ENGL 009H. First-Year Seminar: Portraits of the Artist

We will study works portraying artists in a variety of media, seeking a critical understanding of the ways in which artists in different times and places have interacted with their societies. We'll also seek to answer broader questions:

  • What is cultural studies?
  • How can we ask better questions about how a particular story-world creates meaning?
  • In what ways are artists part of their place & time, yet also able to imagine worlds that may resonate with audiences in very different eras?
  • How does literature inspire critical thinking and imagining a different future?

Here are some of the materials for the Fall 2022 syllabus:

  • "How 17 Outsize Portraits Rattled a Small Southern Town/ Newnan, Ga., decided to use art to help the community celebrate diversity and embrace change. Not everyone was ready for what they saw."/ Artist featured: Mary Beth Meehan NYTimes, Jan. 20, 2020.
  • Lin-Manuel Miranda, the music & lyrics for "Breathe" from In the Heights (2008); "My Shot" from Hamilton (2015); and "Surface Pressure" from Encanto (2021).
  • Hope Boykin, choreographer: "It's OK too. Feel" (dance during 2020 quarantine).
  • Ghost in the Shell (film, 1995) based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow; screenplay by Kazunori Itō; directed by Mamoru Oshii. 
  • A short story/portrait of the artist as a young woman by Sandra Cisneros, from Woman Hollering Creek (1991).
  • Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (first novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy, 1995, also made into an HBO series).
  • Janelle Monáe, Dirty Computer 2019 "emotion picture"/music video.
  • Poems by Audre Lorde, Ada Limón, and Franny Choi.
  • A brilliant short parable by Jorge Luis Borges.

Also to be assigned will be selected background and critical materials. All of the assigned and optional readings/viewing will be available on the course's Moodle website, with the exception of Pullman's novel The Golden Compass (available from the Bookstore).

 
Humanities.
Writing course.
1 credit.
Fall 2022. Schmidt.
Fall 2024. Schmidt.
Catalog chapter: English Literature  
Department website: http://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature


Access the class schedule to search for sections.



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