This document outlines the syllabus for a writing seminar on sculpture and modernism taught by Natasha Ruiz-Gómez at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2005. The course will examine how sculpture became modern in Paris between the late 19th century and World War I, identifying the forces that propelled artists to break from tradition. Students will analyze readings and develop their critical thinking and writing skills through assignments, workshops, and three formal essays. The course aims to help students improve their writing, develop a voice, and enjoy analyzing and discussing art. It will cover major sculptors from this period like Rodin, Degas, Brancusi, and Duchamp.
This document outlines the syllabus for a writing seminar on sculpture and modernism taught by Natasha Ruiz-Gómez at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2005. The course will examine how sculpture became modern in Paris between the late 19th century and World War I, identifying the forces that propelled artists to break from tradition. Students will analyze readings and develop their critical thinking and writing skills through assignments, workshops, and three formal essays. The course aims to help students improve their writing, develop a voice, and enjoy analyzing and discussing art. It will cover major sculptors from this period like Rodin, Degas, Brancusi, and Duchamp.
This document outlines the syllabus for a writing seminar on sculpture and modernism taught by Natasha Ruiz-Gómez at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2005. The course will examine how sculpture became modern in Paris between the late 19th century and World War I, identifying the forces that propelled artists to break from tradition. Students will analyze readings and develop their critical thinking and writing skills through assignments, workshops, and three formal essays. The course aims to help students improve their writing, develop a voice, and enjoy analyzing and discussing art. It will cover major sculptors from this period like Rodin, Degas, Brancusi, and Duchamp.
This document outlines the syllabus for a writing seminar on sculpture and modernism taught by Natasha Ruiz-Gómez at the University of Pennsylvania in Spring 2005. The course will examine how sculpture became modern in Paris between the late 19th century and World War I, identifying the forces that propelled artists to break from tradition. Students will analyze readings and develop their critical thinking and writing skills through assignments, workshops, and three formal essays. The course aims to help students improve their writing, develop a voice, and enjoy analyzing and discussing art. It will cover major sculptors from this period like Rodin, Degas, Brancusi, and Duchamp.
University of Pennsylvania Spring 2005 ARTH 009.301 Mondays & Wednesdays 3:004:30 PM Meyerson DRL 3C2
WRITING SEMINAR ON SCULPTURE AND MODERNISM
In Paris between the end of the 19th century and the Great War, sculpture suddenly became modern. This seminar will examine modernism through the lens of sculpture, identifying the forces that propelled artists at that particular time and place to break with a millennia-old sculptural tradition. Taking up sculpture during the Second Empire and mapping the changes in the medium over the following fifty years, we will focus on writings about both sculpture and modernism, as well as consider links between sculpture and other media in order to achieve a broader historical and artistic perspective on modernism. The objective of the course will be to introduce you to these issues while developing and refining your critical thinking and writing skills through in-class writing assignments and workshops, informal thought papers, an exploratory journal, and three 3-4 page formal essays.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
This Critical Writing Course is designed to help you:
Learn to present your thoughts and impressions cogently, forcefully, and eloquently. Understand that writing is a process and a mode of gaining knowledge and understanding and that revision is fundamental to that process. Be more critical of your own writing through dialogue, drafts, and reading. This classroom is a safe place for you to explore different writing styles and to adopt different voices, with the goals of gaining confidence and learning to write persuasively. You will also learn to critique the writing of othersboth your peers and the authors we read throughout the semester. Develop your own voice and hear it emerge in your writing. Improve the mechanics of your writing so that you write at the college level in any discipline. You will also learn the fundamentals of writing a research paper. Exercise your writing skills on both paper and a computer, because you may be surprised to find out that you are more comfortable, imaginative, and/or organized in one than the other. Enjoy looking at art, along with thinking and writing about itbecause this would be the greatest incentive for you to continue doing all three. Sculpture and Modernism, 2
COURSE SCHEDULE
CRITICAL READING AND THE MECHANICS OF WRITING
January 10 Introduction
January 12 The Second Empire and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux Focus Assignment Reading: Charles Baudelaire, Why Sculpture is Tiresome [Salon of 1846], Art in Paris, 1845-1862: Salons and Other Exhibitions, trans. and ed. Jonathan Mayne (London: Phaidon, 1970) 111-113. Reading: Anne Middleton Wagner, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Sculptor of the Second Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986) 209-256, 300-308.
January 17 No ClassMartin Luther King Jr. Day
January 19 Sculpture on Penns Campus (meet by Benjamin Franklin statue in front of College Hall) Thought Paper A Writers Resource Online Diagnostic
January 24 Rodin Thought Paper Reading: Leo Steinberg, Rodin, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) 322-403.
January 26 Rodin (continued) Thought Paper Reading: Anne M. Wagner, Rodins Reputation, Eroticism and the Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) 191-242.
January 31 Formal Essay #1 Workshop First Draft of Formal Essay due Comparison of Steinberg and Wagner
February 2 Formal Essay #1 Workshop (continued) Peer Review Outlines due Journals collected
February 7 Rodin (continued) Formal Essay #1 due Comparison of Steinberg and Wagner
CRITICAL WRITING AND DEVELOPING A VOICE
February 9 Degas Thought Paper Reading: Anthea Callen, Physiognomy and Difference, The Spectacular Body: Science, Method and Meaning in the Work of Degas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) 1-35. Sculpture and Modernism, 3
February 14 Degas (continued) and Gauguin In-Class Conferences Thought Paper Reading: Paul Gauguin, Noa Noa, trans. O.F. Theis (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994) 58-74.
February 16 Gauguin (continued) Thought Paper Reading: Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Going Native, Art in America 77.7 (July 1989): 118-129, 161.
February 21 No Class
February 23 Brancusi Analysis of reviews Reading: Reviews of Brancusi Exhibition
February 28 Formal Essay #2 Workshop Draft of Formal Essay #2 due Defend or refute the statement: Only aesthetic considerations should be applied to the study of sculpture.
March 2 Formal Essay #2 Workshop (continued) Peer Review Outlines due Journals collected
March 7 & 9 No ClassSpring Break
March 14 Brancusi (continued) Formal Essay #2 due Defend or refute the statement: Only aesthetic considerations should be applied to the study of sculpture.
WRITING A RESEARCH PAPER
March 16 Brancusi (continued) Thought paper Reading: Anna C. Chave, Constantin Brancusi: Shifting the Bases of Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993) 198-249, 313-319.
March 21 Picasso Thought Paper Reading: John Richardson, A Life of Picasso, vol. 2 (New York: Random House, 1996) 252-257.
March 23 Picasso (continued) Proposal for research paper due Reading: Franoise Gilot and Carlton Lake, Life with Picasso (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1964) 13-26, 115-122, 335-341. Sculpture and Modernism, 4
March 28 Boccioni In-Class Conferences Thought paper Reading: F.T. Marinetti, The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism [1908], and Umberto Boccioni, Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture [1912], Theories of Modern Art, ed. Herschel B. Chipp (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) 284- 289 and 298-304.
March 30 Tatlin Annotated Bibliography for research paper due Reading: Rosalind E. Krauss, Analytic Space: Futurism and Constructivism, Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977) 39-67.
April 4 Formal Essay #3 Workshop First Draft of Formal Essay #3 due Research Paper
April 6 Formal Essay #3 Workshop (continued) Peer Review continued
April 11 Formal Essay #3 Workshop (continued) Second Draft of Formal Essay #3 due Research Paper Journals collected
April 13 Duchamp Formal Essay #3 due Research Paper
April 18 Duchamp (continued) Thought Paper Reading: Molly Nesbit, Ready-Made Originals: The Duchamp Model, October 37 (Summer 1986): 53-64.
April 20 Duchamp (continued) Thought Paper
Sculpture and Modernism, 5
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Your final grade will be determined according to the following criteria:
Class Participation (10%): I expect you to come to class prepared to analyze readings, to discuss writing assignments, to participate in writing workshops, and to critique your own work and that of your peers. In other words, I expect you to be fully engaged in the course.
Thought Papers/Writing Assignments (10%): This course has been developed to help you become comfortable expressing your ideas in writing. Writing assignments will include formal essay proposals, focus assignments, and peer-review outlines, but will principally consist of informal thought papers. At the end of each class, you will be given a detailed assignment that addresses an issue related to writing (authorial voice, writing style, proposed audience, etc.). These assignments will serve as the basis for in-class workshops and will build a foundation for your three formal essays. The assignments will be evaluated with a P (pass) or R (revision recommended). Please bring two copies of each assignment to class: one to hand in at the beginning of class and one to work on during class.
Exploratory Journal (5%): You will be expected to keep a separate notebook as a journal in which you will write at least one paragraph every day. This is an opportunity for you to process/explore/analyze ideas that we discuss in class, develop questions for in-class discussion, convey your feelings about a work, practice creative writing, etc. In the journal, the quality of your thinking is more important than the style of your writing; this is not a place where you need to worry about grammar or spelling, but a place where you can work on ideas. Make sure you date each journal entry and start each days entry at the top of a clean page. I will collect your journals on February 2 nd , March 2 nd , and April 11 th and will evaluate them with a check or check minus.
Three Formal Essays (each 25%): At the end of each writing unit, you will hand in a three- to four-page formal paper that builds on the skills that we have been working on during that month. Writing assignments and in-class workshops will serve as the foundation for each of these formal essays; in addition, you will be required to turn in at least one draft of each essay for review and discussion.
Please note:
Office Hours: I am very happy to meet with you for any reason. My office hours are Wednesdays from 2 to 3 PM in Jaffe B16 (on the corner of 34 th and Walnut Streets). If that time is not convenient, I can also meet with you by appointment; please contact me at natashar@sas.upenn.edu.
Readings: The readings are an essential component of this course, both as a basis for the writing assignments and for class discussions; for this reason, you should make sure to bring a copy of the readings to every class. There is no textbook for this coursereadings are drawn from a number of sources. They are available online at the Blackboard site for this class, for purchase in a bulk pack at Campus Copy (3907 Walnut Street, 215.386.6410), and individually as pamphlets at the Reserve Desk at the Fisher Fine Arts Library. The only required text is Elaine Maimon and Janice Peritzs A Writers Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), which you will use as a resource both in this course and throughout your college career. In order to take advantage of a special arrangement between Penn and the publisher to use online writing resources and tools, the book must be bought from the Penn Bookstore, the Penn Book Center, or House of Our Own.
Museum Visits: You will be responsible for visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the course of the semester in order to complete certain assignments. Sculpture and Modernism, 6
Late Papers: Late papers will be marked down one grade per day. If you anticipate problems turning in your paper on time, you must contact me at least one week before the due date; I will grant extensions only in extreme circumstances.
Attendance: Faithful attendance is required to pass this class. Only one unexcused absence is allowed; your participation grade will decrease with each additional absence. I also expect you to come to class on time.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism constitutes an automatic failure for the course and will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct immediately.