The Modernist City and Country: Nostalgic and Utopian Impulses in 20th-Century Documentary Art
CHUM 319
Spring 2006
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
FIST 253, ENGL 319 |
This seminar will chart the radical transformations of regional and urban culture that took place over the turn of the 20th century as they were expressed--and produced--by works of experimental documentary in various media. We will begin by studying two regional sites whose endangered cultural artifacts demanded preservation by civic bodies: the sinking city of Venice, and the dying or dispersing folk cultures of the American South. We will ask how efforts to salvage the stones of Venice or the strains of the blues through art led both to transmogrifications of local forms and to the articulation of cosmopolitan modernist aesthetics. In the course's third section, we will study the imagination of the rising metropolis through oppositional works of documentary produced under U.S. and Soviet regimes. Throughout the semester, we will ask: How can documentary works of art--nostalgic, dystopian, or utopian--affect civic planning and policy? Where do they fail? How has civic sponsorship governed the production or stultification of art? |
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Essential Capabilities:
Reading Non-Verbal Texts |
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CHUM |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Williams, Raymond, THE COUNTRY AND THE CITY
Ruskin, John, STONES OF VENICE
Marinetti, F. T., LET'S KILL THE MOONLIGHT and AGAINST PASSEIST VENICE
Brown, Sterling, THE BOOK OF NEGRO FOLKLORE AND SOUTHERN ROAD
Lomax, John and Alan, ADVENTURES OF A BALLAD HUNTER and THE LAND WHERE THE BLUES BEGAN
Selected blues
Dos Passos, John, THE 42ND PARALLEL
Films by Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov
Artworks by J. M. W. Turner, James Whistler, Umberto Boccioni, Le Corbusier, Yona Friedman
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Examinations and Assignments:
1 short (4-page) paper, 1 in-class presentation, 1 research paper |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
This course should be of interest to students of literature, art, music, film, and anthropology; no prior experiences of any one medium is presupposed or required. |
| Instructor(s): Scappettone,Jennifer Sue Times: ..T.... 07:00PM-09:50PM; Location: CFH106; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 5 | JR major: 5 | | |
| Seats Available: 0 | GRAD: 0 | SR non-major: 2 | JR non-major: 2 | SO: 1 | FR: 0 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 1 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 1 |
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