Seminar:

Catalog description

Attention spans are on the decline, as are our memories. We are flooded by images presented on digital platforms designed to enhance delivery of an unending cascade of visual content. The times call out for principled resistance, and also some reconsideration of the values we associate with slowness and speed. In this course we approach works of art as invitations to slow looking, in order to cultivate attuned and independent thinking. The course will include visits to the Met and the Frick to do slow looking in person. Besides learning a protocol for extended observation, students will receive intensive training in analytical methods. How do we pass from a series of observations to a set of questions, and then go about exploring those questions? Students will engage in discussion of works of art and write frequent short writing assignments. We will also read essays that address questions of visual attention, and others that exemplify the art of slow looking, anatomizing them in order to learn from them. Students will get used to spending one or two hours looking at a single work of art, writing logs of their time spent doing so. They will also write analyses (“X-rays”) of the readings. They will also develop questions about a given work that will serve to lead group discussion on our site visits. Finally, they will write a paper of 15-20 pages focused on one of the works, drawing on the materials prepared by all the students throughout the term concerning that work. Grading: class participation (20%), logs (10%), X-rays (20%), questions for discussion and leading discussion (15%), paper (35%).