PHIL 300
Philosophy and the Arts
Dr. Hatley’s Office Hours:
Telephone: 7-5072/443-614-8030
TUESDAY CLASS: 7:00-8:45/TUESDAY STUDIO: 7:00-10:00 pm in
THURSDAY CLASS: 7:00-8:45 pm in FULTON 245
Course Description: This course will focus on a series of philosophers who
address the arts, as well as to specific forms of art that might help us to
understand the ideas of these philosophers. Philosophers have turned to the
arts to reflect upon themes pivotal to our human existence: a) Why do we
desire the beautiful and what does it mean to contemplate beauty?; 2) How does
ugliness, as well as catastrophic or monstrous events, find significance in our
lives?; 3) How do pain and suffering find a transformed expression in the work
of art?; 4) How does artistic form and rhythm reflect spiritual dimensions of
our existence?; 5) How does art encourage philosophical questioning through
inviting us to wonder at the simple fact of seeing and hearing? Often in
courses of this type, discussion is promoted by either a practicing artist or a
reflective thinker. In our effort, we’re bringing to two together
to see what can happen. Music, cinema, visual arts and literature will
all be considered in pursuing our philosophical investigation.
NOTE: Philosophy 300 is an “enhanced” course;
that is, a course that might traditionally be offered for 3 credit hours, but
which, within the context of both the newly reformed Philosophy program and the
Texts:
Aesthetics: Classic Readings
from the Western Tradition (A), (Dabney Townsend)
Why is that Art? (WA), (Barrett)
All the World’s Mornings (AWM), Pascal Quignard All the World's Mornings
One Novel and one
Films:
Persona
Single
White Female
All the World’s Mornings,
Alain Corneau (France)
Rivers and Tides,
Andrew Goldsworthy (
Schindler's List, Spielberg
(
On Library Reserve:
"What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa),” Chatman
“Form and the Divine Proportion”
Grading:
10 weekly questions: 20%
Response Paper 1: 20%
Response Paper 2: 20%
Sing, Show, Hear and See 05%
Group Powerpoint Presentation on Novel and Film 12%
Individual Summary
of Group Powerpoint Presentation 10%
Music Review #1: 04%
Music Review #2: 04%
Participation 05%
CLASS ATTENDENCE:
Class attendance and participation
in discussions are also required. You have two automatic absences (since for
the most part we will be meeting once a week, this is equivalent to four
absences for a class that meets twice a week!) for which no excuse is needed.
No further absences, excused or unexcused will be acceptable. After four
absences, your final grade will be affected.
Assignments:
TYPING: All Papers turned in for a grade in this class must
be turned in on MyClasses. Absolutely no untyped papers will be accepted for this class. An untyped
(i.e. handwritten) paper will be graded as an F.
Response Papers: Response papers are the principal manner in
which your grade will be determined. They will be assigned roughly every
four weeks and require that you write a four page essay in which you
will respond thoughtfully to a question pertaining to what we have been reading
and discussing in class. A response paper should make use of citations from the
text(s) appropriate to the question to be answered. In a response paper
you are to give reasons for any position you take. The question
"Why?" should always be in the back of your mind as you write.
TUESDAY STUDIO: On
five Tuesdays during the semester (8/31, 9/14, 10/5, 11/2, 11/9) class will
meet for an extra hour to hour and a half in order to view a film. These days will be marked on the
syllabus as STUDIO meetings. All
other Tuesdays we will meet for the scheduled time. Tuesday classes meet in TECH 390. Thursday classes in FULTON 203.
CONCERTS: Three
times during the semester, class will meet in the appropriate location to
listen to a concert: 9/9, 9/30, 11/16.
NOVEL/
List of Novels/Films with Author and Director:
1) Interview with a Vampire (Anne Rice and Neil Jordan)
2) Girl with a
3)
4) To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee and Robert Mulligan)
5) The Unbearable
Lightness of Being (
6) The Chosen (Chaim Potok and Jeremy Kagan)
7) Brokeback Mountain (Annie Proulx and Ang Lee)
8) “Do Androids Dreams of Electric Sheep”/Blade Runner (Phillip K. Dick and Ridley Scott)
9) Slaughter House 5 (Kurt Vonnegut and George Roy Hill)
10) Everything is Illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer and Liev Schreiber)
11) The Road (Cormac McCarthy and ?????)
THEMES FOUND IN BOOK/
GROUP POWERPOINT SUMMARY:
Each student will turn in individually two pages typewritten, in which they
will analyze one aesthetic issue in regard to the book and film they have
treated in their group powerpoint presentation.
CONCERT REVIEWS:
Each student will write a review for two out of the three concerts we attend
together this semester. The review
will be due a week after the concert in question. This review should be around 500 words
(two pages) and should be a philosophical meditation on elements of the music
you heard at the concert. These reviews should help students to establish what
Kant calls the sensus communis,
a reflective sense of the community, in regard to its aesthetic feelings. Example
Writing Across the Curriculum: This class emphasizes both
discussion and writing as ways of learning. In addition to the
assignments listed below, you will be asked to participate in a variety of in-class
discussion and writing exercises that will emphasize collaborative and
cooperative learning.
HONOR CODE: Each written assignment should be accompanied by
the following statement, dated and signed by the student: “This assignment was
written entirely by me in my own words, except for quotations from and
references to another person’s work, which I have been careful to point
out. I have in no way made use of the words or ideas of other persons
without attribution.”
Helpful Websites
New
York Metropolitan Museum of Art
WEEKLY QUESTIONS ARE UNDER THE ASSIGNMENT TAB IN
MYCLASSES
WEEKLY PROGRESS/READING
ASSIGNMENTS
Week 1 (8/31,
9/02): Formalism
8/31: Persona (Film Viewing) STUDIO Seduction Story Scene Fog Horns Script
9/1: Reading
Assignment: WA, 107-119.
Powerpoint on Cinema as
a Form of Art; Background on Film Aesthetics
9/1:
Analysis of Persona and Film Aesthetics
Week 2 (9/7, 9/9): Expressionism
vs. Formalism
9/7: Reading
Assignment: (CLASS): WA 119-142; Article on Agnes Martin
by Agnes Martin
9/9: Concert Kenge Kenge Red Square
Week 3 (9/14, 9/16): The
Aesthetics of Film in SWF and Persona
9/14: Single White Female (Film Viewing) STUDIO Transcript
9/16:
Reading Assignment: A, Kant, 117-123, (Philosophy
Majors: 117-141); Tolstoy, 208-213
Powerpoint on Kant and Tolstoy
RESPONSE PAPER I: Choose a scene from Persona or Single White
Female and characterize it from Tolstoy’s notion of art as a
communication of emotions and from Kant’s notion of art as an invitation
to disinterested interest.
How do the cinematic elements of the scene—movement, image, music,
gesture, light—bring its viewer either to be infected by an emotion
(Tolstoy) or to be brought to aesthetic contemplation of what it means to have
a feeling (Kant)? Which
approach—Kantian or Tolstoyian—do you
prefer to characterizing the scene and why? Finally which film do you consider
a better work of art? What
arguments would you give to convince someone who disagrees with you that you point
of view is worth considering? At
least four printed pages.
Week 4 (9/21, 9/23): Art
Beyond the Material World: Plato and Medieval Art
9/21: Reading
Assignment: A, Plato, pp. 5-19;
Plotinus, pp. 44-54; Bonaventure, pp. 55-65. (CLASS)
Power Point on Divine
Proportion
Week 5 (9/28, 9/30): High and
Low Art? Folk Music in a World of
Mass Culture and Mechanical Reproduction
9/28:
Reading: A, Walter Benjamin, pp.
281-295. (CLASS)
9/30: Sitar
Concert 7-9 PM
Week 6 (10/5, 10/7): Art as the Gathering of World in Martin
Heidegger
First Response
Paper Due: Midnight, Sunday, October 3rd
10/5: Film
Viewing of Rivers and Tides (Andrew
Goldsworthy) STUDIO
10/7: Reading
Assignment, PDF FILE: Martin Heidegger
Hamish Fulton Web Site Andrew
Goldsworthy Chris Jordan Power
Point on Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty
Week 7 (10/12, 10/14): The Dionysian and the Appolinian in Nietzche, pp.
84-101
10/12:
Reading: A, pp. Nietzsche, pp. 173-187
(CLASS)
Week 8 (10/19, 10/21):
Postmodern Pluralism: Art that Destabilizes
10/19:
Reading: WA, pp. 147-197. (CLASS)
10/21:
Artworks discussed in WA, pp.
147-197.
Break into Groups and Choose Film and Novel
for Final Presentation.
Week 9 (10/26, 10/28): Imitation
as the Initiation into Truth
10/26: Reading
Assignment: WA, pp. 17-52. (CLASS)
10/28:
Reading
Assignment: A, Aristotle, pp. 20-43.
Week 10 (11/2, 11/4): (re)Opening
the Past, Witnessing the Victim
11/2: Film
Viewing: Schindler’s List (3
Hours) STUDIO
11/4:
Is Schindler’s List a failed
tragedy?
11/4:
Reading Assignment: Reviews of Schindler List (Library Reserve)
United
State Holocaust Memorial
RESPONSE PAPER II: Is Schindler’s List
a successful mimesis of the Holocaust? Schindler's List at least
in part adopts an Aristotelian aesthetic of imitation and catharsis.
Discuss how this is so and whether this aesthetic can respond appropriately to
the Holocaust. At least four
printed pages. Witness of a
Barber: Transcript Abraham Bomba’s Witness in Shoah: Part I Bomba's Witness in Shoah: Part II
Oskar Schindler AE
Documentary: Part I
Week 11 (11/9, 11/11): Viewing, Hearing and Reading All the World’s Mornings
Reading
Assignment: All the World's Mornings
11/9:
Discussion of Schindler’s List
11/11:
Diana Wagner Folk Music/Reading Assignment: All
the World’s Mornings (Pascal Quignard)
Powerpoint on Viola de Gamba Folies d'Espagne on Flute Jordi Savall Plays Folies d'Espagne
Helpful
Websites:
Notes
from Dick Moleants and Audition of St. Colombe Concert Excerpts
Carl
Abel: The Last Player of the Viola de Gamba
Notes on St. Colombe and the Viola de Gamba
Week 12 (11/16, 11/18): Novel
vs. Film: All the Mornings of the World
11/16: Viewing
of All the Mornings of the World STUDIO Information on Book and
Film
11/18:
Reading Assignment: “What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice
Versa),” Chatman (Handout).
Additional Readings Novels, Discourse, Film
Week 13 (11/23): Show and Sing
Week 14 (11/30, 12/2): Film/Novel Presentations.
11/30: Group
Meetings to Prepare Power Point Presentations (CLASS)
Example Power Point on Film and Novel
12/2:
Powerpoint Presentations on Film/Novel
Wednesday 12/3 by Midnight: RESPONSE PAPER
II DUE.
Week 15 (12/7, 12/9):
Film/Novel Presentations
12/7 (CLASS)—Powerpoint
Presentations on Film/Novel.
12/9: Either
play or bring a cd of a song or an artwork to share
with the class that you would want others to hear or view for its aesthetic
qualities. Be prepared to discuss you contribution.
Finals Week: Individual Paper on Novel and Film Due. At least three pages.