Calendar

 Art 1A Visual Literacy Reading Schedule: Fall 2025

*Weekly writing assignments should be 2-4 pages and they are due each in lecture Wednesday by 12:30PM (unless otherwise stated. Check due dates VERY carefully). All assignments must be submitted to your TA.

 

WEEK 1 (September 29 & October 1): Course Introduction & Representation and Intertextuality.


The first lecture, on Monday, September 29 is via Zoom (no pass code, sign in as an attendee): https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83111992304


Do the following:

1) Purchase your course reader (from Associated Students) and John Berger's Ways of Seeing (from the campus bookstore or Amazon). Your copy of Your Brain on Art is on reserve at the library, and you can download an electronic copy.

2) Fill out the field trip Liability Waivers: 

MANDATORY LIABILITY WAIVERS (PLEASE FILL OUT ALL OF THEM TO BE ELIGIBLE FOR ALL OF THE FIELD TRIPS):

https://na3.docusign.net/Member/PowerFormSigning.aspx?PowerFormId=ec96b5e7-038b-4e46-9484-a35f926db58f&env=na3&acct=36d87d60-c882-4887-835a-bc389fb776dd&v=2

*Students are responsible for their own transportation to the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara museums. Neither UCSB, nor the UCSB Department of Art will furnish transportation, or organize it. However, students tend to organize their own carpools each quarter.


Representation and Intertextuality Reading Assignments:

• Carl Matheson: The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony and the Meaning of Life


• Kelly L. Richardson. “Simpsons Did It!”: South Park and the Intertextuality of Contemporary Animation


• Joanna Woods-Marsden. "Cindy Sherman’s Reworking of Raphael’s ‘Fornarina’ and Caravaggio’s ‘Bacchus.’
"

• Michel Foucault. This is Not a Pipe (Excerpt)


• Scott McCloud, The Vocabulary of Comics (Excerpt) 


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 2 by 12:30PM in lecture): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page summary about the significant ideas addressed in Joanna Woods-Marsden's "Cindy Sherman's Reworking of Raphael's 'Fornarina' and Caravaggio's 'Bacchus'" 

2) Write a 1-page summary of Kelly L. Richardson's "Simpsons Did It!": South Park and the Intertextuality of Contemporary Animation. 

3) List a few ideas that you found interesting in Scott McCloud, The Vocabulary of Comics. If you have not purchased your course reader, then you will need to go to the library to check out the course reader that I have placed on 2 hour reserve for you. 


WEEK 2 (October 6 & 8): Understanding Mediation: Photography and Cinema. 

• John Berger: Ways of Seeing


• Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction 

• Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message


• Neil Postman: The Judgment of Thamus 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 8 by 12:30PM in lecture): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page summary of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing (Chapter 1). 

2) Write a 1-page summary of Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 

3) Write a 1-2 page summary of the important ideas addressed in Chapter 1 (pages 3-24): "The Anatomy of the Arts" from Your Brain on Art, and write about the most significant ideas advanced in this chapter.


WEEK 3 (October 13 & 15): LACMA Field Trip on Saturday, October 18th. Monday and Wednesday lectures on October 13 & 15 cancelled in lieu of the Getty Center trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned on Monday, October 13.


Writing Assignment (Due: Sunday, October 19 by midnight. Email it to your TA. We will accept these papers through Monday, October 20 by 12:30 in lecture. If you turn it in on Monday it must be a hard copy.): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 2-page response to the LACMA: Grounded exhibition. Make sure to discuss more than Ana Mendieta's work.

2) Write a 1-page museum response to the LACMA: Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began exhibition.

3) With a 1-2 page response to other works of art, exhibitions, the gardens, etc. that interested and impacted you at LACMA.

 

Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to the LACMA (but this means you must go to The Getty for the second field trip). This is a 4-part assignment:

Nota Bene: The museum trip is all-day immersive experience, and therefore the museum field trip is in lieu of both of the Art 1A lectures that week (section attendance is as scheduled that week). If you do not go to the museum that week, or do the writing assignment, then you will receive two absences for the missed lectures that week, and you won't be able to do your written assignment that week. Take a selfie at the museum, and works of art that were of interest to you, and include it in your paper as proof of attendance.


WEEK 4 (October 20 & 22): Writing & Researching Workshops in lecture.

Monday, October 20: Scholarly Research Training Workshop with Heather Nisen.

Wednesday, October 22: Mechanics of a Formal Research Paper Writing Workshop.


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 22 by 12:30PM): This is a 2-part assignment. 

1) Write the first 2-3 pages of your research paper about the work of Ana Mendieta. 

2) Read Chapter 5 (pages 135-164) and write a 1-2 page summary of the chapter: "Amplifying Learning" from Your Brain on Art. 

 

WEEK 5 (October 27 & 29): Fictional and Documentary Space: Blurring the Difference.

• Edward Branigan: Fiction


• Vivian Sobchack: On the Death of a Rabbit in Fictional Space 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, October 29 by 12:30PM in lecture): This is a 2-part assignment:

1) Write a 1-2 page summary of the important ideas addressed in Chapter 6 (pages 166-198): "Flourishing" from Your Brain on Art. 

2) Write a 2-page summary that reveals the important ideas advanced in the Vivian Sobchack essay, On the Death of the Rabbit in Fictional Space. Discuss the famous hunting scene to which Sobchack refers in her essay. Here are some questions to ask yourself: 

a) Does the fact that these deaths occurred 85 years ago in any way desensitize your response?

b) Does knowing that these animals actually died in the service of this film shift the way that you respond to the scene?

c) While reading Sobchack’s essay, one has the impression that only a single rabbit died– when in fact it is clear that many rabbits and birds died in this hunting scene. Is there a singular moment to which she appears to be referring? If so, identify it and the precise moment in the clip (Example: Renoir, 01:15 - 02:00). Watch HERE.

d) Do you agree with the premise of Sobchack's argument after watching the scene to which she refers? Why, or why not?

WEEK 6 (November 3 & 5): Getty Center Field Trip on Saturday, November 8. Monday and Wednesday lectures on November 3 & 5 are cancelled in lieu of the Getty Center field trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned. Research Paper is due on Monday, November 3 in sections (Monday 3:00PM and 4:00PM).


Writing Assignment: (Due: Sunday, November 9 by midnight. We will accept these papers through Monday, November 10 by 12:30 in lecture. If you turn it in on Monday it must be a hard copy). This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page response to the Getty: Going Places: Travel in the Middle Ages exhibition.

2) Write a 1-page response to the Getty: Learning to Draw exhibition.

3) Write a 2-page response to the Getty: Discuss what really impressed you about your experience at the Getty. This is includes the Getty Gardens, any exhibitions or specific works of art that really impacted you, or anything else that was noteworthy. Take lots of pictures to help you process your experience.


Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to the The Getty Center (but this means you must have gone to LACMA for the first field trip). This is a 4-part assignment:

Nota Bene: The museum trip is all-day immersive experience, and therefore the museum field trip is in lieu of both of the Art 1A lectures that week (section attendance is as scheduled that week). If you do not go to the museum that week, or do the writing assignment, then you will receive two absences for the missed lectures that week, and you won't be able to do your written assignment that week. Take a selfie at the museum, and works of art that were of interest to you, and include it in your paper as proof of attendance.


WEEK 7 (November 10 & 12): A Brief Introduction Semiotics & Advertising

• Daniel Chandler: Semiotics for Beginners: Codes

• Sturken and Cartwright: Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire

• Raymond Williams: Advertising: The Magic System

• Edisol Wayne Dotson: Buy Me Advertising

• Jean Kilbourne: Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel (Excerpts).


Writing Assignment: No weekly writing assignments due! Read the articles to engage in the lectures and sections this week. However, we will accept your Getty museum response papers (Due: Sunday, November 9 by midnight) through Monday, November 10 by 12:30 in lecture. If you turn it on Monday it must be a hard copy).


WEEK 8 (November 17 & 19): Art in the Age of the Internet.

Art in the Age of the Internet

• Jeff Scheible: Longing to Connect: Cinema’s Year of OS Romance


• Katrina Sluis, Julian Stallabrass and Christiane Paul. The Canon After the Internet 

• Lauren Cornell. Self-Portraiture in the First-Person Age 

• Gloria Sutton. CTRL ALT DELETE: The Problematics of Post-Internet Art 

• Jeffrey De Blois. Hybrid Bodies 

• Susan Magsamen and Ivy Moss. Your Brain on Art


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, November 19 by 12:30PM): This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 1-page response paper discussing the important points that were made by Jia Jia Fei in her Ted Talk about Art in the Age of Instagram (Shown HERE). 

2) Write a 1-2-page response to Chapter 7 (pages 201-227) "Creating Community" from Your Brain on Art. 

3) Write a 1-2 page response to Jeff Scheible's "Longing to Connect." 


WEEK 9 (November 24 & 26): TBA and Artist Talk.

Wednesday, November 26: Artist Talk featuring TBA (via Zoom for Thanksgiving travel day): https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83111992304


Writing Assignment: (Due: Saturday, November 29 by 12:00PM email to your TA): This is a 2-part assignment: 

1) Write a 2-page response to "Art of the Future" (pages 229-246) from Your Brain on Art. 

2) Write a 2-page response to the Artist Talk featuring TBA.


WEEK 10 (December 1 & 3): Artist Talks.

Monday, June 2: Artist Talk featuring TBA.

Wednesday, June 4: Artist Talk featuring TBA

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Thursday, December 4 by 12:30PM) email to your TA: This is a 2-part assignment. 

1) Write a 2-page response to TBA's Artist Talk.

2) Write a 1-page response to TBA's Artist Talk.

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