Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines aspects of critical writing associated with the historical and contemporary arts and encourages students to participate as writers in the artistic and cultural debates of their day. Forms examined will include but not be limited to reviews, articles, descriptive synopses for exhibition and festival programs, curatorial essays, project proposals and artists' statements. Students with credit for CA (or FPA) 319 may not take this course for further credit. Students with credit for FPA 319W may not take this course for further credit. Writing.

COURSE DETAILS:

This class will provide students the opportunity to develop and put into practice critical writing and editing skills for writing critically about the fine and performing arts. The coursework is designed to allow students to write within their own field of interest. We will learn these skills by reading, researching, and analyzing a selection of popular and academic arts criticism across disciplines; and by writing, workshopping, and collaborating on writing assignments (in-class and take-home) such as critical reviews, interviews, artist statements, and project statements. Our focus will be on closely examining, unpacking, and revising each writing assignment to ensure its substantive and stylistic engagement with the work being represented and/or critiqued, and its suitability for its targeted audience. Our goal, above all, is to become honest and intelligent communicators about our own and others’ artistic practice. To that end, in addition to responding to a range of works that will be shown in-class, students will be asked to attend and comment on a selection of online exhibitions and performance events.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

• To introduce, through practice, different written formats (reviews, artist statements, interviews, position pieces) associated with a critical analysis of the arts.
• To develop an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of different aesthetic theories and critical approaches to the fine and performing arts.
• To use analytical and interpretative strategies to advance arguments, ideas and position statements, both written and verbal, about the nature of interdisciplinary artistic expression.
• To analyze and evaluate in words the formal elements and expressive ideas of works of art and performance across a range of media.
• To develop and hone students’ critical thinking and writing skills.
• To develop a scope of arts practice that ranges from individual work, to local, national, and global trends

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Though not required, it would be helpful if students who have access to their own laptop computers or tablets (and adapters, if needed) could bring them to each class in order to help facilitate the sharing of in-class writing exercises and online examples.

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: