CHUM319 - The Modernist City and Country: Nostalgic and Utopian Impulses in 20th-Century Documentary Art

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Academic Year 2005/2006

The Modernist City and Country: Nostalgic and Utopian Impulses in 20th-Century Documentary Art
CHUM 319 SP

Crosslistings:
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?

MAJOR READINGS

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

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.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: HA CHUM Grading Mode: Graded

Prerequisites: NONE

SECTION 01

Instructor(s): Scappettone,Jennifer Sue

Times: ..T.... 07:00PM-09:50PM; Location: CFH106;

Reserved Seats: (Total Limit: 15)

SR. major: 5 Jr. major: 5

SR. non-major: 2 Jr. non-major: 2 SO: 1 FR: 0

Special Attributes:

Curricular Renewal: Reading Non-Verbal Texts

Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006