Office Hours

Please note that my office hours on Wednesday November 23rd will  be cancelled.  I will add an hour on Thursday November 24, 2:30-3:30 pm.

Reading for Mimicry and Contemporary Art — November 23

1) Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse, “October , Vol. 28, Discipleship: A Special Issue on Psychoanalysis (Spring, 1984), pp. 125-133.  A full-text electronic copy of this is available through JStor on the library website.  It is not on reserve.

2) Interview with Sophie Calle: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/16/artnews.art

 

* If you are writing this week, please write on the Bhabha essay.

Dorian Gray – Film Clips

The following might be of interest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKVAka2YiT8&feature=related

Thanks for your thoughts and participation in class tonight!

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Read about the novel’s controversy here.

From the syllabus:

October 26 — The Picture of Dorian Gray

• Oscar Wilde Picture of Dorian Gray, entire text.   In bookstore.

How does the story represent  imitation?  What do you make of the idea that art imitates life/life imitates art?  Can you make a connection between this story and Freud’s theory of the uncanny? What is the link between imitation and psychology in this text?  Is there a warning here?  If yes, what is it?

Other questions:  Can you read the novel through other ideas about imitation we have addressed so far in the course?

October 19 — Pygmalion & Cocteau

• Ovid, “Pygmalion” in Metamorphoses. Reserve.
• Screening of Blood of a Poet, a film by Jean Cocteau, 1930.
This week we will focus on the myth of Pygmalion. Please read Ovid’s version. Why does
Pygmalion make this statue? What are the implications of his creation?  What kinds of issues arise when thinking of imitation in this way?

October 12 — Modernity, Anxiety & the Double

Readings:

• Freud, “The Uncanny”, 1919, in Volume 17 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, pp. 219-256.  Reserve.
• ETA Hoffmann, “The Sandman” from Tales of Hoffmann.  Reserve.
• Jorge Luis Borges, “The Other” in Collected Fictions, pp. 411- 417. Reserve.

Our focus for this class will be the double.

How is a double a form of imitation?  How is this kind of imitation presented and experienced?  How and why is the double an enduring symbol?  How is it perceived in the modern (19th c.) period?

To answer these questions we will begin with Freud’s essay on the uncanny. Your first task is to understand Freud’s text.  It is not the easiest text, so expect to spend a little time on it.  Come to class with good notes on his main points and pay special attention to the areas that seem to say something about the double, or about imitation.  Read Borges’ story “The Double” second, again thinking about the idea of the double and what it means.  Finally read Hoffmann’s tale (it is discussed in Freud’s text).  Spend the bulk of your time figuring out Freud’s essay and be prepared to summarize it.

See you Wednesday!  I expect to be able to hand back your essay proposals then.

Tomorrow’s Class

 

October 5  — Baroque & Trompe l’Oeil

• Zeuxis and Parrhasius – Pliny the Elder, Natural History. The Elder Pliny’s Chapters on the History of Art. Reserve. Don’t worry about this reading. 
• Jorge Luis Borges, “Library of Babel” in Collected Fictions, p. 112 -118. Reserve.

We will also read Georges Bataille, “Informe.” Documents 7 (December 1929), p. 382.  I’ll bring a photocopy of the English translation to class.  It’s only one paragraph long.

If you don’t know much about the Baroque period please conduct some background reading; sources are available under “Baroque & Trompe l’Oeil” on the blog.  The Baroque is characterized by excess.  To that end we might also think about Georges Bataille’s notion of the “part maudite” (the “accursed share”), which is a kind of excess.  I’ll talk a bit about it in class.

We won’t be reading anything written in the Baroque period (the 17th century), but we will take some ideas about representation and apply them to Baroque paintings.

Questions for this week:

• What is the role of imitation?  What should it set out to do? Is it necessary to faithfully reproduce nature?  Why or why not?
• Can there be an excess of imitation?  What happens?  How do we contain imitation?
• Is it possible to have an imitation that contains everything?  What would that look like? Why would anyone want it?
• Look up the phrase “trompe l’oeil.”  How does it relate to what we’ve read so far?  Look at a couple of examples of Baroque illusionistic paintings before class.  (Look at any book on Baroque art or Google “illusionistic Baroque ceiling frescoes” for images).  Would Plato or Aristotle be impressed by these? Why or why not?
• How is this similar or different from Renaissance perspective?

REMEMBER: your essay proposals are due this week!

September 28 — The Renaissance: A Window Onto the World

Readings:

• Alberti De Pictura — read the Prologue and Books I-III, online at http://www.noteaccess.com/Texts/Alberti/
• Erwin Panofsky, Perspective as Symbolic Form, New York: Zone Books, 1991.  All of Panofsky’s text (sections 1 through 4),excluding the notes and preface. pp. 27-72.

You may want to do some background reading on the Renaissance if you are unfamiliar with this period and culture.  See the links at the right of this page.

A few questions: How does Alberti describe imitation? What is istoria?  Why is it important? Invention v. imitation? Why so much emphasis on poetry?

Is perspective simply a system for imitating a 3-D object on a 2-D surface, or is it more than that?  According to Panofsky, what are the social, cultural and visual implications of the discovery of perspective?

Class on September 21

Hi Everyone,

I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow in our strange little seminar room.    To refresh your memory, tomorrow’s readings and questions are below.

Some of you signed up to hand in your first reading response tomorrow.  Remember that you must bring a hard copy to class AND submit a digital copy to turnitin.com before 5pm.  Be sure to upload it to the section called “Reading Response #1″.

Please pay close attention to these readings as Plato and Aristotle form the basis of this course. We will refer to these two texts again and again during the course of the semester. They are the foundational texts for Western thought on imitation.

The Ancient World: Mimesis and Forms 

• Plato, The Republic, Book VII (514a–520a) (Allegory of the Cave).
• Aristotle, Poetics, entire text.  Focus your reading on the sections that address imitation / mimesis fairly explicitly, especially I-IV, IX, XXV, XXVI.  You do not need to read the preface or any of the notes.  Read only Aristotle’s text (called “Poetics,” “On the Art of Poetry” or “The Poietic Arts”).
  

Both texts are available in the library on reserve both as paper and digital copies.  Follow this link.

 Instructions for the digital version on reserve: If you are using the digital text, this runs from digital page numbers 76 – 176 (at the very top right of the page, next to the table of contents icon). Note that every other page is a commentary on the text.  You only need to read the text.  Each of the pages of Aristotles text are headed by “The Poietic Arts” and fall on the odd numbered pages (and here I mean the  paper (scanned) page numbers).  You must also read Appendices A, B and C (beginning on digital page 185). There is no commentary on these sections. If this is confusing, just go to an online, downloadable version, such as the one at Project Gutenberg.  It is MUCH easier to follow.  

Expect to read these texts at least twice.  Take good notes while you are reading as this will help you to understand the readings.  Focus on defining terms (mimesis or imitation — depending on your translation; forms; representation) and figuring out the main ideas.

Some questions to get you started: What do each of the philosophers think of imitation?  How do the two texts compare to one another?  How is art defined and what are its goals?  Is this similar or different than how you think of art?  Why or why not?

Plato: What are Plato’s forms?  How are the connected to the idea of imitation?

Aristotle: What is catharsis?  Why is is significant?  What are the differences between comedy and tragedy and why are they important?  What are the differences between poetry and history?  Why are they significant?

Hello and Welcome to Class

Welcome students in Imitation in Western Art and Culture!

I know several of you already and am looking forward to getting to know those who have not previously taken one of my classes.  For those who are curious, or would like to get a head start, you can download the syllabus under the heading “Documents.”

Have a great summer.  We will see each other on September 14.