Dr. Alex E. Blazer	Course Site	Syllabus
In Class Activities	Scholarly Criticism	Discussion Board
Paper 1	Paper 2	Research Project

 

Hungry Artists and Exquisite Corpses

Liberal Studies 310: Creativity, Winter 2008

Section 01 MWF 1:00-1:50PM, 1110 Mackinac Hall

Section 04 MWF 9:00-9:50AM, 1110 Mackinac Hall

In Class Activities

1. Annotating Scholarly Criticism

Friday, January 11: In a threefold effort to 1) conclude our discussion of Joyce's creative process, 2) practice annotating scholarly criticism for the final research project, and 3) get know each other, you will write a 75-100 word paragraph summarizing one of the articles in the Norton critical edition. I'll assign the article in class on Friday and you will bring your annotation to class on Monday.

 

A good research annotation,

1. identifies the issue or question that the source is investigating,
2. defines the source’s thesis or main idea relevant to the artwork and/or research question, and
3. explains how the source helps your understanding of the artwork and/or research project.

Monday, January 14: Share your individual annotations and then collectively compose an annotation that your entire group thinks best summarizes the journal article. Your group will present this annotation to the class.

2. Picasso's Guernica

For our first day of Guernica, we're going to practice highlighting and generalizing important concepts regarding the creative process. Break into groups of four or five and then develop out Arnheim's key passages involving creativity.

1. "Notes on Creativity": Describe one or two theories of creativity as defined and summarized by Arnheim in "Notes on Creativity."
2. "The Painting": What does Arnheim say about the creative process for this particular painting?
3. "Steps toward Guernica": As Arnheim exhaustively explains Picasso's sketches, he also provides maxims about the creative process. First, find and mark four or five such passages; then, generalize what Arnheim's concept of creativity entails.

3. A Book of Surrealist Games

In order to understand Surrealism, we're going to break into groups and place games like Exquisite Corpse from A Book of Surrealist Games.

Scholarly Criticism

• Week 2: Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (available in the Norton Critical Edition)
  • Eco, from "The Artist and Medieval Thought in the Early Joyce"
  • Cixous, from "The Artist and the Law"
  • Riquelme, from "Dedalus and Joyce Writing the Book of Themselves"
  • Scott, "The Artist and Gendered Discourse"
  • Eide, "The Woman of the Ballyhoura Hills: James Joyce and the Politics of Creativity"
• Week 3: Cornell, criticism (available online)
  • Andersen, "Joseph Cornell's 'Healthier Possibilities'"
  • Blair, "Origins of Selfhood"
  • Caws, "Constructing: Joseph Cornell's Metaphysics of Memory"
  • Falcetta, "Acts of Containment: Marianne Moore, Joseph Cornell, and the Poetics of Enclosure"
  • Hoving, "The Surreal Science of Soap: Joseph Cornell's First Soap Bubble Set"
  • Links to artist's work
    • Joseph Cornell (Wikipedia)
    • Joseph Cornell (Webmuseum, Paris)
    • Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination (Peabody Essex Museum)
• Week 4: Marcel Duchamp (available online)
  • Calvin Tomkins, "Marcel Duchamp"
  • Links to artist's work
    • Marcel Duchamp (Wikipedia)
    • Readymades of Marcel Duchamp (Wikipedia)
    • Marcel Duchamp (MoMA)
• Week 5: Robert Rauschenberg (available online)
  • Calvin Tomkins, "Robert Rauschenberg"
• Week 6: Dada (read in this order)
  • Bigsby, "Definitions, Statements and Manifestoes"
  • Bigsby, "The Dada Essence"
  • Tzara, "Seven Dada Manifestoes"
  • Tzara, "Note on Poetry"
  • Hopkins, "Art and Anti-Art"
• Weeks 6-7: Surrealism (read in this order)
  • Breton, "Manifesto of Surrealism" (online)
  • Breton, "The Automatic Message"
  • Eluard, "Poetry's Evidence"
  • Dali, "Reality and Surreality"
  • Dali, "Surrealist Objects"
  • Dali, "The Conquest of the Irrational"
  • Dali, "The Object as Revealed in Surrealist Experiment"
• Week 10: psychotic art criticism
  • MacGregor, "The Confrontation: The Artist and the Madman" (online)
  • MacGregor, "Psychoanalysis and the Study of Psychotic Art" (online)
• Week 11: psychotic art criticism and outsider art
  • Barrantes-Vidal, "Creativity & Madness Revisited from Current Psychological Perspectives"
  • Park and Simpson-Housley, ""To the 'Infinite Spaces of Creation': The Interior Landscape of a Schizophrenic Artist" (online)
  • Rhodes, "Art Brut"
  • Rhodes, "Alternative Worlds"
• Shelley, Frankenstein [Norton]
  • Moers, "Female Gothic: The Monster's Mother"
  • Johnson, "My Monster/My Self"
  • Mellor, "Possessing Nature: The Female in Frankenstein"
  • Butler, "Frankenstein and Radical Science"
• Watson, The Double Helix [Norton]
  • Stent, "A Review of the Reviews"
  • Morrison, "The Human Factor in a Science First"
  • Bronowski, "Honest Jim and the Tinker Toy Model"
  • Medawar, "Lucky Jim"
  • Lwoff, "Truth, Truth, What Is Truth (About How the Structure of DNA Was Discovered)?"

Discussion Board Response

Blackboard Post: You will respond to a reading, and post your response to our course discussion board at Blackboard > Discussion Board. The response should

• be formatted in Word or Rich-Text Format (not Works) only according to the MLA styled template,
• be 2-3 double-spaced pages long,
• show your active engagement in the text's issues (don't simply summarize the text, tentatively analyze and interpret its meaning, particularly emphasizing what the text says about the creative process),
• help your peers understand the text by pointing out key issues, and
• broach issues for class discussion.

Informal Presentation: You will also be responsible for a brief, informal presentation which introduces the key issues and possible themes of the text as you see them and also broaches issues for class discussion. Just as you will lose credit if you submit your post late, if you are absent on the day you're supposed to present, you will lose half the credit.

 

Due Dates:

1. Your discussion board response will be due in Blackboard > Discussion Board on the Friday before we discuss an essay in class. If you do not submit your response to Blackboard at least one day before the text is discussed in class, you will fail the assignment.
2. Your brief, informal presentation will be due on the day we discuss the reading in class. This date is approximate for we sometimes fall a day behind.
3. I will return your graded response to you in Blackboard > My Grades > Discussion Board Response by the next week.
4. For example, we are scheduled to discuss Kafka on Friday, 1-18. Therefore, the summary will be due in Blackboard > Discussion Board by Friday, 1-11. In class on Friday, 1-18, the respondent will informally present her reading of Kafka and I will grade her response and return it to Blackboard > My Grades > Discussion Board Response by the following week.

Note: It is your responsibility to remember to post your response on time.

 

Section 04 MWF 9:00AM [Scroll down for Section 01 MWF 1:00PM]

Blackboard Due Date	Presentation Due Date (Approximate)	Reading	Student
F, 1-11	F, 1-18	Kafka, "A Hunger Artist"	Nicholas Kusto
			Alexa Hansen
F, 1-18	M, 1-21	Mee, Hotel Cassiopeia	Natalie Carolan
	F, 1-25	Anderson or Blair	Ariel Wick
		Caws or Falsetta	Holly Fawcett
F, 1-25	M, 1-28	Arnheim, The Genesis of a Painting	Renee Bass
	W, 1-30	Tomkins, "Marcel Duchamp"	Jolie Crison
F, 2-1	M, 2-4	Tomkins, " Robert Raushenberg"	Johnathan W. Foote
	W, 2-6	Piirto or Bloom	Britta Stifler
	F, 2-8	Freud or Kristeva	Rachel Koch
F, 2-8	M, 2-11	Bigsby
		Tzara	Josh deJong
	W, 2-13	Hopkins	John Pfieffer
	F, 2-15	Breton	Mike Hadraba
			Julie Moss
F, 2-15	M, 2-18	Dali	Darcy Farac
F, 2-22	M, 2-25	Jamison, Touched with Fire (1-100)	Jennifer Roberts
	W, 2-27	Jamison, continued (101-90)
	F, 2-29	Jamison, concluded (191-270)	Jill VanDeRiet
F, 2-29	None	Spring Break	None
F, 3-7	F, 3-14	MacGregor	Joel Bodbyl
			Nick Noel
F, 3-14	M, 3-17	Barrantes-Vidal	Dayna Frownfelder
		Park and Simpson-Housely	Ben Kleyn
	W, 3-19	Rhodes	Katie Witt
	F, 3-21	Shelley, Frankenstein	Zach Page
			Ryan Shafer
			Phil Sieb
F, 3-21	F, 3-28	Moers or Johnson	Ashley Sprick
		Mellor or Butler
F, 3-28	M, 3-31	Watson, The Double Helix	Michelle Graves
			Melissa Tarrant
	F, 4-4	Stent	Lauren Heltsley
		Medawar or Lolf	Stephanie Roach
F, 4-4	None	None	None
F, 4-11	None	None	None
F, 4-18	None	None	None

 

Section 01 MWF 1:00PM [Scroll up for Section 04 MWF 9:00AM]

 

Blackboard Due Date	Presentation Due Date (Approximate)	Reading	Student
F, 1-11	F, 1-18	Kafka, "A Hunger Artist"	Reuben Beattie
			Nick Gascho
F, 1-18	M, 1-21	Mee, Hotel Cassiopeia	Lyndsey Pietrangelo
	F, 1-25	Anderson or Blair	Elizabeth Conklin
		Caws or Falsetta	Benedict Hahnenberg
F, 1-25	M, 1-28	Arnheim, The Genesis of a Painting	Ryan Bell
			Ashley Wilder
	W, 1-30	Tomkins, "Marcel Duchamp"	Laura Stinar
F, 2-1	M, 2-4	Tomkins, " Robert Raushenberg"	Samantha Hotchkin
	W, 2-6	Piirto or Bloom	Natalie Thomas
	F, 2-8	Freud or Kristeva
F, 2-8	M, 2-11	Bigsby or Tzara	Amanda Sheppard
	W, 2-13	Hopkins	Josh Cassidy
	F, 2-15	Breton	Kelly Ryder
F, 2-15	M, 2-18	Dali	Sabrina Brooks
F, 2-22	M, 2-25	Jamison, Touched with Fire (1-100)	Bettie Groenhout
	W, 2-27	Jamison, continued (101-90)
	F, 2-29	Jamison, concluded (191-270)	Ashley Bieber
F, 2-29	None	Spring Break	None
F, 3-7	F, 3-14	MacGregor	Vanessa Heuck
F, 3-14	M, 3-17	Barrantes-Vidal	Kevin McCarty
	W, 3-19	Rhodes	Brad Bice
	F, 3-21	Shelley, Frankenstein	Kareesa Franklin
			Katie Mellama-DeLange
F, 3-21	F, 3-28	Moers or Johnson	Andrew Kovatch
		Mellor or Butler	Jeff VanSolkema
F, 3-28	M, 3-31	Watson, The Double Helix	Tom Mitsos
			Katie Rabbitt
	F, 4-4	Stent
		Medawar or Lwoff
F, 4-4	None	None	None
F, 4-11	None	None	None
F, 4-18	None	None	None

Short Paper 1

In the first three weeks of the course, we have discussed at length the relationship of the artist's life (filial, educational, social, political, sexual, psychological) to her artistic theory, creative process, and artistic production. We have also discussed the relationship between the artist's creation and the audience's reception. For the first short paper, write an essay on either Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man , Kafka's "A Hunger Artist," or Mee's Hotel Cassiopeia that explores how the aesthetic theory, process, or product is influenced by either the experience of the artist or the role of the audience. Your focused and thesis-driven analytical essay should use textual evidence (direct quotations) to prove your understanding of the dialectic between life and art.

• Length: 4-5 pages
  • Your paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if it does not end at least halfway down on the fourth page while implementing 12 pt Times New Roman font, double-spacing, and 1" margins. If it does not end at least halfway down on the third page, it will be penalized two-thirds of a letter grade.
• Style: MLA style
• One-third of a letter grade will be deducted for each of three problems in the following categories: 1) margins, 2) font size/style and line-spacing, and 3) quoting and citing. Before you turn in a formal paper, make sure your work follows MLA style by referring to my FAQ on papers and using the checklist on the MLA style handout.
• Format: Your paper must be formatted in Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or Rich-Text Format.
• Due Date: Monday, February 4 in Blackboard > Assignments > Short Paper 1 by midnight.
• Grade: You will be assessed on your thesis, your analytical understanding of the material, and your ability to articulate and prove your ideas and comprehension.

Short Paper 2

While the first paper located the creative process in the artist's life experience, this paper asks you to either investigate a conception of the creative process or to discuss the creative process within the context of a work of art. You have two different options for this paper.

1. Compare and contrast two different understandings of the creative process according to two different authors: Arnheim, Tomkins, Bloom, Freud, Kristeva, Tzara, Breton, Dali, Hopkins, and Jamison. For example, you could compare and contrast the the Dadaist and Surrealist versions of creativity using the Dadaist Tzara and the Surrealist Breton. Or you could compare and contrast anxiety with manic-depression using Bloom and Jamison, or you could find an interesting combination of your own. Where does the creative process converge, and where does it diverge—and why?
2. Interpret a work of art, literature, or film, either from in class (but not one which you wrote your first paper on) or of your own choosing (yet subject to my approval--if you do not obtain my approval, you will not do well on the paper) and discuss the creative processes that may have operated in its formation. In other words, your paper should thematically analyze a creative work and conceptually discuss the creative processes that went into it by using at least two authors we hve read who talk about the creative process (Arnheim, Tomkins, Piirto, Bloom, Freud, Kristeva, Bigsby, Tzara, Breton, Eluard, Dali, Hopkins, and Jamison). For instance, you could analyze a work by Duchamp and his Dadaist creative process of found object using Tomkins, Bigsby, and Hopkins; or you could analyze a work by Dali and discuss his paranoiac-critical method using his own writing, or Hopkins' or Breton's. Or you could select a work outside of class to interpret, run it by me, and discuss the possible creative processes that generated it.

• Length: 4-5 pages
  • Your paper will be penalized one-third of a letter grade if it does not end at least halfway down on the fourth page while implementing 12 pt Times New Roman font, double-spacing, and 1" margins. If it does not end at least halfway down on the third page, it will be penalized two-thirds of a letter grade.
• Style: MLA style
• One-third of a letter grade will be deducted for each of three problems in the following categories: 1) margins, 2) font size/style and line-spacing, and 3) quoting and citing. Before you turn in a formal paper, make sure your work follows MLA style by referring to my FAQ on papers and using the checklist on the MLA style handout.
• Format: Your paper must be formatted in Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or Rich-Text Format.
• Due Date: Wednesday, March 12 in Blackboard > Assignments > Short Paper 2 by midnight.
• Grade: You will be assessed on your thesis, your comparative understanding of the two authors' conceptions of creativity (option 1), your ability to tie together understanding of work with understanding of creative process (option 2), and your ability to articulate and prove your ideas and comprehension.

Research Project

We have discussed how the lives of artists (Stephen Dedalus, the hunger artist, Joseph Cornell) influence their creative process, compared and contrasted the creative processes of art movements (Dadaism, Surrealism, and the avant-garde), and analyzed the relationship of psyche to creativity (unconscious and dreams, anxiety of influence, manic-depression, the art of the insane). Now is the time for you to pursue your interest regarding art or science and the creative process. For the final project, select an artist (poet, prose writer, musician, painter, sculptor, etc) or scientist who is researchable (you must be able to find magazine articles, scholarly journal articles and book chapters on her work and her creative process using our research handout). Your 8-10 page research paper, which must incorporate at least 5 secondary sources, will both interpret the artist's work and analyze her creative process.

 

The goals of the final project are as follows:

1. analyze a work of art or science
2. understand and discuss the creative process
3. conduct your own research regarding the artistic/scientific process
4. formally present your work in progress to the class

Research Project: Conferences

In an effort to make sure that everyone is on the right track and has a little bit more time to work on the annotated bibliography, I am cancelling class on Friday, April 4. However, I will be in my office all day holding conferences about the research project. If you are having trouble, have questions, or have not done as well as you would have liked on previous papers, I encourage you to schedule a meeting.

 

Friday, April 4	Student
9:00	Ariel Wick
9:10	Alexa Hansen
9:20	Ashley Sprick
9:30	Joel Bodbyl
9:40	Jolie Crison
10:00	Michelle Graves
10:10	Nick Gascho
10:20
10:30	Rachel Koch
10:40	Kevin McCarty
12:00	Katie Rabbitt
12:10
12:20
12:30
12:40	Laura Stiner
1:00	Katie M. DeLange
1:10	Tom Mitsos
1:20
1:30	Kareesa Franklin
1:40

Research Project: Annotated Bibliography

To help you in your analysis of the work and the creative process that generated it, you must conduct research. Annotate 12-15 journal articles, and books/book chapters and magazine articles that discuss your artist, her work, her creative process, and/or the artistic movement of which she is a part. While you should strive to have the same number of each, you must have at least 3 journal articles and 3 books; use magazines if and only if you cannot find scholarly sources.

 

As we practiced earlier in the semester, a good research annotation of 75-100 words,

1. identifies the issue or question that the source is investigating,
2. defines the source’s thesis or main idea relevant to the artwork and/or research question, and
3. explains how the source helps your understanding of the artwork and/or research project.

To format your annotated bibliography, provide the MLA styled citation, then follow it with your annotation. Alphabetize the bibliography by the authors' last names.

 

Due Date: Monday, April 7 in Blackboard > Assignments > Annotated Bibliography by midnight.

Research Project: Presentation

You will share your research findings and your paper in progress to the class in a 7-10 minute presentation. While the annotated bibliography asks for straight research, your presentation should begin to make sense of the research and articulate your reading of the artist's work and her creative process. Because the presentation is due for most of you before the final paper is due, your controlling idea will be considered a work in progress: you don't have to present your final thesis, just your working thesis regarding the meaning of the work and the process that generated it. However, your presentation should be well-organized and well-prepared: tell the class what you learned (research) and what the artist's creative process is.

 

Section 04 (MWF 9:00AM)

 

Date	Student	Artist/Scientist
M, 4-7	Ariel Wick	Pablo Picasso
	Alexa Hansen	Man Ray
W, 4-9	Jill Konynenbert	Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
	Nick Noel	F. Scott Fitzgerald
	Britta Stiffler	Marc Chagall
F, 4-11	Josh deJong	Isaac Newton
	Natalie Carolan	George Lucas
	Rachel Koch	Richard Feynman
	Nicholas Kusto	Michel Gondry
M, 4-14	Michelle Graves	Stephen King
	Julie Moss	M. C. Escher
W, 4-16	Holly Fawcett	Emily Dickinson
	Joel Bodbyl	Benjamin Franklin
	Melissa Tarrant	The Beatles
	John Pfeiffer	Foo Fighters
F, 4-18	Johnathan W. Foote	Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam
	Katie Witt	Eminem
	Darcy Farac	Elvis Presley
	Ashley Sprick	Maya Angelou
T, 4-22	Dayna Frownfelder	Stephen King
	Phil Sieb	Jean-Luc Godard
	Jen Roberts	Virginia Woolf
	Ryan Schafer	Leonardo da Vinci
	Lauren Heltsley	Martha Graham
	Zach Page	Alfred Hitchcock
	Ben Kleyn	Marilyn Manson
	Jolie Crison	Vincent Van Gogh

 

Section 1 (MWF 1:00PM)

 

Date	Student	Artist/Scientist
M, 4-7	Kareesa Franklin	Madonna
	Nick Gascho	Alejandro Jodorowski
	Benedict Hahnenberg	Claes Oldenberg
W, 4-9	Natalie Thomas	Sylvia Plath
	Kevin McCarty	Bob Dylan
	Lyndsey Pietrangelo	L. Frank Baum
F, 4-11	Katie Rabbitt	Rainer Maria Rilke
	Kelly Ryder	Edward Munch
	Josh Cassidy	Salvador Dali
M, 4-14	Amanda Sheppard	F. Scott Fitzgerald
	Betty Groenhout	Ansel Adams
W, 4-16	Andrew Kovatch	Radiohead
	Elizabeth Conklin	William Faulkner
	Tom Mitsos	The Beatles
F, 4-18	Ryan Bell	Tupac Shakur
	Brad Bice	M.C. Escher
T, 4-22	Reuben Beattie	David Bowie
	Ashley Bieber	Bob Dylan
	Laura Stinar	Stephen King
	Jeff Van Solkema	Jackson Pollock
	Samantha Hotchkin	Frida Kahlo
	Vanessa Heuck	Schumann, Manfred

Research Project: Paper

• Length: 8-10 pages, not including the Works Cited page.
  • One-third of a letter grade will be deducted for each page your paper falls below the eight page minimum.
• Style: MLA style
• One-third of a letter grade will be deducted for each of three problems in the following categories: 1) margins, 2) font size/style and line-spacing, and 3) quoting and citing. Before you turn in a formal paper, make sure your work follows MLA style by referring to my FAQ on papers and using the checklist on the MLA style handout.
• Format: Your paper must be formatted in Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, or Rich-Text Format.
• Due Date: Tuesday, April 22 in Blackboard > Assignments > Research paper by midnight. Be sure to click the Submit button on both (two, dos, 2) TurnItIn screens and write down your digital receipt number!
  • If I do not receive or cannot open your paper, I will send an email Wednesday morning. If I still do not receive or cannot open your exam by Thursday, April 24, you will automatically fail the course.
• Grades, Comments, and Paper Return :
  • You will be assessed on your thesis, your understanding of the work, your understanding of the creative process, your ability to tie meaning and creativity together, and your ability to incorporate research.
  • You can access your final grade in the course via the Registrar after Tuesday, April 29.
  • If you want comments, please ask for them. I will not return exams of those who do not request feedback. If you do request comments, you can access your graded paper in Blackboard >My Grades > Exam after Tuesday, April 29.