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Updated 01/15/09

Humanities 450/550, Spring 2009

SEMINAR: MODERNISM AND THE ARTS

Mondays, 6:00-9:45 p.m.               PA 104

 

Professor:        Donald Larsson              Office:  AH 301-L

Phone:             389-2368                      E-Mail: donald.larsson@mnsu.edu

Office Hours:    MW    4:00-5:00 p.m.  and by appointment

 

Course Objectives	Undergraduate Requirements	Graduate Requirements	Grading	Schedule
	Links	Events

 

Note: On most weekdays, I will be on campus for most of the day.  However, because of my duties as MSU Mankato Faculty Association (IFO) President, I may sometimes have to cancel an office hour and I will often be in meetings on or off campus.  I will be off-campus on most Thursdays and Fridays.  It’s always best to check ahead of time if you want to meet with me.  I will reply to phone messages and emails as soon as possible.

 

 

TEXTS:

Brecht, Bertolt, The Three-Penny Opera

Hughes, Robert.  The Shock of the New.  Revised ed.

Kafka, Franz.  The Transformation ("Metamorphosis") and Other Stories.

Parisi, Joseph.  100 Essential Modern Poems

Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, et al., Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents

Woolf, Virginia.  Mrs. Dalloway.

 

Course Objectives:

This course will attempt to offer a multi-disciplinary view of Modernism, the set of aesthetic movements that changed the course of art and thought in Europe and America and elsewhere during the first half of the 20th century.  We will examine developments in dance, music, theater, film, art, and literature from this period, the different sub-movements of the modernist movements, and how modernism developed into “post-modernism.”  We will try to draw some conclusions about issues stemming from these efforts:

·         How much did Modernism reject the past and how much did it build on it?

·         How did Modernism interact with the technological and social changes of modernity?

·         How did Modernism interact with political and social events of the time?

·         What concepts and principles drove the different movements and artists who could be called Modernists?

·         What are the legacies of Modernism in a Postmodern age?

·         By the end of this course, you should be able to

o       Offer a working definition of “Modernism”

o       Explain major developments that led to the emergence of Modernism as a multi-disciplinary movement in the early 20^th century

o       Analyze specific works of literature, music, art, dance, etc. in relation to Modernism

o       Discuss how later artists and movements built on or reacted to the legacies of Modernism in the arts

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Course Requirements—Undergraduate:

• Weekly class attendance and participation (150 points @ 10 points per week); week 2 (MLK Day) is a free 10 points!
• Weekly discussion entries on Desire2Learn (D2L)  (150 points @ 10 points per week); week 2 (MLK Day) is a free 10 points!
• Short Oral Report on an artist (painter, musician, writer, etc.), with Annotated Bibliography  (200 points)
• Analysis of a specific work or group of works (music, literature, painting, film, etc.) in written or online format (300 points), due by the end of the semester
• A take-home Mid-term Exam (200 points), due by the end of Spring Break

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Course Requirements—Graduate: 

• Weekly class attendance and participation (150 points @ 10 points per week); week 2 (MLK Day) is a free 10 points!
• Weekly discussion entries on Desire2Learn (D2L)  (150 points @ 10 points per week); week 2 (MLK Day) is a free 10 points!
• Leading one class session (100 points), with notes and handouts
• Short Oral Report on an artist (painter, musician, writer, etc.), with Annotated Bibliography  (150 points)
• Analysis of a specific work or group of works (music, literature, painting, film, etc.) in written format (300 points), due by the end of the semester
• A take-home Mid-term Exam (150 points), due by the end of Spring Break, with separate questions for Graduate Students

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Grading:

Your grade will be based on a point total of 1,000 points, on a percentage scale, using shaded(+/-) grading:

 

 

 

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Schedule (Subject to Change)

 

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Links:

General--

The Voice of the Shuttle: General Index for Humanities-Related Studies
            http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/shuttle/art.html

Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise (Music Critic for The New Yorker and author of The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century: See http://us.macmillan.com/therestisnoise)
            http://www.therestisnoise.com/ , Ross's website has valuable links and playable and downloadable music samples.

Modern Art  Timeline: http://www.the-artists.org/art-movements.cfm
           A very useful resource for tracking artistic movements, indvidual artists, and their works up to and during the 20th century. 

Poets.Org: http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/58.
            A great website for finding brief biographies and examples of poems from a huge range of poets.