Western Pennsylvania Art, Literature, and Culture

Catalog description

AMST 150N : Western Pennsylvania Art, Literature, and Culture (GA/GH) will survey western Pennsylvania's rich artistic, literary, and cultural heritage from pre-history to the present day. Beginning with the region's indigenous cultures and earliest settlements, the course will examine the important artists, individuals, and organizations that figured in the development of western Pennsylvania's literary and artistic culture, the important role philanthropy and industry played in that development, and how these artists, organizations, and individuals relate to historical movements across the United States. The course will be divided into six units, and each unit will explore a variety of artists and genres, including architecture, literature, music, painting, photography, and sculpture. Individuals and their works to be discussed may include but are not limited to, among others, architects Frederick J. Osterling, Henry Hobson Richardson, and Frank Lloyd Wright, authors Hugh Henry Breckenridge, Rachel Carson, Willa Cather, Annie Dillard, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson, musicians Art Blakey, Billy Eckstine, and Stephen Foster, painters John White Alexander, Mary Cassatt, H.O. Tanner, and Andy Warhol, photographers Charles "Teenie" Harris and W. Eugene Smith, and sculptors Glenn Kaino and Thaddeaus Mosley. During the last unit, particular attention all be paid to western Pennsylvania's dynamic contemporary art and literary scenes. The course will also discuss numerous individuals, groups, locations, and organizations that figured prominently in the region's cultural heritage. Topics to be discussed may include, among others, Andrew Carnegie, Martin Delaney, Henry Clay Frick, H. J. Heinz, Andrew Mellon, Henry Phipps, and Jane Grey Swisshelm, the Carnegie Music Hall, Library, and Art Gallery, Pittsburgh's Exposition Hall, the Scalp Level School of painters, the Carnegie International Art Show and directors John Beatty and Homer Saint-Gaudens, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, newspapers "The Mystery" and "The Pittsburgh Courier," and the Crawford Grill. Depending upon the individual instructor, students may visit at several regional sites, including but not limited to the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Art Gallery, the Carrie Furnace, the Frick Museum, the Heinz History Center, the Rachel Carson Homestead, the Mattress Factory, and the Silver Eye Center for Photography. The class is a General Education Interdomain course for GH/GA and United States Cultures (US) course.