(no subject)
With regards to my sophomore year, I've narrowed my options down to the Following Four (in no particular order):
Consciousness, Art and Matter
This year-long interdisciplinary program will provide an opportunity for students interested in doing intensive work in the nature of the mind through challenging readings, creative work in visual art, and self-reflection. We will examine consciousness, art and physical reality from a variety of viewpoints including artistic, psychological, philosophical, physical and biological. Students must be willing to work in the studio in a community of artists, and to show and discuss their work. Prospective students should have some background in art and an interest in the philosophy of the nature of physical reality. We will explore topics through lectures, seminars, and art workshops. Students will have an opportunity to improve their skills in 2- and 3-dimensional art media, including drawing, painting, print-making, mixed media and ceramics.
In fall quarter, we'll take an approach that welcomes the complexity of the many different views on consciousness advanced by researchers, philosophers and spiritual leaders. We will use a text that covers most of the current scientific models of consciousness yet is willing to examine some of the more "borderland" areas of research such as dreams, altered states and "paranormal" phenomena. Students will be expected to keep a journal exploring our developing awareness of the nature of consciousness. The creative work will be integrated into our study as a tool to understand our individual creative processes and the nature of consciousness. In addition, we will study how artists attempt to make visible various concepts of time, space, matter and reality.
In winter quarter, we'll include a study of dreams and modern physics and how these subjects and our art work expand our understanding of the nature of mind and consciousness. In spring, students will have the opportunity to continue their work with more in-depth studies in these areas and to actively explore contemplative studies.
This is a fun, and rigorous, full-time program. Students are expected to participate in all program activities and to work about 50 hours each week, including class time.
Major areas of study include consciousness, art, and philosophy of science.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in art and science.
Life of Things
Knowing an object does not mean copying it-it means acting upon it. It means constructing systems of transformation that can be carried out on or with this object -Jean Piaget
This three quarter program is an inquiry into our relationships with material things. In our study we will draw from a variety of disciplinary perspectives to explore material things as cultural objects that speak like texts, define social networks, incite desires, and become markers of identity. We will follow the biographies of material things as they are born in factories or art studios, take on exchange values, circulate as gifts or commodities, and come to rest in museums or landfills. Exploring things - and crafting some ourselves - will teach us about our economic and social values, our selves, and our connections with the rest of the world. We will investigate objects across space and time, including Melanesian kula beads enmeshed in circuits of inter-island gift exchange, alienated African cultural property on display in European colonial museums, and global commodities like blue jeans that mutate and adapt to fit local markets and tastes.
Questions shaping the program are: How do we relate to objects in our life? How do objects embody or encode power relations? How do objects shape identities as well as mark borders between gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social class? How can we live a sustainable life, and attain a balance in our relationships with material things from psychological, social and environmental perspectives? How does making things from various materials shape our relationship to them?
In fall quarter we will explore the exchange and value of things and the distinction between gift and commodity through a range of historical and contemporary ethnographic studies. We will consider how emerging forms of biological, intellectual, and virtual property push the limits of how we think about exchange relationships and materiality. In winter quarter we will inquire into a range of things - souvenirs, heirlooms, relics, artwork and antiques - that enter collections and museums. We will weigh ethical debates over the return of cultural property and explore the politics of representing the "other" through the display of displaced artifacts. In spring quarter we will question the end of things, focusing on the wastelands, garbage pits and other spaces where objects are deposited after their owners believe their value has been exhausted.
In our exploration of material culture we will take field trips to museums, swap meets, scrap yards, shopping malls and other places of interest. Students will take an active role in building learning communities through collaborative workshops, lectures, research, writing, seminars and presentations. In addition to completing short papers, artwork and ethnographic assignments, students will develop a major project that addresses some aspect of our inquiry. Faculty will support students in conducting local ethnographic research, service learning internships, artistic work, oral history, museum exhibitions, or other modes of engagement with material culture. By the end of the program, students will learn key principles of cultural anthropology, ethnographic fieldwork, semiotics, museum studies and sustainability studies, and will develop potent modes of cultural critique.
Major areas of study include anthropology, cultural studies, history of technology, globalization, economics, semiotics, museum studies, sustainability studies, art and archaeology.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in social sciences, humanities, arts, museum studies, environmental studies and political economy.
History and Philosophy of Biology: Life and Consciousness
What is life? What distinguishes a living organism from the sum total of its chemical and physical properties? What is consciousness? What makes an organism capable of feeling pain or becoming self-conscious? Such questions lie at the heart of many historical and contemporary debates in the biological sciences. The way that biologists define life and consciousness shapes their research programs, methodologies and ethics.
This program will examine the history of biology as a window on contemporary discussions about evolutionary biology, neurobiology, consciousness and the nature of mind. We will use a variety of historical case studies to illuminate such issues, including Charles Darwin's work on natural selection and the evolution of human consciousness, Claude Bernard's physiology and persistent debates over animal experimentation, James Watson and Francis Crick's studies of DNA and issues of reductionism, and E. O. Wilson's research on sociobiology and questions about biological determinism. We will also read contemporary explorations of cognition, consciousness, and evolutionary psychology. Finally, we will explore the ethical and political implications of recent advances in genetics, neurobiology, and cognitive science. Students will conduct an independent research project as part of this program.
Major areas of study include history and philosophy of science, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of mind.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in biological sciences, cognitive neuroscience and science studies.
Drawing Outside the Lines
One prevailing Modernist concept of the artist and artistic work involves the conviction that art is first and foremost in the service of the artist's own expression. This assumption requires viewers of Modernist works of art to relinquish their associations and experiences and essentially submit to the power of the work. In other discourses of art, we understand that it can serve a far greater role than just an expressive conduit for the artist. Contemporary art often acts as an agent of change in our culture. By working in media and forms that ask the viewer to participate, engage, think about the work, transform it and enter into it, art in the 21st century often plays the role of trickster, healer or alchemist, helping us observe and consider our world, beliefs and daily lives in fundamentally new ways. Artworks that sneak up on us and surprise us may be able to do so because they are in disguise. They may surface as postcards or mail art, graphic novels, flipbooks, performances, toys or other forms that fall outside the lines of what is considered "high art."
This program will be grounded in two studio practices: animation and printmaking. Because both of these forms originate in drawing, drawing skills, issues and theory will also be an important focus. Working back and forth between animation and print, between static and moving images, students will gain experience in basic studio skills and an understanding of visual literacy and creative concept development. Our study of art as agent or trickster will provide a lens through which we create work in the studios and develop foundations in contemporary art theory and art history through lectures, readings and seminars.
This program is designed for students who desire to combine their artistic practice with explorations of aesthetic theory. It will involve a focused and demanding combination of studio work, reading, writing and seminar discussion. Half of the students' time will be focused on artistic practice. The other half will be a rigorous study of art and animation history, visual studies and art and media theory. In the fall, students will gain essential skills in drawing, printmaking and animation through several creative exercises and assignments. In winter, students will be introduced to a variety of non-traditional forms for printmaking and animation, and will spend a significant amount of time designing and executing an independent project using the print studio and/or the animation labs.
Major areas of study include animation, printmaking, drawing, visual studies, animation studies and art history.
Program is preparatory for careers and future studies in visual art, animation, education, communications and art history.
http://www.evergreen.edu/catalog/2009-10/az.htm