Perception and Creativity. Fall 1997. Prof. B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D.


NODE.801 Obsolete Syllabus B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Cultural Studies Pratt Institute BRBrownIII@earthlink.net Retrurn to the Course Materials Page

Perception and Creativity
Pratt Institute
SS 369.01 & SS 369.02
Fall 1997
Thursday 4:00-6:30

Meeting Times & Room: Monday 9:30-12 meets in ISC 211; Monday 2-4:30 meets in Engr 32.

B. Ricardo Brown, Ph.D.
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
Office: Dekalb 419
Office Phone: 1.718.636.3567, ext. 2709
Office Hours: Monday 1:00pm-1:55pm and 4:30pm-5:30pm,
Tuesday 1:00pm-1:55pm and by appointment
Email: brbrowniii@earthlink.com
URL: http://www.oocities.org/brbgc
Blog: http://node801.blogspot.com
_______________________________________________________________________

Course Description
The way our senses engage and are engaged by the world is too often taken as a natural phenomenon divorced from the social relations of everyday life. But when we talk about perception and creativity, we are also talking about knowledge, both in terms of the standard knowledge of the world and also knowledge as power, or the language of power. We are also talking about knowledge that is not found in the halls of power, but in the body of the person perceiving and creating, in the very ways that perception and creativity are a part of ourselves or are denied as being a part of our lives.

In this course, we will examine artistic perception and creativity in a variety of ways that, while not exhusting the range of possibilities, allow us to investigate the interdependancy of individual and social production.

Course Requirements
One paper (10 pages) and one in-class essay are required. In addition, participants in the class are required to make weekly journal entries that are to be turned in at the end of the semester. The essays will each will count for 60% of the final grade. The remaining 40% will be based upon the journal entries (25%), participation (15%). The journal entries will serve as the basis for class discussion and students are expected to share their impressions of the texts with others. This is not intended as a lecture course. Participation in class discussions is necessary for your effective engagement with the readings and for others in the class to learn from your experiences and views. There are no correct interpretations or answers and every view will be given serious consideration.

An Internet account for email and access to the WWW is strongly recommended.

Required Texts
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths; Selected Stories an Other Writings
Audre Lorde Sister Outsider : Essays and Speeches
D.W. Meinig Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essays : First and Second Series
John G. Bennett Creative Thinking
Yukio Mishima Sun & Steel
Friedrich Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
Hal Foster The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture

Session One (9/8)
Introduction to the Course

Session Two (9/15) Creativity
Emerson “The Poet”
Bennett Creative Thinking
Marx “Fragment on Greek Art”
Dewey “The Act of Expression”

Session Three (9/22) Modernism
Klee “On Modern Art”
Kandinsky “Reminiscences”
Tzara “Dadaist Manifestos”
Bradbury and McFarlane “The Name and Nature of Modernism”
Dewey “Art & Civilization”

Session Four (9/29) Reactive Art
Movie Degenerate Art
Mishima Sun and Steel
Nietzsche Ecce Homo “Introduction” and “Why I am so Wise”

Session Five (10/8) Modernism and Postmodernism
Borges, “A New Refutation of Time,” “The Garden of Forking Paths,” “Pierre Menard”
Foucault “What is Author?”
Habermas “Modernity--An Unfinished Project”
Foster “Postmodernism-- a Preface” (opt)

10/13 Session Off

Session Six (10/20) Midterm

Session Seven (10/27) Landscape Perception and Place
Meinig The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes
Emerson “Nature” and “Experience”

Session Eight (11/3)
Movie True Stories

Session 9 (11/10)
True Stories Discussion and readings on music and place (TBA)

Session 10 (11/17) Art and Technology/Artificial and Virtual
Benjamin and Adorno on the Work of Art
Nation Articles on Culture Industry

Session Eleven (11/24) The Artist as intellectual and the Intellectual as Artist
Lorde
Deleuze and Foucault on intellectuals
Lukacs”The Responsibility of the Intellectuals”

Session Twelve (12/1)
Movie: Anna Devere Smith--TBA

Session Thirteen (12/8)
Discussion of Smith and presentations

Session Fourteen (12/15) Review, makeup, class.
Readings tba