Category: Liberal Arts Electives

Care of the City: Detroit is an introduction to Social Practice and Post-Studio art which through an exploration of spaces of marginality and collapse in cities in relation to durational collaboration with communities as a response to collapse and as evidence of an ethics of care. The main question pursued: what does it mean to care for a city? And: is care a choice? We shall make numerous visits in Detroit as well as extended comparisons with Chicago (Theaster Gates), New Orleans (Paul Chan and Joshua Decter), Houston (Rick Lowe), and Los Angeles (Suzanne Lacy). We shall explore the image of the city in Social Practices through music (Marvin Gaye), poetry, and film (the League of Revolutionary Black Workers). Short readings in philosophy, theology, and psychology will complement cultural, historical, and aesthetic texts in an attempt to develop a critical practice distinctive to the new experiences emerging in Social Practice and post-studio forms and the ethics of care.

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).

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

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

Independent Study is available to students who are at Junior or Senior level standing with a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 or above. The student may receive approval to work in an area or on a project that is not otherwise offered or addressed in the regular curriculum. An Independent Study should include opportunities for individual student voice and provide a space for diverse perspectives. Students may receive credit toward graduation for no more than 6 credit hours. The student must submit to the chairperson of the department in which they wish to study, an Independent Study Proposal of 150 words (no less) of the student’s plan for study and her/his reason for choosing to study independently. Once the department chairperson provides approval and the instructor for the Independent Study is determined, the faculty member must write an Independent Study Syllabus with education goals, learning outcomes, meeting dates, course expectations, timelines, and due dates. Art Education candidates must pass DAE 490 with a grade of ‘C’ (2.00) or higher to qualify for certification.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites: DEN 239

(This is a faculty led study abroad course * syllabi will differ per destination), On a Global Learning Experience course, students are brought outside the typical classroom, for a 24/7 learning experience in varying locations outside the USA. The course will provide students with tools for analyzing your learning process and identifying cultural patterns, differences, similarities and values encountered during the journey. Students develop a sense of cross-cultural understanding, and navigate towards becoming a global citizen. Students develop a heightened sense of confidence, and leadership as they plan, and execute this excursion. In addition students discover the role of becoming an ambassador for their own culture. Practical issues about studying abroad (safety, money, packing, etc.) are delivered via pre-departure sessions with the International Student Services Office.

SUMMER 2024
COSTA RICA
There’s nothing quite like the rain forests of the ”Rich Coast.” At its heart, the Central American country boasts an epic landscape that is home to nearly 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity. Discover how fragile these endangered ecosystems are as you travel through different rainforest preserves and unearth dazzling displays of color and sound. Explore also the unique art and culture of some of Costa Rica’s most vibrant cities and towns.

Credits: 3

Prerequisites:

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).