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20th Century Aesthetics and Politics
260-216 20th Century Aesthetics and Politics
Time: TTh 10:30-11:50 Instructor: Dr. Hollis Robbins
Place: 206C Office: Centre Street, #33
hrobbins@jhu.edu
I. Course Objectives:
What is Art? What are Politics? What do they have to do with each other? What did they have to do with each other during the long (well, a hundred years) last century? This course will address these and other questions, such as: Why was everyone writing manifestos and do we still do this? Can one be a Marxist or a Surrealist and still like Bach? Can one be a revolutionary and still get paid? What do the writings of aesthetic and political theorists for the last hundred and fifty years tell us about these questions?
II. Course Requirements:
Attendance/Class participation
Oral Presentation (10 minutes)
Two analytical papers (5-7 pages, 6-8 pages)
You will be required to read and be prepared to discuss all of the assignments. The schedule below indicates the date by which particular works should be read and the amount of reading to be done each day to stay current with class discussion. Bring the text to class each week. You will be required to lead class discussion by giving a substantial presentation once in the course of the semester.
You will be required to write a midterm paper and a longer final paper. I do not accept late papers unless there is a compelling reason for missing the deadline.
Attendance for this class is critical. Much of what you will learn in this course will be the result of class exercises and discussion. Discussion and debate are crucial to the learning process. You are expected not only to attend but also to participate. Three absences (excused or not) will begin to push your final grade downward.
Grade: Your grade will be calculated as follows:
Class Participation: includes attendance, presentations, possible quizzes, contributions to class discussion: 25%
Presentation: 25%.
Two papers: Midterm paper (25%), final paper (25%) Total: 50%.
Writing Policy:
All papers should be double-spaced, numbered, with your name on every page. Neatness and excellence in punctuation, spelling, and grammar should always be a goal.
All written work should be your own. This means that either: A) you are telling me what you think, or B) you are telling me what you think about what someone else thinks—which means you will tell me where you found this person’s opinion, when and where he/she expressed it, and how it is related to your own opinion. You may embrace someone else’s opinion, but you cannot pass it off as your own. This is called plagiarism and it is wrong.
A note about my grading on papers and essays:
A grade of A means you have produced a paper exemplary in almost every way. You have presented your thesis coherently, you have organized your thoughts effectively, and you have supported your argument meticulously. An A paper is also one that is excellent in style and voice or tone. And in an A paper, attention to form (spelling, punctuation, grammar, documentation) is as rigorous as it is to the content. Your work on the paper is superior.
A grade of B means you have gone beyond the minimum requirements of the assignment and have successfully balanced description with analysis. You express yourself more clearly, meaningfully, and imaginatively than in a C paper. Your work on the paper is good.
A grade of C means you have successfully completed the minimum requirements of an assignment. Your paper has no major problems of any kind, but there is still much for you to do to better your grade. Your work on the paper is fair.
A grade of D means your work is seriously deficient in some way.
A grade of F means your work has failed to meet the minimum requirements.
III. Required Texts:
Maynard Solomon Marxism and Art: Essays Classic and Contemporary (Wayne State UP, 1979)
Chiam Potok My Name is Asher Lev (1972)
Reader (available 2/1/09 from Charlotte in the faculty office)
Recommended Works/Websites:
http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/index.htm
For a good list of art manifestos only: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_manifesto
IV. Schedule and Reading
Week 1 Intro & backgrounds
T Jan 13 Intro to Concepts: Aesthetics and Politics
Th Jan 15 Intro to Marxism: Marx and Engels (M&A to p. 76)
http://www.textetc.com/theory/aesthetics.html
Week 2 Turn of the Century Conflicts
T Jan 20 (More) Marxist Aesthetics (M&A to p. 76)
Th Jan 22 Georgi Plekhanov (M&A 119-143)
Rosa Luxemburg (M&A 144-159)
Week 3 Art Politics and Revolution
T Jan 27 Bolsheviks: Lenin (M&A163-186)
Trotsky (187-198)
Th Jan 29 Nikolai Bukharin (199-214)
Week 4 Politics, Class, and Art
T Feb 3 Zhdanovism, Overdeterminism, History, Nostalgia, Modernism
(M&A 235-260)
Th Feb 5 China: The Cultural Revolution (Readings TBA)
Week 5 Humanist Aesthetics
T Feb 10 Finkelstein (M&A 274-280)), Lukacs (M&A 404-419)
Th Feb 12 Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (541-561)
Max Raphael (M&A 442-453)
Week 6 No Classes – Auditions – but finish My Name is Asher Lev
Week 7 Religion and Art
T Feb 24 Lecture: Potok: My Name is Asher Lev
Th Feb 26 Continue Asher Lev
Week 8 More Potok
T Mar 3 Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (reader)
Th Mar 5 Finish Asher Lev; discussion
1st Paper Due: Potok
Week 9 Contexts and Movements
T Mar 10 Freud (readings TBA)
Th Mar 12 Symbolism, Futurism, Surrealism
Andre Breton (M&A 502-514)
Week 10 No Class: Spring Break!
Week 11 Gender Politics and Aesthetics
T Mar 24 Feminism (Lecture), Readings
Th Mar 26 Cixous “The Laugh of the Medusa” (reader)
Showalter “Toward a Feminist Poetics” (reader)
Week 12 Race Politics and Aesthetics
T Mar 31 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Signifying Monkey” (reader)
Th Apr 2 Gates “Writing Race and the Difference it Makes” (reader)
Discuss 2nd Paper (Due April 30)
Week 13 “Other” Politics and Aesthetics
T Apr 7 Lecture: Post-Colonial Politics and Aesthetics
Th Apr 9 Said, Orientalism, “Introduction” (reader)
Week 14 Technology and Cyborgs
T Apr 14 Donna Haraway “Manifesto for Cyborgs” (reader)
Th Apr 16 Machine Age: Lecture
Week 15 Manifesto
T. Apri 21 Discussion
Th Apr 23 Discussion
Week 16 Wrap-up
T Apr 28 TBA
Th Apr 30 TBA
2nd Paper Due
