20th C Aesthetics and Politics
Time: TTh 10:30-11:50
Dr. Hollis Robbins
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 20th century? We will examine the important aesthetic and political revolutions that took place since about 1900, exploring how artistic and political movements clashed and coincided. We will read and debate the manifesto genre; we will explore debates about censorship, government arts funding, state sponsorship of art, and the nature of political art.
II. Course Requirements:
Attendance/Class participation
Debate/Presentation
Two analytical papers (4-6 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%
Debate/Presentation: 20%.
Two papers: Midterm paper (25%), final paper (30%) Total: 50%.
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)
IV. Schedule and Reading
Week 1 Intro & backgrounds
T Jan 18 Intro to Concepts: Aesthetics and Politics
Th Jan 20 Intro to Marxism: Marx and Engels (M&A to p. 76)
Week 2 Turn of the Century Conflicts
T Jan 25 (More) Marxist Aesthetics (M&A to p. 76)
Th Jan 27 Georgi Plekhanov (M&A 119-143)
Rosa Luxemburg (M&A 144-159)
Debate questions: whose side were Shakespeare and Tolstoy on? What are the stakes?
Week 3 Art Politics and Revolution
T Feb 1 Bolsheviks: Lenin (M&A163-186)
Trotsky (187-198)
Th Feb 3 Nikolai Bukharin (199-214)
Debate questions: Does somebody need to keep an eye on the artists? Why or why not?
Week 4 Politics, Class, and Art
T Feb 8 Zhdanovism, Overdeterminism, Modernism (M&A 235-260)
Th Feb 10 China: The Cultural Revolution (Mao readings TBA)
Debate questions: how can art by “for” a class? Does art produce class or class produce art?
Week 5 Humanist Aesthetics
T Feb 15 Finkelstein (M&A 274-280)), Lukacs (M&A 404-419)
Th Feb 17 Benjamin “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (541-561)
Max Raphael (M&A 442-453)
Debate question: why do the Humanists all end up dead? Or forgotten?
Week 6 No Classes – Auditions – but finish My Name is Asher Lev. Paper due March 11
Week 7 Religion and Art
T Mar 1 Lecture: Potok: My Name is Asher Lev
Th Mar 3 Continue Asher Lev
Debate question: Do Hasidism and Stalinism really have anything in common?
Week 8 Ideology and more Ideology
T Mar 8 Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses” (reader)
Th Mar 10 Finish Asher Lev; discussion
Debate question: is there any art that is not ideological?
1st Paper Due: Potok and Kant
Week 9 Contexts and Movements
T Mar 15 Freud (reader)
Th Mar 17 Symbolism, Futurism, Surrealism
Andre Breton (M&A 502-514)
Debate questions: What would art be like without Freud? Without his Unconscious?
Week 10 No Class: Spring Break
Week 11 Films
T Mar 29 Christo: Islands
Th Mar 31 Shostakovich and Stalin
Week 12 Gender Politics and Aesthetics
T Apr 5 Feminism (Lecture), Readings
Th Apr 7 Gynocriticism (reader
Showalter “Toward a Feminist Poetics”
Debate questions: (no need – we’ll all get in a big fight. You’ll see)
Week 13 Race Politics and Aesthetics
T Apr 12 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Writing Race and the Difference it Makes” (reader)
Th Apr 14 Said, Orientalism, “Introduction” (reader)
Debate questions: (no need – you think last week’s fight was bad?)
Week 14 Technology and Cyborgs
T Apr 19 Donna Haraway “Manifesto for Cyborgs” (reader)
Th Apr 21 Machine Age: Lecture
Debate question: Does Haraway bury Humanism once and for all?
Week 15 Debates
T. Apri 26 The Utility or Danger of a Ministry of Culture
Th Apr 26 Aesthetics: Superstructure versus Base
Week 16 Manifestos
T May 3 Student manifesto presentations
Th May 5 Student manifesto presentations
2nd Paper/Manifesto Due
