Upcoming Special Topics Courses

In the spring, the Department of Art & Art History will offer the following special topic courses:

ART 319 - Zen and Modernism
Thursdays, 3:00-5:30 p.m.
Art history professor Stephen Addiss

This is a one-time-only seminar that will be given in conjunction with the Harnett Museum's exhibition, John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures. The class will explore traditional Zen texts, and continue with studies of modernist artists in different fields and media. There will be class visits from Zen Master Josho Pat Phelan, the director of the John Cage Trust, Laura Kuhn, and Ray Kass, the artist who worked with John Cage in creating his watercolors.

ARTS 279 or PHIL 280 - Land Art and Landscape: Aesthetics, Design, Practice
Mondays and Wednesdays, 3:00-4:15 p.m.
Team taught by philosophy professor Gary Shapiro and art professor Erling Sjovold

This co-taught course will combine aesthetic theory and artistic practice in its exploration of traditional and contemporary landscape and land art. We will study relevant major developments in painting, landscape architecture, and earthworks. We will consider aesthetic concepts such as the beautiful, the sublime, and the picturesque in their relation to these arts. Studio work in drawing, painting, and design will be informed by our readings of theorists of aesthetics and design, including F.L. Olmsted (designer of New York’s Central Park) and Robert Smithson, a “postmodern” twentieth century American earthworks artist. Students will engage in developing and executing designs.

ARTS 279 - Graphic Novels and Comics
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:00-2:00 p.m.
PT Instructor of Printmaking Andy Kozlowski

This class will explore comic books and graphic novels as ways in which to communicate narrative over a sequence of pages. The focus of this class will be on the current DIY (do-it-yourself) aesthetic found in contemporary hand-made comics and zines. Using simple reproduction methods, including photocopiers, laser printers, online printing, and screenprinting combined with hand drawn and hand composed layouts students will create editions of handcrafted books. The immediacy of the process and the openness of the medium allows for any student to produce traditionally inexpensive hand-made books. Ideas concerning methods of distribution and communication will form a backdrop to a larger discussion about art production in an increasingly digital age.