. FINALLY: In addition to Blackboard submission, you are ALWAYS expected to print one copy of whatever you’ve written to bring to class. Failure to print and bring in one’s work constitutes failure to engage the class, whether or not you’ve submitted your work electronically. 7 Office Hours and sending Email to Terri We’ll learn a fair amount about each other over in-­‐class over the course of this semester, but for individualized attention, nothing beats a twenty-­‐minute office hour appointment. I expect students to book at least one appointment with me during the semester, and I’ll pass around a sign-­‐up sheet for that in class. I have walk-­‐in hours of Fridays as noted below, but it’s always better to make an appointment, because first come/first serve can get a little frustrating, especially when you have other things to do that day. I’m also available on an appointment basis to do this like Yahoo Chat meetings. One benefit of an online chat meeting is that we produce actual text while talking, some of which you may be able to use in your writing. Email Phone Office Terri.senft@nyu.edu Extension 26994 (note: I always prefer email to phone) 726 Broadway, Room 615 Office Hours Fridays 1:00-­‐4:00 p.m. Other times by appointment only Skype/Yahoo chat by appointment I want to say something quickly about how I’d like you to communicate with me in email. The watchword here is “professional.” Assume yours is one of about two hundred pieces of mail I receive each day (no exaggeration.) Assume I am personally communicating with more than one hundred students this semester in three different classes (I am.) Assume I teach more than one section of this particular class (I do.) Assume want to hear from you, but I also want you to re-­‐introduce yourself and give me some context for your mail. Here is an example: “Hi Terri: This is Mary Wales from 9:30 CF3. I’m having trouble retrieving the document from Blackboard called “White Walls and the Sublime.” I see the title, but when I click, it doesn’t download anything. Is this a problem on my end, or is the document not there? Thanks, Mary.” Regarding email and timing: I check my mail as often as I can. I expect you to do the same. Certainly, you must check your NYU email once a day, the same way you’d be expected to do at any job. When writing me mail that you are hoping to get answered in a hurry, assume my first impulse is to answer mail with the heading “time sensitive” first, and don’t abuse that term (i.e. because you thought of something at 5 am and class is at 9, that doesn’t make it time sensitive.) Assume “urgent” means you want to tell me my office is on fire. If you sent email and didn’t hear from me, know that I don’t take offense at mail marked “second request,” because sometimes things fall through the cracks, and I would much prefer you to re-­‐send a request than assume I don’t care about you or your needs. That said, do not send mail marked “second request” without letting at least one day go by. Just because you are anxious at this hour doesn’t mean my schedule is free to 8 help with that anxiety, even if I’d like to do so. Finally, as in all writing, tone matters. I have great fondness for my students, and am open to correspondence full of warmth and humor. But remember, at the end of the day, I’m assessing how you will be able to comport yourself beyond this class, and email conduct is part of that deportment. I like students who feel comfortable approaching me, but please don’t send email with headings that say, “hey” or “yo” (or with headings that are blank, as if we are buddies and I’ll automatically know what you want.) I like students who are relaxed, but please don’t send me messages that are written in text-­‐
speak, or are impossible for me to parse grammatically, because in the time it takes me to decipher what you’ve written, I could have been answering your questions, and that sort of thing makes me cranky. And please, PLEASE: If you currently have an informal (non-­‐school) email address that in any way sexualizes you with words like “hot” or “pimp” or whatnot, considering changing it. At the very least, never use it to communicate with me. NYU/Liberal Studies Absence Policy As already discussed, this is one of those classes where your physical presence matters. If you do miss a class, you are responsible for getting class notes and information about assignments/readings/trips from another student (I may or may not have lecture materials posted on Blackboard for you to access, as well.) Additionally, you need to be prepared to attend the next class by doing the assigned writing required (see discussion above.) The university has the following policies about absences for any reason other than religious observance*. They are as follows: 1. Absent seven or more classes in a semester: you fail the class. 2. Absent six classes in a row over the semester: you fail the class. 3. Absent more than three classes in a semester: your grade is affected. 4. Absent more than four classes in a row: LS Advising Office gets a call. 5. Absent two classes in a row: You must send Terri email explaining absence. 6. Note: three late arrivals (more than 10 min) count as an absence. Really. *If you need to miss any classes for religious observance this semester, please let me know their dates by the end of the first week of the term. You will not in any way be penalized for such absences, but I require you to submit your writing assignments for these classes via Blackboard as usual. 9 The Grading System for this Class The following chart explains what you will be asked to do in this class, and how it is weighted. Description Word count % of Mark Date Due Mid-­‐term Exam Research Essay 1 Proposal and Lit Review Exam focused on a key terms developed by students over the course of the semester. Proposal and Literature Review for Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. Proposal and Annotated Bibliography for Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. 1,000 1,600 10% 10% Monday 3/5 Tuesday 3/20 1,200 10% Friday 4/6 2,000 20% Monday 4/18 Research Essay 2 Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. Independent research essay of student’s design, drawing from materials in class and supplemented with outside reading. 2,000 20% Friday 5/4 Final Exam This exam will be a prompt-­‐based essay, TBA 1,000 10% TBA Class Participation This includes both daily class discussion participation as well as performance as “class expert” for weeks chosen by student. We will discuss this further in class. 20% Daily Research Essay 2 Proposal and Annotated Bibliography Research Essay 1 NA NOTES ON RESEARCH LOGS Every student should show up for meetings with Terri with a research log, that includes: • Notes from exercises done as part of class • Notes taken during class • Brainstorming sessions regarding possible paper topics • Working annotated bibliography • Notes to discuss with Terri during meetings • Anything else you think worth including NOTES ON RESEARCH PAPER PROPOSALS Proposals should include: • A proposed title • A rationale for the chosen topic 10 •
•
•
•
•
An discussion of your main research questions and themes Discussion of appropriate methodologies, sources and theoretical approaches An overview of probable structure (i.e. rough outline) A timetable of tasks to be completed A bibliography NOTES ON LITERATURE REVIEWS Literature reviews should include: • Clear articulation of at least two questions/themes underlying your own paper • Discussion of at least two different scholarly essays, or chapters in books that consider each theme you’ve articulated, above. You should be discussing at least four different pieces of writing in total. • Analysis of the ways in which the contexts of the written pieces you discuss above differ from the contexts you wish to discuss in your paper. The differences can be related to time period, genre, sample, scope, etc. • A discussion of what issues appear to remain unexplored in the literature, as they apply to your paper topic. • A bibliography. NOTES ON STUDENT RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS • Each student will be allocated five minutes to present and two minutes to respond to questions. Students will be expected to summarize and reflect critically on their on their chosen paper topic. • Assessment will be put toward class participation grade will be based on content of thoughts, skills of presentation and response to questions. Students are encouraged to use PowerPoint, video, and/or audio materials as appropriate. Formatting your Writing All writing should be typed. Essays printed out on paper should use a 12 point font, with double spaced lines and 1-­‐inch margins on all sides. Do not produce single spaced material: the reason for double spacing is so I have room to write comments in the margins. Make sure pages are numbered. A paper clip or staple is sufficient to hold the pages together. Make sure your name and the date is on the upper corner of the first page. Make sure your assignment number appears in the upper corner of the first page. A title is required (centered). No title page is necessary. 11 How will writing assignments and essays be graded? All pieces of writing for this class (midterm, essays 1 and 2, your museum essay, your final) will be marked on both timeliness and content, with marks of A-­‐F. Marks are based on the factors below. 1. Content (How well are your ideas expressed? How well is evidence is used to support or illustrate your idea? How convincingly are you able to link contemporary concerns with debates, discussions, or preoccupations from the past?) 2. Organization (How well is the main idea of your essay organized? How well do the title, introduction, transitions and conclusion manage the essay’s coherence?) 3. Expression (How mellifluous are the sentences? How elegantly is punctuation used? How seamless are paraphrases? How sophisticated is the vocabulary? How accurate are your citation practices?) I will have much more to say (with much more specificity) on essay writing in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. How will final grades be awarded? Final grades for the course denote the following: A: Excellent work demonstrating lucid, original thinking, superior writing, outstanding discussion, and sustained engagement with the course requirements. B: Good work demonstrating persuasive thinking, strong writing skills, and sustained engagement with the course requirements. C: Satisfactory work demonstrating adequate writing abilities, average contributions to discussions, and acceptable engagement with the course requirements. D: Poor work, with significant writing flaws, poor discussion contributions, and questionable engagement with course requirements. F: Inadequate written work, insufficient engagement with course requirements. Policy regarding late submissions If you submit an essay late, please note it will drop a FULL GRADE from each calendar day it is due. Policy regarding Plagiarism Plagiarism occurs when words, ideas, judgments, images or data are copied and presented as if they were the writer’s own. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, plagiarists conceal the source of copied words, ideas, and/or images by not citing the 12 real author’s or artist’s name. I know you know this, because you’ve already read material on plagiarism prior to being formally admitted to NYU and signed a document attesting to this fact. Simply put: Do not copy other writers’ words and pretend they are yours by avoiding proper citation of sources. Do not panic at the last minute and buy a paper from someone. And please, do not convince yourself that your version of plagiarism will be so sophisticated I won’t notice. I make my living as an internet researcher, a writer, and an editor. It is my job to notice when someone’s writing tone seems inconsistent from one paragraph to the next (or even one sentence to the next), and ask questions when they are using vocabulary or ideas that seem to be a stretch given what I’ve seen of their writing thus far. If you’ve plagiarized, I’ll know, I’ll be able to prove it, and I won’t care why you did it. You will receive an F on the essay involved, and I will immediately report you to Academic Advising, where you risk failure of the course and expulsion from New York University. If you’re unsure whether you’re plagiarizing, please ask me for guidance. Plagiarism is a serious breech of scholarly code of honor. It is also illegal. If it helps you when you are considering doing it at 4 am some morning a paper is due, remember that job recommendation again: Do you think I would risk my professional reputation recommending the sort of person who begins stealing other people’s work and claiming it as their own when they feel deadline pressured and panicked? No short-­‐term grade is worth having your integrity questioned by people in a position to affect your long-­‐term future. Seriously. How is Class Participation Assessed? You’ll note that class participation constitutes a substantial portion of your course grade. To achieve a strong participation mark, you need to both attend class, AND to be ready to work. To me, “ready to work” means arriving on time on time and bringing assigned reading with you to discuss. It means that if you are running late, you arrive in the class with your coat off, your materials in your hand, and committed to getting in your seat quickly and quietly, without distracting people who are already in the flow of things. “Working” means staying on focus, with your phone silenced, and your laptop with instant messages off. It means being far more interested in what is transpiring in the room than in the food you are eating, the text message that just arrived, or the hot guy or girl sitting next to you. It means when I ask you to shift seats or work with someone else, you do so quickly and quietly, without eye rolling, idle chatter, or five minutes of “stuff collecting” drama attached. It means approaching the hour and fifteen minutes we spend together in this class with the same sort of dedication and singularity of purposes you are probably familiar with from sports, music, drama, art, or serious video game playing. It means being in it to win it. By contrast, “not working” involves being absent or late, not having done required reading, not bringing that reading to class to discuss, or not being capable to articulate any thoughts about what you’ve been asked to read. It can also mean routinely coming 13 across as unfocused, disorganized, or unable to handle the routine distractions that come with living in New York City (e.g. the train being late cannot be your story every time you wander in fifteen minutes late.) Finally, “not working” can also mean, “displaying an obvious lack of interest or enthusiasm.” I’m interested in working with students who are excited to be here, or who have the capacity to fake it. I insist you learn to fake it not because I’m emotionally needy, or because I want you to be emotionally dishonest, but because when you enter the professional world, you will be expected to at least seem engaged with whatever anyone puts in front of you. Students who cannot learn this tend to be the ones passed over later for job promotions, dismissed out of hand not for their efforts, but for because of that “bad attitude” thing. In addition to general class comportment issues, I’ll also expect you to behave from time to time as an “in-­‐class expert.” You’ll notice that Essays 1 and 2 require you to engage in a student-­‐directed inquiry with materials covered during one of our class sessions. By our second class, I’ll pass around a sheet that asks you to note which of our class sessions you think you’ll be addressing in your essay (you can change your mind later, if you need to.) You’ll be expected to read and be able to summarize both required and recommended material for that class session. You’ll also be expected to have looked at any related material suggested by Terri in connection with your paper inquiry. When it comes time for the class that links to one of your paper topics, Terri will turn to you as an “in-­‐class expert,” and you’ll be expected to talk with the class about what you’ve read, how it applies to your inquiry, and the questions you still have. In addition, you’ll be expected to lead the class in at least one question around the topic at hand. Terri will mark both your performances as an “in-­‐class expert,” (remember, you are writing two essays on two different topics) and these performances will figure heavily into your participation grade for this course. A quick word on the issue of in-­‐class speaking and class discussions: If you are the sort of student who struggles to speak up in class, I have a great deal of compassion for you, but you still need to talk. If you are on the shy side, drop me a piece of email, or speak with me after class: I’ve spent years working with shy students and have lots of tricks that can help you feel more natural contributing in a group setting. By contrast, if you are the sort of student who dominates class discussions, I am going to ask that you start working with me to learn new ways to listen to others without getting impatient. I’m also going to start training you to encourage quieter students to voice their thoughts—a skill that can turn you from a gifted (but at times, socially alienating) student into a terrific teacher, editor, manager, or coordinator. While students who perform poorly with class participation will have their grade lowered over time, there is a much greater incentive for demonstrating to me that you are always ready to work: I’m probably one of the people you’ll wind up turning to for recommendation letters down the line when you want to impress a future graduate school, law school, or employer. Hint: Reference letters reflect on me as well as you, and I don’t recommend students for jobs who don’t strike me as even being capable of handling their studies in a professional way. You wouldn’t be at this school if you couldn’t impress me. I know you can. So do it. Okay? Okay. 14 A Note to Students with Disabilities Students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodation in this class are encouraged to contact the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities. Please be aware that university policy dictates that only students formally registered at the Moses Center receive disability-­‐related accommodations, and that students must re-­‐register with the Moses Center each semester. The phone number for the Moses Center is 212-­‐998-­‐
4980, and their web site is at http://www.nyu.edu/life/safety-­‐health-­‐
andwellness/students-­‐with-­‐disabilities.html. Emergency and Wellness Information You should have two numbers programmed into your phone, and urge your friends to do the same. The first number is NYU Public Safety: 212.998.2222. The second is The Wellness Exchange where they provide assistance with a variety of mental health issues, from small concerns to large ones. The number for the Wellness Exchange is 212.442.9999, and their web site is at http://www.nyu.edu/999/ See next page for a chart showing how classes will be themed this semester 15 HOW CLASSES WILL BE THEMED Focus: Whose Revolution? An Introduction Class One From Revolution to Sublime, or the Modern and its Discontents Tues 1/24 Class Two Revolutions: Political, Social, Mental Thurs 1/26 Focus: Theorizing the Sublime Class Three Tues 1/31 From Terror to Thrill: Theorizing the Sublime with Burke Class Four Beauty and its Inverse: Theorizing the Sublime with Kant Thurs 2/2 Class Five Noble Savages, Hotentot Venuses: ‘Primitives’ and the Sublime Tues 2/7 Class Six Sublime Limits: Romantic Music and the invention of Genius Thurs 2/9 Class Seven Science and the Monstrous Sublime: Reading Frankenstein Tues 2/14 Class Eight Drug and their partners: Reading the Narcotic Sublime Thurs 2/16 Class Nine Divas, Geishas, and others: the Oriental Sublime Tues 2/21 Class Ten Spirituals, Blues, Jazz and the Rise of the Slave Sublime Thurs 2/23 Class Eleven Tues 2/27 Review and recapping. Midterm exam is due midnight Mon 3/5 Focus: Student-­‐Directed Research Class Twelve Thurs 3/1 Workshop: Paper Topics: Hearing from Past Students Class Thirteen Tues 3/6 Workshop: Searching Secondary Sources Class Fourteen Thurs 3/8 Workshop: Writing a Proposal and Literature Review Tues 3/13 Spring break Spring break Thurs 3/15 Class Fifteen Terri at conference/ Proposals and Lit Reviews Paper 1 due today Tues 3/20 Focus: Revenge of the Real, Rise of the Modern Class Sixteen Reality Bites: Technology, Reality and Quotidian Sublime Thur 3/22 Class Seventeen “Reality” Media and the Birth of Photography Tues 3/27 Class Eighteen Realism , Genre and Gender: Reading Madame Bovary Thur 3/29 Class Nineteen Tues 4/3 River of Shadows: Early Cinema and the Sublime Class Twenty Shock of the New: From Realism to Futurism. Thurs 4/5 Class Twenty-­‐one Tues 4/10 Shock of the New 2: From Expressionism to Dada Focus: The Empire Strikes Backreport back on research projects Class Twenty-­‐two Thurs 4/12 No Poetry After Auschwitz: War, Trauma, Art Class Twenty-­‐three Tues 4/17 The Postmodern Sublime, or “Is Rashomon really Japanese?” Class Twenty-­‐four Thurs 4/19 Postcolonial Sublime: Magic Realism in The Kingdom of this World Class twenty-­‐five Class twenty-­‐six Class twenty-­‐seven Class twenty-­‐nine Tues 4/24 Thurs 4/26 Tues 5/1 Thurs 5/3 Networked Sublime: From Battle of Algiers to Persepolis Student report back on research projects Student report back on research projects Recapping and Semester Summary 16 DAY BY DAY CLASS BREAKDOWN, WITH READING ASSIGNMENTS Tues 1/24 From Revolution to Sublime, or the Modern and its Discontents Required Reading • First class; nothing required Thurs, Thurs 1/26 Whose Revolutions? Mapping Political, Social, Mental Change Required Reading for today’s lecture (Historical) • Burke, E. “Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790” (3 page selection, available on class site) • Wollstonecraft, M, “Vindication of the Rights of Men, 1790” (3 page selection, available on class site) • Paine, T. “The Rights of Man, 1791” (2 page selection, available on class site) • De Geogues, Olympe. “Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791.” (Approx 3 pages, available on class site) • James, CLR. “Preface and Introduction”. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. Vintage Books. (Approx 4 pages, available on class site) • Bogues, Anthony “Legacies of French Colonialism in Haiti Today. ” (4 minute video, link online) • Chapter 29 in Stokstad, M. Art History. (Just scan through images on pp 903-­‐955. You must buy book) Required Contemporary Reading (Contemporary) • “Gender Equality, Equity and Empowerment of Women,” from International Conference on Population & Development (ICPD2015) (2 pages, available on class site) • Gitlin, Todd. 2011. “Sandmonkey: ‘Too Stupid to Govern Us’.” Dissent 58 (3): 5-­‐7. (3 pages, available on class site) • White, Mica, “Is Rioting Revolutionary? The London Riots as Revolutionary Act” Adbusters 10 August 2011. Available online at http://www.adbusters.org/blogs/blackspot-­‐blog/rioting-­‐
revolutionary.html Materials for Further Study • Égalité for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution. 2009. Public Broadcasting Service. Watch online at : http://www.pbs.org/egaliteforall/ 2009. 17 •
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Sylvain, P. “Is this the authentic face of Toussaint L'Ouverture?” (Approx 2 pages, available on class site) James, Cyril Lionel Robert. 1989. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. Vintage Books. (Complete PDF online) Tues 1/31 From Terror to Thrill: Theorizing the Sublime with Burke Required Reading for today’s Lecture • Morley, S. “Introduction.” The Sublime. The MIT. (6 pages, available on class site) • Selections from Burke, Edmund. 1767. A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful. (12 pages, available on class site) Materials for Further Study Byrne, W. F. “Burke’s Higher Romanticism: Politics and the Sublime.” Humanitas 19 (1). (Available on class site) Thurs 2/2 Beauty and its Inverse: Theorizing the Sublime with Kant Readings TBA Tues 2/7 Noble Savages, Hottentot Venuses: The ‘Primitive’ and The Sublime Required Reading for today’s Lecture: • Fryd, Vivien Green. 1995. “Rereading the Indian in Benjamin West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’.” (15 pages, available on class site) • Dickens, Charles “The Noble Savage” (10 pages, available on class site) • “Saartje, Sara, Sarah: A short video examining the life and legacy of Sara Baartman, the ‘Hottentot Venus,’ in images.” (3 minutes, watch online at http://blip.tv/professor-­‐j/saartjie-­‐
sarah-­‐sara-­‐4958921) Further Reading: • Gilman, S. L. 1985. “Black bodies, white bodies: Toward an iconography of female sexuality in late nineteenth-­‐century art, medicine, and literature.” Critical Inquiry 12 (1): 204–242. • Magubane, Zine. 2001. Which Bodies Matter? Feminism, Poststructuralism, Race, and the Curious Theoretical Odyssey of the “Hottentot Venus”. Gender & Society 15 (6): 816. • Torgovnick, Marianna. 1991. Gone primitive: savage intellects, modern lives. University of Chicago Press. •
18 Thurs 2/9 Sublime Limits: Romantic Music and invention of the Genius Required Reading for Today’s Lecture • Meyer, Leonard. “Music and Ideology in the Nineteenth Century.” Tanner Lecture on Human Values, delivered at Stanford University, May 17, 1984 • Sisman, E. “The Grand Sublime.” Mozart: The “Jupiter” Symphony. Cambridge University Press, October 29. (13 pages, available on class site) Required Listening: th
• Beethoven’s 9 Symphony (sections with links on class site) • Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony (sections with links on class site) Materials for Further Study • Tymockzko, D.“The Sublime Beethoven. Boston Review, February 2000 (10 pages, available on class site) • Vitos, B. 2009. “The Inverted Sublimity of the Dark Psytrance Dance Floor.” Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 1 (1). Tues 2/14: The Rise of the Scientist, the Thrill of the Monster: Reading Frankenstein Required Reading for Today’s Lecture • Shelley, M. Frankenstein (buy book) Further Reading: • Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. 2007. Frankenstein: a cultural history. W. W. Norton & Company. • “The Monstrous Sublime” in Steiner, Wendy. 2001. Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth-­‐Century Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Thurs 2/16 The Rise of Drug Trafficking, the Thrill of Narcotic Sublime Required Reading for Today’s Lecture: • Poe, Edgar Allen “For Annie” (3 pages, available on class site) • Coleridge, S. “Kubla Khan” (2 pages, available on class site) • Quincey, T. 1885. Confessions of an English opium-­‐eater (Selection of 10 pages, on class site) • Hector Berlioz, “A Dream of Witches’ Sabath,” from Symphonie Fantastique (10 minute selection. You can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n7qfRNzS3s ) 19 “The Little Three: Opium, Cannabis, Cocoa” in Courtwright, David T. 2002. Forces of habit: drugs and the making of the modern world. Harvard University Press pp 31-­‐53 (22 pages, available on class site •
Further Reading “The Opium Wars” and “The Political Economy of Opium” In Marez, C. Drug wars: the political economy of Narcotics. U of Minnesota Press. 2004. pp. 39-­‐104 (62 pages, available on class site) • Beecher, Henry K. 1947. “Anesthesia’s Second Power: Imagination.” Science 105 (2720) (February 14): 164 -­‐166. (2 pages, available on class site) • Pernick, M. S. 1994. “A calculus of suffering: pain, professionalism, and anesthesia in nineteenth century America.” (10 pages, available on class site) • Bruhm, S. 1993. “Aesthetics and Anesthetics at the Revolution.” Studies in romanticism: 399–424. • Barzun, J. 1949. “The Mind of the Young Berlioz.” Musical Quarterly: 551–564. • Brittan, F. 2006. “Berlioz and the Pathological Fantastic: Melancholy, Monomania, and Romantic Autobiography.” 19th-­‐century Music 29 (3): 211–239. • Hanes, Travis, et al. The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Sourcebooks. (25 pages, available on class site) • Rzepka, C. J. 1991. “The Literature of Power and the Imperial Will: De Quincey’s Opium War Essays.” South Central Review: 37–45. (available on class site) • Parker, Edward Harper, and Yüan Wei. 1888. Chinese account of the Opium war. Kelly & Walsh, ltd. Tues 2/21 Divas, Geishas, and others: Performance and the Oriental Sublime READINGS TBA Thurs 2/23 Spirituals, Blues, Jazz and the Rise of the Slave Sublime Required Reading •
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Gilroy, Paul: “Jewels Brought Back From Bondage.” From The Black Atlantic, pg. 87-­‐110 (23 page selection, available online) Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Sorrow Songs” from The Souls of Black Folk. (Four page selection, available on class site) Watch videos of performers discussed by Gilroy, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naFcHO9KBnQ and here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBLIZ4wc9Rw&feature=fvwrel Further Reading: 20 •
Hamilton, M. 2000. “Sexuality, authenticity and the making of the blues tradition.” Past & Present (169): 132–160. Ken Burns Jazz: PBS Series. •
Thurs 3/1 Workshop on Paper Topics: Hearing from Past Students To Read: Choose FIVE student papers to look over for today MONDAY 3/5: MIDTERM ESSAY DUE Thurs 3/8 Workshop: Writing a Proposal and Literature Review Tues 3/13-­‐Thurs 3/15 No class: Spring Break. Work on your proposals and lit reviews. Tues 3/22 Reality Bites: Technology, Reality and Quotidian Sublime READINGS TBA Tues 3/27 “Reality” Media and the Birth of Photography Required Reading for Today’s Lecture: • “Early Photography in the United States” in Stokstad, Art History pp 967-­‐970 (3 pages, buy book) • Williams, S. S. 1996. “‘ The Inconstant Daguerreotype’: The Narrative of Early Photography.” Narrative 4 (2): 161–174. (13 pages, available on class site) • Palma, S. 2005. “The Seen, the Unseen, the Invented.” Cahiers d’études africaines (1): 39–69. (30 pages available on class site) Further Reading • Buckland, Gail. 1980. First Photographs: People, Places and Phenomena as Captured for the First Time by the Camera. New York: Macmillan • Brizuela, N. 2005. “‘ Curiosity! Wonder‼ Horror‼! Misery‼‼’ The Campanha de Canudos, or The Photography of History.” Qui Parle 15 (2): 139-­‐169 (30 pages, available on class site) Thur 3/29 Realism, Genre and Gender: Reading Madame Bovary Required Reading for today’s Lecture: 21 • Flaubert, Gustave. 1892. Madame Bovary (buy book.) Additional Reading for today’s Lecture: • Collins, T. J.R. 2010. “Athletic Fashion, Punch, and the Creation of the New Woman.” Victorian Periodicals Review 43 (3): 309–335. (Available on class site) • Young, Margaret. 2006. “On the Go with Phoebe Snow: Origins of an Advertising Icon.” Advertising & Society Review 7 (2). (Available on class site) • Stevens, S. E. 2004. “Figuring modernity: the new woman and the modern girl in Republican China.” NWSA Journal 15 (3): 82–103. (Available on class site) • Reitan, R. 2011. “Claiming Personality: Reassessing the Dangers of the‘ New Woman’ in Early Taisho Japan.” Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 19 (1): 83. • Russell, M. 2010. “Marketing the Modern Egyptian Girl: Whitewashing Soap and Clothes from the Late Nineteenth Century to 1936.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 6 (3): 19–57. Tues 4/3 River of Shadows: Early Cinema and the Sublime Required Reading for this lecture: • Dirks, T. “The History of Film: The Pre-­‐1920s : Early Cinematic Origins and the Infancy of Film.” American Movie Channel. Visit all five parts of this series. Online at http://www.filmsite.org/pre20sintro.html • Solnit, Rebecca. “The Annihilation of Time and Space” in River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West. 3-­‐23 (20 pages, available on class site) Required Viewing: • A Trip to the Moon. Made by Georges Melies in 1903. (ten minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYRemE9Oeso • Frankenstein. Made by Thomas Edison in 1910 (ten minutes) • Kid Auto Races at Venice California 1915 (Charlie Chaplin’s first appearance) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DlmJ1nhGg Further Study: • López, A. M. 2000. “Early cinema and modernity in Latin America.” Cinema Journal 40 (1): 48–78. • Guneratne, Anthony. 1998. “The Birth of a New Realism: Photography, Painting and the Advent of Documentary Cinema Film History.” Vol. 10, No. 2, Film, Photography and Television (1998), pp. 165-­‐
187 Thurs 4/5 22 The Shock of the New: Painting from Realism to Futurism Required Reading • Stokstad, Art History 1017-­‐1043 (buy book) • Marinetti, “Futurist Manifesto” (available on class web site) • Norden, M. “The Avant-­‐Garde Cinema of the 1920s: Connections to Futurism, Precisionism, and Suprematism.” Leonardo, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1984), pp. 108-­‐112 (class web site) Required Viewing: • Episode One, Shock of the New. (Available at Bobst.) • Metropolis, Fritz Lang (available at Bobst) • Selection from Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov, link available on class web site) Tues 4/10 Shock of the New 2: Expressionism, Surrealism, Absurdism, Dada Required Viewing • The Shock of the New, Episode 4. Available at Bobst and on class web site. • Un Chien Andalou (film by Louis Buñuel, 16 minutes. Link on class web site) Further Reading • Nichols, B. 2001. “Documentary film and the modernist avant-­‐garde.” Critical Inquiry 27 (4): 580–610 • Further materials TBA Thurs 4/12 “No Poetry After Auschwitz”: War, Trauma, Art Required Reading: • Cohen, J. “Interrupting Auschwitz.” Janus Head 7 (1): 226–229. • Braiterman, Zachary. 2000. “Against Holocaust-­‐Sublime.” History & Memory 12 (2) (October): 7-­‐28. (available on class web site) Further Reading • Schwenger, P., and J. W Treat. 1994. “America’s Hiroshima, Hiroshima’s America.” Boundary 2: 233–253. (available on class web site) 23 •
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Lamarre, T. 2008. “Born of Trauma: Akira and Capitalist Modes of Destruction.” positions: east asia cultures critique 16 (1): 131. Baer, H. 2004. “Off European Ground: A Response to Lutz Koepnick’s‘ Photographs and Memories’.” South Central Review 21 (1): 130–134. Tansman, A. 2004. “Catastrophe, Memory, and Narrative: Teaching Japanese and Jewish Responses to Twentieth-­‐Century Atrocity.” Discourse 25 (1): 248–271. Tues 4/17 The Postmodern Sublime, or “Is Rashomon really Japanese?” Required Viewing: • One of two films by Kurosawa: Either Roshoman or Rhapsody in August (both available in Bobst) Tues 4/17 Postcolonial Sublime: Magic Realism in The Kingdom of this World Required Reading: The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier Tues 4/24 Networks and the Sublime: Watching Battle of Algiers during the “War on Terror” Required Viewing • Battle of Algiers (available in Bobst) Required Reading • Fanon, F. 2004. “Algeria unveiled’.” (5 pages, available on class web site) Thurs 4/26 and Tues 4/28 Student Reports on Research Papers Thurs 5/3 Wrapping Up 24