American Isms:

Art, Music, and Literature

Harvey Mudd College
Humanities 1, Section 6
Jacobs 132, MTWF 11:00
Fall 2003

Professor Bill Alves Office: Parsons 1278 Phone: x74170 E-mail: alves @hmc.edu Office hours: Mornings 9:00-10:30 and by appointment Office hours are subject to change -- please check the schedule posted on my door.

Ms. Devin Kuhn Office: Parsons 1276 Phone: x76020, 985-9070 E-mail: devin.kuhn @cgu.edu Office hours: Wednesday 2-5

Required Texts Texts Available at Huntley Bookstore: John Steinbeck, The Red Pony. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. Jack Kerouac, On the Road. Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis. Diana Hacker, A Writer's Reference (Fifth Edition). Required Readings on Electronic Reserve (eRes): http://eRes.claremont.edu/ Required Listening on Reserve: There are three audio CDs on reserve for this class at Sprague Library. Here is a list of their contents.

The Course:

Over the past century, the "fine" or "classical" arts in the United States have swept through an exciting panorama from early responses to European romanticism to groundbreaking modernism and postmodernism unconcerned with the burdens of classical artistic tradition. We will trace the fascinating interrelationships that bridge American art, music, and literature through both familiar artists (Whitman, O'Keeffe, Copland) and less familiar ones (Jeffers, Demuth, Crawford). We will also cover a wide variety of aesthetic forms: from romantic lyric to free-verse poem; from transcendental essay to modernist novel; from the symphony to the rock opera (though this course will not, in general, cover popular music such as jazz or rock). In addition to reading assignments, students in this section will also have weekly listening assignments, though no previous musical experience is required.

While this course will be mainly "about" these arts, there are several goals that are at least as important as learning about the fine arts in the United States. First, we will concentrate on writing, communication, and research skills. This goal includes the good organization of thought, clarity of communication, and the depth of insights, in written papers as well as class discussion. We want you to come away from this class with keener insights about the interpretation of literature, music, and art. Creative interpretation and critical thinking is much more important than the memorization of facts, as it will be in your future courses in the humanities and social sciences.

Assignments:

Reading and Listening: It is your responsibility to complete all readings prior to the class meeting when they will be discussed. Be sure to bring the appropriate text to class so that we can refer to it during discussion. It is just as important to complete all listening assigments prior to the class meeting when they will be discussed. You do not have to be a musician to develop important critical insights about what you hear, but you do need to listen carefully, to take notes on what you hear, and to listen more than once to each selection.

Participation: Because this class is conducted as a seminar, it is necessary that you attend and speak up regularly. We want to see evidence that you are intellectually engaged in this class, though we recognize that your engagement might differ in character from someone else's. Your day-to-day contributions to class discussion will certainly be important, of course, because they will show us that you have been reading and thinking about the assignments. But your peer-editing efforts, work that you do outside of class, field trip attendance, and so on will also help determine this portion of your grade. We will feel free to reduce your final grade if you amass more than three unexcused absences during the semester.

Writing: While the course handbook contains a huge amount of useful information about grammar, mechanics, style, and argumentation, here are some brief writing guides for your use:

• Common mechanical issues
• Some style tips
• The thesis statement
• Outlines
• Writing an introduction
• When to cite

During the semester, you will write four thesis papers the last of which will have a research component. In addition to writing four papers, you will also revise three of them for credit. The fourth essay must be among the papers you revise. At the end of the semester, you will turn in a portfolio that consists of the three revised papers and a two-page introduction. Your portfolio will be assessed by your instructor and by an outside reader drawn from the Humanities 1 staff.

Creative Project: You may substitute a creative project for either the second or third thesis papers, but only one of those two. This project may be a set of poems, a short story, a musical composition, a work of fine art, or other work of art. However, the style of the project must relate to one or more of the styles we will be discussing, and you must submit a proposal one week before the paper is due. The following types of projects are NOT acceptable: cut-and-paste poster collages, spoken word audio cassettes when the work could have been submitted in written form, group projects, or works not done during this semester for this assignment.

Field Trip: We will guide a field trip this semester to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on a Saturday to be announced. You must attend this trip as part of your participation grade, or-- with my permission--you may substitute attendance at a relevant concert or art exhibit. In the latter case, you must submit a program or exhibit guide and a two page response to what you heard or saw to get credit for the assignment.

Grading:

We will grade papers on a High Pass, Pass, No Pass basis. We will award final grades of High Pass, Pass, and NC based on the number of points you accumulate during the semester. You need at least 75 points to pass the class. The portfolio must pass in order for you to complete the class. Also, all four papers must be turned in in order to pass. To finish the course with a High Pass, you must do exceptional work in all categories. Point values are as follows:

Submitting Written Work:
All work must be submitted on time and in a proper format. Extensions will be granted only in case of illness or emergency. Late papers will be penalized 10% per day late, though late papers will always get some credit, no matter how late.

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Schedule: