Grotesque and Caricature: Leonardo to Bernini, edited by Rebecca Norris and Lucia Tantardini, 2023
The introduction outlines the relationship between the grotesque and caricature. Initially inspir... more The introduction outlines the relationship between the grotesque and caricature. Initially inspired by the fashion for grotesque ornament, grotesque heads make frequent appearance in paintings, drawings, and prints over the course of the sixteenth century. Grotesque heads gave way to caricature, a graphic practice that flourished in the following century. As related forms of graphic representation that exaggerate physical features such as large noses, the practice of disfiguration raises questions about contemporary discourse on fantasy, invention and decorum in art.
Giants and Dwarfs in European Art and Culture, ca. 1350–1750: Real, Imagined, Metaphorical, 2024
Seventeenth-century sources defined the new genre of caricatura as a playful portrait that exagge... more Seventeenth-century sources defined the new genre of caricatura as a playful portrait that exaggerated a person’s flaws. Physical shortcomings, such as large noses and weak chins were distorted to poke fun at the sitter. In the life of Baccio del Bianco, the biographer connected the production of caricature to drawings of caramogi (hunchbacked dwarfs), which appeared as frequent subjects in Florentine comic drawings. Early modern caricatures featured dwarf figures, which were not actual portraits but fantastic images that manipulated features for comic effect. Comparable to modern cartoonists, early caricaturists manipulated scale to allude to the dwarf-giant topoi to produce a funnier image. This chapter examines how early caricaturists used non-normative bodies as a visual strategy to create satirical imagery.
Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2012
Caricature emerged as a pictorial genre in early modern Italy and became a potent form of social ... more Caricature emerged as a pictorial genre in early modern Italy and became a potent form of social satire practiced by the period’s foremost draftsmen, including the Carracci and Guercino. The deformed and misshapen subjects of caricature drawings coincided with a fascination with monstrosity. Monsters, aberrations, and anomalies reflected a cultural appreciation for the curious. The monster that slowly took shape in scientific literature was first alluded to in comparative physiognomic texts that related human to beast, then made brief appearances in the discourse on medical conditions, and finally became the primary focus of specialty publications. The attention given to physical aberrance led to the birth of teratology, the medical study of abnormal development, and the subsequent publication of several well-known monster histories by Fortunio Liceti and Ulisse Aldrovandi. This essay considers the rise of the monstrous by examining several trends in contemporary scientific discours...
Interdisciplinary Place-Based Learning in Urban Education, 2017
City Tech’s course, Healing the Body: The Visual Culture of Medicine, explores the juncture of ar... more City Tech’s course, Healing the Body: The Visual Culture of Medicine, explores the juncture of art and medicine using a multi-disciplinary approach. Taught by faculty experts in art history, nursing, and pathology, students investigate a range of issues in visual culture through three themes dedicated to representations of the medical body, disease and illness, and healing and treatment. Mapping serves as a representational and metaphorical construct for connecting the units, and it is central to several course lessons on epidemiology. In lieu of a conventional, place-based learning activity, students access a virtual world by playing the game Plague Inc. The interactive nature of the game helps to enhance student learning about the multiple variables of disease transmission.
Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective nar... more Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective narratives shows this population of students at an urban commuter college of technology face significant challenges in the transition into college. Designed to assist in this transition, the “Our Stories” digital writing project incorporates reflective writing in the long established, yet recently revitalized, learning communities program. Through analysis of the “Our Stories” project, we examine how the structure of our learning communities program, together with writing on an open digital platform, builds community and has the potential to positively influence students as they identify, and begin to make sense, of the social, emotional, and bureaucratic challenges in their transition into college. The role of peer mentors, faculty and administrators in this project is discussed.
In this article, we present lessons learned from "Our Stories," a digital writing project designe... more In this article, we present lessons learned from "Our Stories," a digital writing project designed to assist students in the transition from high school to college. From the collective digital narratives of first-year and first-generation students at an urban public college, who are primarily Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), low-income, and immigrant, and who participated in a First-year Learning Communities course, we examine the challenges of becoming a college student at a public college. Further, we explore how digital writing supports community-building and influences students' transition experience, in particular, making sense of shared challenges. For these BIPOC students, the act of reflecting and writing about their college transition fostered individual and collective awareness and a sense of belonging as they began to negotiate college life. Their narratives also highlight the need for social justice pedagogies that are responsive to student experiences, use asset-based approaches, build community, and promote the active role of students in shaping their educational experiences.
Grotesque and Caricature: Leonardo to Bernini, edited by Rebecca Norris and Lucia Tantardini, 2023
The introduction outlines the relationship between the grotesque and caricature. Initially inspir... more The introduction outlines the relationship between the grotesque and caricature. Initially inspired by the fashion for grotesque ornament, grotesque heads make frequent appearance in paintings, drawings, and prints over the course of the sixteenth century. Grotesque heads gave way to caricature, a graphic practice that flourished in the following century. As related forms of graphic representation that exaggerate physical features such as large noses, the practice of disfiguration raises questions about contemporary discourse on fantasy, invention and decorum in art.
Giants and Dwarfs in European Art and Culture, ca. 1350–1750: Real, Imagined, Metaphorical, 2024
Seventeenth-century sources defined the new genre of caricatura as a playful portrait that exagge... more Seventeenth-century sources defined the new genre of caricatura as a playful portrait that exaggerated a person’s flaws. Physical shortcomings, such as large noses and weak chins were distorted to poke fun at the sitter. In the life of Baccio del Bianco, the biographer connected the production of caricature to drawings of caramogi (hunchbacked dwarfs), which appeared as frequent subjects in Florentine comic drawings. Early modern caricatures featured dwarf figures, which were not actual portraits but fantastic images that manipulated features for comic effect. Comparable to modern cartoonists, early caricaturists manipulated scale to allude to the dwarf-giant topoi to produce a funnier image. This chapter examines how early caricaturists used non-normative bodies as a visual strategy to create satirical imagery.
Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural, 2012
Caricature emerged as a pictorial genre in early modern Italy and became a potent form of social ... more Caricature emerged as a pictorial genre in early modern Italy and became a potent form of social satire practiced by the period’s foremost draftsmen, including the Carracci and Guercino. The deformed and misshapen subjects of caricature drawings coincided with a fascination with monstrosity. Monsters, aberrations, and anomalies reflected a cultural appreciation for the curious. The monster that slowly took shape in scientific literature was first alluded to in comparative physiognomic texts that related human to beast, then made brief appearances in the discourse on medical conditions, and finally became the primary focus of specialty publications. The attention given to physical aberrance led to the birth of teratology, the medical study of abnormal development, and the subsequent publication of several well-known monster histories by Fortunio Liceti and Ulisse Aldrovandi. This essay considers the rise of the monstrous by examining several trends in contemporary scientific discours...
Interdisciplinary Place-Based Learning in Urban Education, 2017
City Tech’s course, Healing the Body: The Visual Culture of Medicine, explores the juncture of ar... more City Tech’s course, Healing the Body: The Visual Culture of Medicine, explores the juncture of art and medicine using a multi-disciplinary approach. Taught by faculty experts in art history, nursing, and pathology, students investigate a range of issues in visual culture through three themes dedicated to representations of the medical body, disease and illness, and healing and treatment. Mapping serves as a representational and metaphorical construct for connecting the units, and it is central to several course lessons on epidemiology. In lieu of a conventional, place-based learning activity, students access a virtual world by playing the game Plague Inc. The interactive nature of the game helps to enhance student learning about the multiple variables of disease transmission.
Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective nar... more Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective narratives shows this population of students at an urban commuter college of technology face significant challenges in the transition into college. Designed to assist in this transition, the “Our Stories” digital writing project incorporates reflective writing in the long established, yet recently revitalized, learning communities program. Through analysis of the “Our Stories” project, we examine how the structure of our learning communities program, together with writing on an open digital platform, builds community and has the potential to positively influence students as they identify, and begin to make sense, of the social, emotional, and bureaucratic challenges in their transition into college. The role of peer mentors, faculty and administrators in this project is discussed.
In this article, we present lessons learned from "Our Stories," a digital writing project designe... more In this article, we present lessons learned from "Our Stories," a digital writing project designed to assist students in the transition from high school to college. From the collective digital narratives of first-year and first-generation students at an urban public college, who are primarily Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), low-income, and immigrant, and who participated in a First-year Learning Communities course, we examine the challenges of becoming a college student at a public college. Further, we explore how digital writing supports community-building and influences students' transition experience, in particular, making sense of shared challenges. For these BIPOC students, the act of reflecting and writing about their college transition fostered individual and collective awareness and a sense of belonging as they began to negotiate college life. Their narratives also highlight the need for social justice pedagogies that are responsive to student experiences, use asset-based approaches, build community, and promote the active role of students in shaping their educational experiences.
Uploads
Papers by Sandra Cheng