College Bulletin 2022-2023 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
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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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