Weekly
Week
Two: Film Aesthetics
Reading Assignment: “The Significance of Film Form”
from Film Aesthetics (On Library Reserve)
1) Using the one of the principles of film
form found in “The Significance of Film Form” (function, similarity/repetition,
difference/variation, unity/disunity), discuss how it is at work in All the Mornings of the world. In doing so, consider the film in the context
of its: a) visuality; b) plot development; c) sound.
2) Does St. Colombe betray his daughter when he
finally embraces Marais near the film's end?
Why or Why not?
3) Read the following dialogue from the
"last and first lesson" given by Colombe to Marais. Colombe gives several answers to what we seek
in music. Rank Colombe's answers and
then explain your reasons for
choosing
the highest and the lowest on your list:
C: Who is
that sighing in the darkness?
M: A man
fleeing palaces in search of music.
C: What do
you seek in music?
M: I seek
sorrows and tears.
C: Sit
down.
M: May I
ask you for one last lesson?
C: May I
attempt a first lesson? I wish to
speak…Music exists to say things words cannot say, which is why it is not
entirely human. You’ve found out that music is not for kings.
M: I’ve
found out it’s for G-d
C: You’re
wrong. G-d can speak…
M: For the
ear.
C: Things
that cannot be spoken cannot be heard by the ear.
M:
Gold? Glory? Silence?
C: Silence
is but the opposite of sound.
M: Rival
Musicians? Love? Sorrows of Love? Wantonness?
A wafer for the unknown?
C: Not
that either. What is a wafer? You can
see it. Taste it. It’s nothing
M: I give
up… I give up… One must leave a drink
for the dead.
C: You’re
getting warmer.
M: A refreshment
for those who’ve run out of words. For
lost childhood.To muffle the hammering of shoemakers. For the time before we were born, before we
breathed or saw light.
C: A
moment ago you heard me sigh…I’ll give you a few airs that will wake the dead.
Week
Three: Art for Art’s Sake, or Not?
Reading
Assignment: Kant, pp. 117-123
(Philosophy Majors: 117-141); Tolstoy, 204-213. Also
see: Notes on Kant
1) What do you think is meant by the notion of
"disinterested interest" in Kant's approach to viewing a work of art?
2) What does Tolstoy argue about the
relationship of the work of art to the one who views it?
3) Discuss a moment in All the Mornings of the World that could be addressed by either
Kant or Tolstoy's approach to art.
Week
Four: Philosophy in a Musical Key (How
to Listen to Music)
Reading:
“Hearing, Knowing and Understanding Music” and “Talking—and Thinking—about
Music,” Roger Sessions; “Music: A View from Delft,” Edward Cone
1)
Cone applies 3 principles to music: polar tension, the fusion by
mutual analogy and of saturation. He also states that since music is a temporal
art, certain possibilities are open to it that is unavailable to painting and
that the unity of a musical composition must be perceptible within the medium.
Explain what he means in this article and relate it to the music you heard in All
the Mornings of the World.
2)
What does the composer Roger Sessions say about how music should
be judged in his article? What does he mean when he states that “the ear is
slow, the mind is slower and the heart is slower still?” Compare these
convictions to a piece of music that you know and enjoy listening to. Give the
name of the piece and the composer/writer of the lyrics. Next, apply these same
principles and convictions about judging music described by Sessions to a piece
you do not like.
Week
Five: Platonic Notions of Art and the
Medieval World.
Readings: Chapters on Plato, Plotinus and Bonaventure
in the Aesthetics Reader
1)
Is Plato right to argue some artists do not belong in the Republic? Which sort of artists would you censor and
why? If you would allow any artist to
practice her or his techne/craft, why would you be so liberal?
2) For Plotinus, what is the difference between
intellectual beauty and material beauty?
Do you think things are more beautiful that are entirely intellectual,
or would you insist that beauty must also involve a bodily component? Why or why not?
3) What are the "four lights" for
Bonaventure? Give an example of each.
4) Would Serrano's "Piss Christ" (see
image on left) be better exhibited in an art gallery or a church? Why?
What about Fra Angelico's Annunciation (see image on right)?
Week
Six: High
and Low Art? Folk Music in a World of
Mass Culture and Mechanical Reproduction (Drs. Hatley and Cockey)
Reading: (A) Chapter on Walter
Benjamin, pp. 281-295.
Assignment:
Bring in one song, popular or folk, that you would argue is worthy of
serious aesthetic consideration. You may
sing and perform the song on an instrument or play a CD of someone else’s
performance. Write out some comments on
your song and address the class on why you think this song is worthy of serious
aesthetic consideration. Connect your
comments in some way to Walter Benjamin’s essay we are reading for class.
Week
Seven: Pop
Tunes of the Renaissance: The Secularization of Music between 14th/16th
Centuries.
Readings: 2
Readings
Audition on Utube: "Summer is icumin":
Traditional “Summer is
icumin”: a la renaissance rock n'roll
Summertime I:
Classical Concert Summertime
II: Ella and Louis Summertime
III: Janis
LECTURE BY DR. COCKEY IN THE GREAT
HALL.
Questions:
1) In light of Dr. Cockey’s lecture, discuss how the Renaissance song
“Summer is i’cumin” finds resonances in Gershwin’s “Summertime.” 2) Is
it helpful to your aesthetic appreciation of “Summertime” to know about its
resonances with a piece of music from an era 650 years removed? Why or why not? (Put otherwise, how is the tradition of music
a crucial or non-crucial element in any piece of music we hear?) 3) In
your reading assignment (see directly above) did you notice a difference in the
attitude of Christianity to music in the Medieval vs. Renaissance periods? Comment.
4) Given the comments in the
reading assignment, how would you compare or contrast the social graces
cultivate in Renaissance dance with those cultivated in the dancing of your
peers?
Week
Eight: Art
as Imitation/Art as Truth
1)
Do you agree with Aristotle that
comedy is inferior to tragedy (p. 19)?
Why or why not?
2)
How does Nietzsche conceive of tragedy
as Dionysian? As Appolinian?
3) Think
of a work of art that has unveiled a profound truth (at least for you). Discuss how this occurred.
Week
Nine: Viewing Schindler’s List: Can the Holocaust be Mimesis?
Reading Assignment: Movie Reviews of Schindler’s List (On Library Reserve); Neitzsche on Tragedy.
DOUBLE CREDIT!!
1) Aristotle claims that great art (namely,
tragedy) should instigate catharsis, an emotional response in its viewer
that is "cleansing" and "purgative." According to Aristotle, at the climax of the
dramatic action, the viewer finds her or himself deeply moved, perhaps even
crying, in response the plight of the tragedy's central character. In this cathartic response, one finds a
renewed depth to and affirmation of one's mortal existence. Does Schindler's List cause its viewer
to undergo a catharsis? Explain.
2) Aristotle makes a distinction between drama
that is spectacle and drama that is artful.
Can you point to a contemporary example of drama that is more spectacle
than art? Discuss.
3) Discuss the
views expressed about the film Schindler's List in one of the review
articles on reserve in the library. Do
you agree or disagree with those views?
Why?
\Week
Ten: All the World’s Mornings: Novel
vs. Film
Reading
Assignment: All the World’s Mornings,
Pascal Quignard; “What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa),"
Audition:
All the Mornings of the World—Ten Years
After
1) Pick one scene
from the film and discuss how they differ in their treatment from the same
scenes in the novel.
2) Why is the Viola da gamba such an important
figure in the novel? Unpack all the ways
in which this particular figure works in the novel.
1) Discuss
the style of this novel. Are there any
features of it that you find particularly unusual?
Week
Eleven: Artists Talking About Art
Based on the presentations by SU composer
Robert Baker and SU painter and photographer Carl Goldhagen, please write three
questions that their artworks elicited in your mind and then answer them
thoughtfully and philosophically.
Week
Twelve: WILD CARD WEEK
Write a review at least two pages in length
of one of the two events we attended as a class this week.
Week Thirteen: Novel/Film Class Presentations
Week Fourteen: Novel/Film Class Presentations
EXTRA UNUSED QUESTIONS FROM PREVIOUS YEARS
1) What sort of experience does music require of
its listeners? Does listening to “good”
music change the way we hear music? How?
2) Is what makes music “salable” the same as
what makes it “good”? Why or why
not? Adorno names the quality of salable
music (or music valued only as “commodity”) as the loss of “light heartedness”?
What do you think he might mean by this claim?
3) “What music
conveys to us—and let it be emphasized, this is the nature of the medium itself, not the consciously formulated purpose
of the composer—is the nature of our existence, as embodied in the movement
that constitutes our innermost life…” (p. 45).
Do you agree with the author? Why
or why not? What could the author
possibly mean by “the movement that constitutes our innermost life”? Can existence be a movement?
1) What sort of unity makes good music possible,
according to Cone?
2) In what ways might Vermeer’s painting (“A
View of Delft”) suggest a work of music?
(Muse on the painting on your own and use your creative imagination!).
2) Can you think of one pop song where the words go with the music and
another where they are simply imposed?
Bring a CD, if you’ve got one, of the songs you’ve chosen.
Reading Assignment: “Performing Music” and “Composing Music,” Roger
Sessions
1) Discuss the following
quotation from pg. 61: “We experience
music as movement and gesture, and that movement and gesture, if they are to
retain their power for us, have to be constantly reinvested with fresh
energy.” Can you name (and bring if
possible) an example of music that is being “reinvested with fresh energy”?
2) What might be lost to music
when its composers are no longer performers?
3) In what ways, according to
Sessions, should the artist refuse
to become free.
Reading Assignment:: “The Significance of Form and the Divine”
Audition: “Years of Pilgrimage” (Franz Liszt); “Requiems” (Mozart
and Brahams), “Missa Solemnis (Beethoven), “Wozzeck” (Alban Berg), “Threnody
for the Victims of Hiroshima” (Pendrecki)
1)
What in music might inspire us to turn to the “divine” (however you
might characterize that term)?
2)
Can you think of any experience with music in your life that has led to
question what is divine?
3)
Think of a particular work of music you might characterize as divine
(e.g. Buddhist or Gregorian chants, Johnny Cash’s late recordings, “Amazing
Grace,” Verdi’s Requiem). Why?
Art Transcending the World, or Not?
Reading Assignment; NA, Plato,
Nietzsche and Hegel, pp. 49-63; pp. 84-101; pp. 73-83
1) Plato claims that art can undermine our
proper understanding of the world. Can
you think of an example in the contemporary world where this might be true?
2)
Do you think artists should SOMETIMES be banished from the ideal
city? Why or why not?
3) Referring to Nietzsche's notions
of the Apollinian and the Dionysian, describe how a favorite artwork of yours
illustrates one, or the other, or both.
3) Hegel speaks of how romantic art is a "smiling through
tears" (p. 80, NA). What do
you think he means by this expression?
4) For Heidegger, the Vincent Van Gogh painting Shoes
interrogates how a pair of shoes is "thingly" rather than merely
"equipment." Explain. How might Van Gogh’s depiction of shoes
compare to the piles of shoes collected by the Nazis at Auschwitz?