HUM117 the arts, the senses & the imagination

SYLLABUS

Professor: David Meckler, Ph.D.

office hrs: one hour before class in the classroom

Email: (not for assignments; start subject header with “ASI” to get my attention) Voice-mail: (650) 306-3439

What other course has you taste chocolate as an assignment? The Arts, the Senses & the Imagination course explores the arts through the senses, and the senses through the arts. To structure the course, we will use Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses.

Many courses about the arts, particularly music and art, organize their material in a historical fashion. That is fine -- I love history -- but that is not the only way to appreciate the arts, and, for many people, it is probably not the best way. The general pattern for the course will be to

Ø read the relevant chapter about one of the senses in the Ackerman book

Ø do some class activities such as viewing a film or tasting chocolate

Ø complete some notetaking exercise on the activity

Ø participate in class discussion

Ø write a brief response, essay or story relating to that sense

In addition to classroom based work, you will be required to attend or engage in 3 activities, such as going to a dance performance, concert or museum or reviewing a fine dining experience. You will be given a list of a variety of experiences to choose from. Engaging the arts though the senses is required for this course! An art museum visit and performance attendance are required.  Details & requirements will be provided on the course web site.

Required book: . Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses

Optional books: Italo Calvino, Under the Jaguar Sun; Isabel Allende, Aphrodite, A Memoir of the Senses; Beryl Markham, West With the Night; Raymond Chandler, Farwell, My Lovely

Attendance is vital.  Please, no late arrival, early departure, sleeping in class, cell phone interruptions, doing non-course related computer work or reading non-course related materials in class.  Miss a class?  Only WRITTEN excuses recorded.  It is your responsibility to drop the class if you miss more than 3 class meetings.

Grading and Assignments: worksheets & quizzes, 5 pts each, writing assignments 10 pts each, engagement (museum, dining and performance) reviews, 15 pts. Final writing assignment, 15 pts; no final exam; final paper due on final exam date, 2 June 2008. Percent of total possible points will be your grade for the class. Standard grading percentages apply (A = 90%).  

Extra Credit

Recognizing that life events interfere with perfect class attendance, extra credit may be earned by attending additional performances, lectures, exhibits, concerts, etc.  The extra credit activity must be approved by me in advance, and written & oral reports will be required, with a written & signed (by you) explanation for missing class.  Due on last regular class day (NOT at the final exam).

Academic & Personal Integrity (It is the same thing!)

You must do you own work unless specified.  Severe penalties, outlined in the Student Handbook, will be used in case of cheating or copied work without proper attribution.  Plagiarism on minor assignments or exams will lower the final grade by one letter; cheating or plagiarism on the final exam or museum & concert reviews will result in an F in the course.

Schedule 

two to three weeks (class meetings) will be devoted to these topics:

Ø vision -- looking at art; a video on the science of vision

Ø hearing -- musical elements, environmental sounds, poetry

Ø taste -- chocolate; the film Babette's Feast; controversies over wine tasting

Ø smell – part of the film Perfume. Filoli visit?

Ø touch -- touch and metaphors of texture

Ø proprioception and kinesthetic aesthetics -- dance and sports; architecture (film on Frank Gehry)

Ø synesthesia -- the cross-triggering of sense perceptions

Ø synesthesia and imagination – literature!

Tentative due dates for Engagement Reviews: 3 March 2008; 21 April 2008, 2 June 2008

Further thoughts

This course is Good! This course is Evil! How so? I think this course is great in that it brings into the academic world things that the academic world usually ignores -- pleasure and the senses such as taste, touch and smell. The problem with this course is that it still looks at experience through The Word, through language. In our assignments, we write about music, write about tasting food, write about looking at paintings . . . we don't make a painting about a great meal, create music about a poem, or dance out our feelings about great architecture. Language, the weapon of academia, is used to colonize the non-language based spheres of experience. In doing so, we at least challenge our writing skills and we may sharpen our perceptions.

Jan 2008

D.C. Meckler