Calendar

 Art 1A Visual Literacy Reading Schedule: Spring 2025

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

 

WEEK 1 (March 31 & April 2): Course Introduction & Representation and Intertextuality.


The first lecture, on Monday, March 31 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 free, but you will only receive it after you fill out the following liability waivers.

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://powerforms.docusign.net/f69f1832-2f52-408b-b9e8-89879d8c4c73?env=na3&acct=36d87d60-c882-4887-835a-bc389fb776dd&accountId=36d87d60-c882-4887-835a-bc389fb776dd

*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, April 2 by 12:30AM 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 Michel Foucault's This is Not a Pipe. 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 (April 7 & 9): Understanding Mediation: Photography and Cinema. Wednesday, April 9 we will be meeting at the UCSB AD&A Museum at 12:30.

• 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, April 9 by 12:30AM 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. A free copy of this book will be given to you as soon as you complete your museum field trip liability waivers (HERE). If you haven't filled out your liability waiver yet, then you will have to check out the reserve copy of this book at the library.


WEEK 3 (April 14 & 16): Getty Center Field Trip on Saturday, April 19th. Monday and Wednesday lectures cancelled in lieu of the Getty Center trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned. 


Writing Assignment (Due: Sunday, April 20 by midnight. Email it to your TA. We will accept these papers through Monday, April 21 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 Getty Center: María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold exhibition (West Pavilion, lower level).

2) Write a 1-page museum response to the Getty Center: Charles Ross: Spectrum 14  exhibition (Museum Entrance Hall)

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

 

Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to the Getty Center (but this means you must go to LACMA 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 (April 21 & 23): Writing & Researching Workshops in lecture.

Monday, April 21: Mechanics of a Formal Research Paper Writing Workshop

Wednesday, April 23: Scholarly Research Training Workshop


Writing Assignment (Due: Wednesday, April 23 by 12:30AM): This is a 2-part assignment. 

1) Write the first two pages of your research paper about the work of María Magdalena Campos-Pons. 

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 (April 28 & 30): Fictional and Documentary Space: Blurring the Difference. Artist Talk: María Magdalena Campos-Pons on "Behold" with Carmen Hermo. 

• 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, April 30 by 12:30AM in lecture): This is a 3-part assignment:

1) Write a 1-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 of the Artist Talk featuring María Magdalena Campos-Pons (HERE).

3) Write a 1-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 (May 5 & 7): LACMA Field Trip on Saturday, May 10. Monday and Wednesday lectures cancelled in lieu of the LACMA field trip. Discussion sections scheduled as planned. Research Paper due on Monday, May 5 in sections (Monday 2:00PM and 3:00PM).


Writing Assignment: (Due: Sunday, May 11 by midnight. We will accept these papers through Monday, May 12 by 12:30 in lecture. If you turn it in on Monay it must be a hard copy). This is a 3-part assignment: 

1) Write a 2-page response to the Imagining Black Diasporas exhibition (BCAM, Level 2)

2) Write a 1-page response to the We Live in Painting: The Nature of Color in Mesoamerican Art exhibition (Resnick Pavilion).

3) Write a 1-page response to the Digital Witness: Revolutions in Design, Photography, and Film exhibition (BCAM, Levels 1 and 2).


Alternative Assignment for the SBMA if you do not go to LACMA (but this means you must have gone to the Getty Center 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 (May 12 & 14): 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 writing assignments due! Read the articles to engage in the lectures and sections this week.


WEEK 8 (May 19 & 21): 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, May 21): 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 (May 26 & 28): Memorial Day Holiday Monday, May 26. Artist Talk.

Wednesday, May 28: Artist Talk featuring Emily Baker (via Zoom): https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/83111992304


Writing Assignment: (Due: Friday, May 30 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 Emily Baker.


WEEK 10 (June 2 & 4): Artist Talks featuring TBA

Monday, June 2: Artist Talk featuring Lyra Purugganan

Wednesday, June 4: Artist Talk featuring TBA

 

Writing Assignment (Due: Thursday, June 5 by 12:00PM) email to your TA: This is a 2-part assignment. 

1) Write a 2-page response to Lyra Purugganan's Artist Talk and incorporate information from her journal article that I sent to you.

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

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