Course Syllabus - Leslie Simon

Humanities 25: Women in the Arts

Required Reading:

Course Description:

1. Introduction

• Who we are and why we are here
• Vision: spirit, psyche, and the body politic

2. Historical and Critical Perspectives (Special Guest: Betty Wong)

• Write women artists back into history
• Real knowledge Can-Do/ ET-MP2-Obstacles, Challenges, Circumstances
• Who calls it what-Blurring the boundaries between "fine arts" and "crafts"
• Videos: "Music of the Spirits" (Stella Chiweshi) & excerpt from "Bernice Johnson Reagon"

IHOI: (75-85; 25-34; 103-105; 110; 127-162; 280-287) Reader: "Women Who Run with the Brushes and Glue"; "Late 20th Century Women in Art"; Stella Rambisai Chiweshi

3. Race and Class Considerations

• What form the work takes
• Videos: "The Mill Tapestry Project" and excerpt from "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision"
• Slides: Anonymous Was a Woman; Huichol Indians
• Start sign-up for panels

Reader: "Borneo: Weaving Sacred Pua"; "Kongo Pottery: Woman's Art from Zaire"; "NAMES Quilt"; "The Symmetry of Maya Ying Lin"; "Women in African Music"; "Rebeca Maule²n"; Flowing Geometric Patterns in Bark"; "Ida Cox"; "Aunt Molly Jackson"; "Al-Khansa" IHOI: (1-24; 35-36; 42-51)

4. Feminist Aesthetics: Form and content

• Slides: Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, and Judy Chicago
• Video: "Womanhouse"
• Finish panel sign-up

Reader: "Buzzing and Humming"; "Changing since Changing"; "Is There a Feminine Aesthetic?"; "Is There a Feminist Aesthetic in Music?"; "When Women Make Music"; "Georgia O'Keeffe" IHOI: (71-73; 115-126; 163-165; 295-298; 182-184)

5. Feminist Aesthetics

• Parallels and intersections
• Videos: "Faith Ringgold: The Last Story Quilt" and "Ana Mendieta: Fuego de Tierra"

Reader: "Afrofemcentrism..."; "Through the Peephole: Toward a Lesbian Sensibility in Art"; "Feminist Music Studies"; "Lifting Belly" IHOI: (167-179)

6. Postmodernism

• Multiple Truths/The Signifying Chain
• Video: "Barbara Kruger: Pictures and Words"

Reader: "Womanist"; "Definitions"; "Yolanda Lopez--Breaking Chicana Stereotypes"; "What Is the Feminist Aesthetic Anyway?"

7. Historical Survey: From the earliest times to the 15th century

• Panel One: Mithila woman painter (Sarojini); Enheduanna; Sappho; Murasaki
• Video: Hildegard
• Video: "The Burning Times"
• Slides: Mithila Painting

Reader: "Enheduanna"; "Tuareg-Berbers"; "Sappho"; "Sappho's poetry"; "Ladies of the Jade Studio: Women Artists of China"; "Sacred Circles: Traditional Women Painters of India (Mithila)"; "Murasaki Shikibu"; "Izumi Shikibu"; "Ts'ai Yen"; "Hildegard's Life and Works" IHOI: (37-38)

8. Historical Survey: The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

• Panel Two: Christine de Pisan; Sofonisba Anguissola; Saint Theresa of Avila; Navajo woman weaver; European lacemaker
• Slides: Renaissance; Navajo Weaving

Reader: "Christine de Pisan" (2 selections); "Sofinisba Anguissola"; "Political Fabrications: Women's Textiles in Five Cultures"; "Saint Theresa d'Avila"; "d"Avila: Prelude to Middlemarch" IHOI: (54-55; 86-92)

9. Field Trip

• Take Home Mid-Term Due

10. Historical Survey: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

• Panel Three: A girl from a Venetian Conservatory (Anna); Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre; Artemesia Gentileschi; Phyllis Wheatley
• Slides: Gentileschi, Vigée-Lebrun, Labille-Guiard, du Parc, et al
• Tapes: Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Akamba witch doctor (Kenya)

Reader: "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz" (2 selections); "Aphra Behn"; "Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre"; "The Venetian Conservatories" (2); "Artemesia Gentileschi"; "Phyllis Wheatley" IHOI: (93-94; 218-223)

11. Historical Survey: The Nineteenth Century

• Panel Four: An American woman quiltmaker (Carrie); Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel; A Turkmen woman weaver (Tansu); George Sand; Edmonia Lewis; Emily Dickinson
• Slides: Romanticism and Realism; Neo-classicism (sculpture)
• Tape: Mendelssohn Hensel and Schumann

Reader: "Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel"; "Clara Schumann"; "Sissieretta Jones"; "George Sand"; "Mary Shelley"; "Turkmen Women, Weaving, and Cultural Change"; "Edmonia Lewis"; "Object into Subject: Some Thoughts on the Work of Black Women Artists" IHOI: (39-41; 56-57; 52-53; 95-102; 106-109; 194-197; 216-217; 224-235)

12. Historical Survey: The Twentieth Century (Music)

• Panel Five: Holly Near; Florence Price; Ethel Smyth; Tania Léon; your choice
• Tape: Women's Music; Jazz and Blues

Reader: "Road to the Podium: A Woman's Journey"; "International Sweethearts of Rhythm"; "Florence B. Price"; "Ethel Smyth"; "Tania Léon"; "Women in Folk Song"; "jazzwomen"; "Revenge of the Girl Bands" IHOI: (269-279)

13. Historical Survey: The Twentieth Century (Literature)

• The known and re-discovered: Cather, Woolf, Stein, Hurston, Le Sueur
• Contemporary groundswell: Morrison, Walker, Silko, Erdrich, Hong Kingston, Cisneros
• International voices: Lessing, Head, Allende, al-Sadawi
• Poetry and feminism: Lorde, Shange, Griffin, Parker, Grahn, Villanueva, Rich
• Videos: "The United States of Poetry" and "Adrienne Rich"

Reader: "Mitsuye and Nellie"; "Divas and Spoken Word Revolution" IHOI: (58-70; 299-301)

14. Historical Survey: The Twentieth Century (Visual Arts)

• Slides: Modernism; Abstract Expressionism; Engaged Visions; Local Talent; Asian American Contemporary Artists; Hmong Needleworkers
• Videos: "Inside the Invisible"

Reader: "The Passionate Pen of Sue Coe"; "Recollections: Ten Women in Photography"; "Hmong Art: Tradition and Change" IHOI: (180-181; 203-215; 111-114; 198-202; 185-193; 246-268; 288-291; 237-240)

15. Historical Survey: The Twentieth Century (Installation, Construction, Performance Art)

• Ritual, autobiography, protest
• Videos: Excerpts from "Open the Gate" and "Betye and Alison Saar"

Reader: "Judith Jamison Leaps Forward"; "The Amazing Decade"; "Milking It"; "Meredith Monk"; "Fire in the City of Angels" IHOI: (292-294)

Conclusion

• Review for Final
• Short presentations of projects/Project Paper Due
• Video: "The Cinematic Jazz of Julie Dash"

Final Exam

--Panels: a role-playing assignment in which each of you choose one of the named artists to represent on a panel. Guideline questions will help you prepare for your panel. *If you do not participate in a panel, you will lose 5 points.*

--Take Home Mid-term (4 pages typed, required): a review of the progress of your research. See format hand-out; respond to all four questions. If you choose Critical Review Option, report on the progress of your reading, your working thesis, and the process you are using to construct your working thesis.

--Research Project Paper (7-9 pages typed, required): a study of the work and biography of one or two women who have made contributions to the arts. You will need to develop a thesis statement around which you build your paper. If you are interested in a non-establishment field where the names of the artists are obscure, you may call them Anonymous and do a general study of life styles and work. OR Critical Review Option (same length, 7-9 pages): a review of a feminist literary, music, and/or visual art critical text. This option is designed for students with a strong background in the arts. See the supplementary bibliography and instructor for suggested titles.

--Final Exam: an essay and short I.D. exam based on readings, class discussions, and lectures.

Optional Presentations, based on your own work as an artist, may be made during the semester but are not required. Please schedule these presentations in advance.

Grading System:

Attendance and Participation: 8
Take-Home Mid-term: 32 (- 5 points if late)
Research Project: 35 (-5 points if late)
Final Exam: 25
Total: 100