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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