Carnegie Mellon University
Fall 2010

Course PosterFall 2010 Course

Image/Word/Place: The Dynamic Interface of Arts and Humanities–Now and Then

Prof. Lowry Burgess, School of Art
Prof. Jon Klancher, Department of English
Tu/Th 12:00-1:20
Fall 2010

Art 60-390 and English 76-309

This is a unique cross-disciplinary course for students from CFA and HSS. We will both construct and demonstrate the interface between Arts and Humanities, images and words in several ways:

  1. What kinds of images, language, technology, communication, visual-verbal relationships do we enact in the present including the explosion of globalized internet communications of image/word? How do we feel about these and what kinds of questions do they make us ask?
  2. What were the historic and foundational controversies about images/words, iconoclasm and idolatry?
  3. How did the arts respond in the 1800s to the emerging industrial and arts-producing cities of Europe and the U.S.? How did words and images interact in then-modern media and the public world of this historical period.
  4. How have painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, and critics in the 1900s coupled the visual and verbal, artistic and literary/rhetorical media? Here the focus will be on arts communities or movements–surrealists, Dadaists, pre-Raphaelites, Bauhaus, Beats, and others.
  5. Finally, the course turns to the 1960s-2000s, from "pop art" and "public art" to current multimedia, and we will be using the latest projects of the Center for Arts in Society to explore this controversial space between the arts, humanities, and society. We'll have guest faculty from several disciplines. Students will be required to write short exploratory papers and undertake a larger, relevant research project.