First-Year Writing Seminar: Engaging Art in Our World

Catalog description

This course will introduce students to the history of writing about art through examining the relationship of Art History and Anthropology. Students will practice writing as a method of thinking through and evoking ideas. Participants in this hybrid creative writing and criticism course will visit artists’ studios, galleries and museum across New York City and produce different forms of writing such as ekphrasis, poetry, short essay, art writing and criticism. Students will have opportunities to produce images through photography, photocollage, and a collaborative publication of visual criticism. From early forms of literature, to art writing, and contemporary criticism, students will produce writing and criticism about artwork and exhibitions, which communicate an experience and interpretation of works of art and their social and historical context to a larger audience. This course explores art history, anthropology, critical theory, critical thinking and aesthetics through literature and essays from, Nina Chave, Robert Farris Thompson, Linda Nochlin, Alfred Gell, Harold Rosenberg, and many others. We will consider some key societal commentators on literature, art and society, including Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ariella Azolay, Fred Moten, Hortense Spillers, Edward Said, Susan Sontag and others. By exploring forms of writing such as ekphrasis, poetry and short essay, along with producing experiences through photo essay and video essay, students will gain an understanding of the relationship between artist and critic.