I want to give you an option that is is more than just writing an essay, which is what I usually assign. Instead, you will have a choice between two options, and the first option will require that you produce a work that combines a museum visit and writing of an interpretative text.
Because doing this option of the final will require some planning, I’m releasing the instructions now, at the end of October. Note, however, that I have updated the calendar and that now weeks 15 and 16 are set aside for independent research, that means there wont be any new material after Thanksgiving. As always, you may book office hours with me if you want to talk about this project. Choose one of two options and let me know which option you are doing via email.
Option 1: Museum visit and interpretation. Option one requires you to visit a local museum and pick a piece of art for you to interpret. It can be a painting, an installation, piece of fashion, statue, pottery, etc. – whatever it is on actual display at the museum of your choice. I want you to learn all about that piece, read the interpretative sign next to it, and then I want you to consider the piece, and do so deeply. I want you to low-key obsesses about it.
Then I want you to write a short paper in which you tell me about the piece. I want the facts of the piece (what is it? Where did you find it?), what the museum says it means (what’s on the interpretative signs), and MOST important, your take on it. This is where I want to read your very own thoughts on the piece, your interpretation, your mulling, your challenges.
Every piece of art expresses, and the museum is already telling you what these pieces are trying to officially express – well, what is your take on it? Do you see connections between this piece and what you have learned this semester?
What you will turn in to me are: 1) Proof of your visit to the museum (picture of ticket stubs, picture of the piece you are writing about and 2) the short paper. There’s no length requirement; it can be as long or short as you feel. Grade will be gauge based on 1) completion and 2) the depth of your engagement with the piece. In other words, if you try, you get an A. Yes, you will have to pay to get into the museum, but there are some Free DaysLinks to an external site. coming up next week! For Example: De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park: First Tuesday of the Month (Nov 7th, Dec 5th) Asian Art Museum at Civic Center: First Sunday of the Month (Nov 5th, Dec 3rd)
Option 2: Circling back to the beginning of the semester. At the end of Herzog’s The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog interviews one of the anthropologists involved in the project of preserving the cave paintings. Herzog basically asks, “what does it mean to be human? Do you think the cave paintings marks the beginning of the modern human soul?”
The anthropologist responds: “To be human …. is to find ways to communicate, to inscribe memory in very specific art things: walls, wood, bones, songs, myths, etcetera. This is the great invention of the Cro-Magnon, the people that painted the caves, figuration. The figuration of animals, men, things, is a way for humans to communicate with the future, to evoke the past, and to transmit information without using oral language.
It is an invention that is with us today, with the movie camera, for example.” I want you to write a 1-2 (full pages, double space, 1” margins, 12 font) essay responding to Herzog’s question and the answer of the anthropologist. I want you to consider what they are saying in relation to what we have been studying in this course all semester long.
Does what the anthropologist say about figuration/communication/transmission of information ring true given what we have studied about the Greeks, the Romans, the Far East, the Medieval Period, the Renaissance, Orientalism, Feminism, Fanon? How so? Grade is based on the level of critical thinking and engagement with what we have studied so far in the semester. You can see the full clip here:
