IDIS.304.101: ARTS AND IDEAS

Winterim Schedule:

Saturdays, January 3, 10, 17 and 24, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Tuesdays and Thursdays, January 6, 8, 13, 15, 20 and 22, 5:30 - 8:30 PM

Room 217 Thumel Business Center

Weather Advisory:

If any class is cancelled because of inclement weather, the makeup date will be Wednesday, January 21 from 5:30 to 8:30 in BC 217.
Professor Legon:

Office: 249 AC

Telephone: 837-5244

E-mail: rlegon@ubmail.ubalt.edu

Office hrs: M - F 9 AM - Noon and 1 - 5 PM

Theme of the course: The focus of this course will be on enhancing appreciation of the literature and the arts in the context of their times. Emphasis will be on the humanistic tradition, from Ancient Greece to the contemporary world. We will examine how the prevalent ideas and values of society are reflected in works of art, and how they, in turn, influence and promote those ideas. We will concentrate on selected works of literature and the visual arts.

Required Reading:

Texts:

H. D. F. Kitto, The Greeks, Penguin Books

Gloria K. Fiero,The Humanistic Tradition, vols. 4, 5 & 6, Brown & Benchmark

Readings:

Homer, The Iliad, tr. by S. Lombardo, Hackett Publishing Co.

Sophocles I, tr. by D. Grene, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press

Emile Zola, Germinal, tr. by P. Collier, Oxford University Press

Albert Camus, The Stranger, tr. by M. Ward, Vintage Books

Occasional handouts

Note: Assigned reading should be completed by the dates indicated below. The required reading is approximately 1,200 pages (400 per week). Readings are generally selections rather than entire books. Read these works in their entirety, if time permits; books are more satisfying that way. I also recommend reading the introductions to the assigned books to enhance your appreciation and understanding.

WebBoard

New Question Posted on: January 20

The WebBoard is an internet tool that will enable students and the instructor to post questions and comments about the reading, and to participate in an online discussion. Instructions for the use of the WebBoard may be found at http://webteach.ubalt.edu/IDIS304/faq.html

Graded Assignments:

Weekly Quizes....................................................... 30%

Review of Exhibit or Performance........................... 20%

Final Examination.................................................... 40%

Class Participation (including WebBoard postings) .. 10%

Syllabus:

Jan. 3. Introduction: Goals of the Course; Framework of Ideas; Issues and Definitions

Reading: Homer, The Iliad, Book I

Jan. 6. Homer and Greek Humanism

Reading: Homer, The Iliad, Books 1- 6, 9, 18 and 22 - 24 (about 200 pp.). Kitto, The Greeks, Chapters 2-4 (pp. 12-64).

Jan. 8. The Greek polis, Athens and the Art of the “Golden Age”

Reading: Kitto, The Greeks, Chapters 5, 10 and 11 (pp. 64-79 and 169-204).

Handouts: Herodotus, Solon and Croesus; Thucydides, The Melian Dialogue, Xenophanes, Protagoras and Democritus, Fragments, and Plato, Apology and Euthyphro (excerpts)

Jan 10. Greek Tragedy

Reading: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex and Antigone (about 115 pp).

Jan. 13. The Age of Enlightenment

Reading: Fiero, Vol. 4, pp. 43-82, 97-129 and 131-168, including readings from Bacon, Condorcet, Descartes, Diderot, Equiano, Hobbes, Locke, Moliere, Pope, Adam Smith, Swift, and Voltaire

Jan. 15. Romanticism

Reading: Fiero, Vol. 5, pp. 3-69, including readings from the English Romantic Poets: Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley; the American Transcendentalists: Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; and Goethe's Faust

Jan. 17. Realism and Impressionism

Reading: Fiero, Vol. 5, pp. 71-138, inlcuding Marx and Engels' Communist Manefesto, Dickens, Dosoevsky, Flaubert, Kate Chopin, and Ibsen; and Zola, Germinal Parts 1-3 (about 195 pages).

Jan. 20. Modernism and Alienation

Reading: Fiero, Vol. 6, pp. 3-95, including Freud, Proust, Kafka, Remarque, Sartre, Malamud, Eliot, and Beckett.

Jan. 22. The Anti-Hero

Reading: Camus, The Stranger (120 pp.)

Final Examination:

Tuesday, January 24 at 9:00 AM. Questions will be distributed in class on January 22.
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HOW TO APPROACH A WORK OF ART

Finding the Context

1. Identify the form, style and/or genre of the work.

2. Describe the basic content or subject matter of the work.

3. Determine when the work was created and in what artistic/cultural period it falls.

4. Find out the circumstances surrounding the work's creation:

  1. Sources of information
    1. Preserved comments of the artist
    2. Other contemporary evidence
    3. Inferences from the work itself
  2. Involvement of a patron and/or special audience or occasion
  3. Choice of subject matter
  4. Reception of the work when it first appeared

Appraising the Work itself:

Craftsmanship: Does the work successfully fulfill the formal, stylistic and technical conventions of the time?

Originality: Does the work pioneer new forms, styles, and techniques?

Message: What message or point of view does the work convey?

Unity: How internally consistent, unified, and complete is the work?

Effect: What feelings and reactions does the work is the artist trying to elicit from the audience? How did the work affect you?

Comparative Judgements:

How does this work compare in craftsmanship, originality, and impact with other works of the same period and similar works from other periods with which you are familiar?

What is your overall judgement of the work's place in the history of its artistic form?

N.B.: Distinguish between your own opinions and those of critics and historians.