Category: Liberal Arts Electives

The seminar will proceed through close reading of,key texts of philosophy in relation to competing,readings of literary works – for example,,Beckett’s Endgame as interpreted by Cavell and,Adorno. The course will also pay attention to,the role of film in the development of,avant-garde and feminist critical theory -,Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle and,Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman.(There will be,screenings of Endgame and The Society of the,Spectacle in class, and In girum nocte et,consumimur igni, and Jeanne Dielman will be,outside class at MOCAD.) The course is not a,survey, but an introduction, and so seeks to,provide students with a vocabulary historically,situated to enable independent work; to this end,the emphasis will be upon close attention to,texts and works.,,DEI: Critical Theory is a post-philosophical style,of thinking developed in Germany between the two,World Wars. Critical Theory, begun in the,Frankfurt School, is the use of psycho-analytic,concepts (Freud) with the politics of the Young,Marx to develop a theory of society, art,,literature, and modernity.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: DEN 102

The Special Project class is offered on an,occasional basis, with course content specific to,the area being explored.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Homer’s Odyssey, Sci-Fi, and Afro-Futurism is a,class in Critical Theory, Visual Culture/Film,Studies that explores the impact of The Odyssey,in Sci-Fi, Critical Theory, and Post-Colonial,discourse in experimental film, poetry, and the,novel. The class explores why The Odyssey has,become the source text for the Sci-Fi genre in,which seas are replaced by space, in which the,journey home is the means of encounter with the,strange and the alien, and where the migration of,a people becomes existential. The class is also,an introduction to Homer’s Odyssey, to the,philosophical interpretation of film/Sci-Fi, and,to the movement known as Afro-Futurism, a,transnational Black avant-garde that uses music,,film, art, and poetics to explore the future in,terms of the place of space. In this class there,is a deliberate juxtaposition of mainstream and,experimental Sci-Fi to elicit a new critical,thinking.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

Socrates famously said to his student, Meno: “I,don’t know that I can teach you, and I don’t even,know that you can learn! The best I can be is a,midwife to ideas.” At first, Socrates is talking,about Virtue, but also, Justice, Beauty, Art.,Joseph Beuys declared that “To be a teacher is my,greatest work of art.” If we do not know that we,can learn, and do not know that we can teach, why,,then, do we talk so much about Art, as a society,spend so much on Art, and go into debt to,”learn” about something that we are not even sure,can be learned? What are the implications of,making pedagogy – and with it dialogue and a,changed relationship between “teacher”and,”student” – the subject of art? Art + Pedagogy,from Socrates to Joseph Beuys looks at why,teaching / pedagogy (BFA/MFA/PhD; Paulo Freire,,Jacques Rancière, Lygia Clark, etc.) along with,dialogue / conversation and the meal as a vehicle,of self-learning and new strategies of,inter-subjectivity (Plato’s The Banquet /,Symposium, Dante’s The Banquet, Theaster Gates,,Rirkrit Tiravanija, Michael Rakowitz, InCubate,,Detroit Soup, etc.) have become such prominent,,troubling, and exciting subjects in contemporary,art practices precisely at the moment when there,is recognition that the democratization of art and,its institutions begun in the Twentieth Century is,over and the techniques for transmitting /,teaching this “art” have become obsolete. Students,are invited to conclude the semester with a,student-curated meal and conversation or Banquet,of friends.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

Biopolitics is one of the most significant,developments in Critical Theory. Using the topics,of waste and violence, this class offers an,introduction to the main concepts, strategies,,and pre-occupations of Biopolitical thinking and,its relevance to understanding the contemporary,world and violence of globalization. A,significant aspect of the course is the use and,role of film as critical theory.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

Drawing inspiration from consciousness-centered,education models, this innovative course offers,students an opportunity to dive within themselves,,discovering and exploring their own boundless,creative potential. Consider this course an,experimental incubator for the creation of ideas,,images, and artistic motivation. Emphasis is,placed on reflection with the student’s,journaling, discussing and meditating together. ,This unique course offers students new methods of,inquiry, encouraging students to re-integrate,their own creativity and imagination. All,students will have the opportunity to be trained,by professional meditation teachers during the,third week of class and will meditate in class,throughout the semester.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

Will explore the various links between the visual,and literary arts through readings of plays,,poems, stories, novels, letters, manifestos,,etc. that have been written by and/or about,artists and designers.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

This seminar explores the following: (i) art,becomes modern when art is rejected; (ii) there is,no modern art without poetry, philosophy, ethics,or the political; (iii) art becomes modern when,the poet Charles Baudelaire realizes the city as,an active subject in art; (iv) the city and,anti-art produce an avant-garde which claims to,refuse art. Broadly speaking, the course is not,concerned with the claim of a particular movement,or artist as the beginning of modern and/or,avant-garde activity; instead the course is,concerned with the practices, attitudes and values,that make for distinctively modern conceptions of,artistic activities, of which the following are,emphasized: the city, poetry, spectacle and,performance. There is a special section in the,course devoted to the city and film. Students,will be encouraged to devise creative responses in,film, photography, digital media, drawing,,painting, sculpture etc. to their environment.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

Madness has been of interest to philosophers,,psychologists, social scientists – as well as to,artists. The history of art, culture and,literature is filled with “mad or romantic,geniuses.” This course proposes a comparative,examination of the transition of “marginalized”,forms of representation from “insanity” into the,field of aesthetic and cultural practice by a,consideration of the art and drawing of the insane,(from asylums), short story (Edgar Allen Poe),,poetry (Sylvia Plath), painting (Van Gogh,,Surrealism, de Kooning), and film (Ingmar Berman’s,”Through a Glass Darkly”). The course seeks a,balance between critical theory (Plato,,Romanticism, Avant-Garde, Feminism), close reading,(engaging each person’s affective response), and,developments in the changing status of the,scientific, social and intellectual situation of,works. Course credit may be used as English or,Philosophy.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).

This interdisciplinary course is an examination,of the cultural systems, history, and art of,human beings who espouse the world’s great,religions: Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and,Christianity. The broad course objective is to,introduce students to the differing ways that,humans organize and express their culture and,beliefs, their relationship to nature and the,cosmos, and to each other, through the making and,use of religious concepts, ideologies, art and,architecture.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: Take one 3.0 credit, 200 level course from one of the,following subjects: DAH (Art History), DEN (English), DAS,(Academic Studies), DVC (Visual Culture).