DISCOVER THE POWER OF IDEAS
DEPARTMENT OF ART EDUCATION AND ART HISTORY
AEAH 4809 Honors
Topics in Eighteenth-Century Art
Fashion, Interiors, and Decorative Arts in France and Britain
Spring 2011
Dr. Denise Amy Baxter, Associate Professor of Art History and
Interim Chair of the Department of Art Education and Art History
Course meets: Tuesdays & Thursdays 2-3:20 in Art 219
Office Hours: Tuesdays 10-12 in Department office and by appointment
Email through ECampus or
Course Description: Selected topics in eighteenth-century art.
Course texts: All required texts will be disseminated through ECampus.
Course Content: This course will focus on the clothing, decorative arts, and material culture of eighteenth-century France and, to a lesser extent, England.
Course Objectives:
- To become familiar with the scope and variety of fashion, decorative arts, and interiors produced in France and, to a lesser extent, England, during the eighteenth century
- To develop methodologies appropriate for considering issues surrounding eighteenth-century production, use, and reception of art objects and material culture
- To use methods and theories as appropriate to engage in a sustained research project analyzing a relevant topic
- To work collaboratively and individually towards these objectives
Course Structure: The course is designed as a seminar. Discussion and collaboration are at its core.
Assessment:
Class preparation, attendance, and participation10%
Preliminary paper presentation 5%
Weekly assignments35%
Final paper presentation10%
Final paper40%
Class preparation, attendance, and participation: Collaborative learning is at the heart of the seminar class. In order to collaborate, you must come to class prepared to think, to discuss, to offer and receive feedback. You may miss one class and one class only, for whatever reason. You must, however, complete and submit all required work for that class by the class period in order to receive credit. Any further unexcused absence will result in a 5% drop in the attendance and participation grade, with each subsequent absence resulting in an additional 5% drop, up until and including four absences. Any absence after the 4th will result in a course grade drop of one letter grade per absence.
University-sanctioned and documented excuses will, of course, be permitted.
Preliminary paper presentation:Early in the semester, you will give a five minute oral presentation of your topic, your research plans, and your proposed methodology. While your topic may still be in flux, and your conclusions will not yet be final, this should still be a formal presentation with a title, topic, proposed research question, and should include the images that you propose to address in the final paper.
Weekly assignments: These may vary from week to week and will range from a think piece, to individual responsibility for leading class discussion, to individual presentation of a separate reading to the class, to other varied assignments. You will be required to do only one of these assignments each week. See schedule of classes for details.
Think piece: When assigned to write a “think piece,” write a 2-3 page essay in which you engage with some aspect of the week’s readings. This is not to be a reiteration of the argument presented in the reading, but an engagement with it. You might, for example, offer some sort of critique of the author’s methodology or conclusions. You might attempt to apply the author’s arguments to an image or situation of your own choosing. These are opportunities to work through the issues that you will eventually deal with in your seminar paper. Selected students may be asked to read their responses in class each week. These are formal pieces of writing.
Discussion: Each student will be responsible for leading discussion at some point during the course of the semester. The quality of your fulfillment of that responsibility will constitute your grade for that week’s assignment. You will be responsible for the course content for approximately 30-40 minutes of course time. Remember that your responsibility for leading discussing pertains to the texts that your peers have also read and written about. You will need to bring in appropriate visual materials in order to do this. You should facilitate connections between texts and guide discussion of methodological approaches. You should also do research about the authors for the week, researching their backgrounds and become familiar with any reviews of their work. Feel free to contact me with questions as you go about your preparation.
Text presentation: In order to allow us as a class to become aware of more readings than we would all have the reasonable opportunity to read, each student will be responsible for presenting an additional assigned reading at some point during the course of the semester. In about 15-20 minutes, you should situate and present the text. Explain who the author is, what the argument is, how that argument is supported, and relate these to the course as a whole. You will need to bring in appropriate visual materials to do this. Feel free to contact me with questions as you go about your preparation.
Final paper presentation:At the conclusion of the semester you have 10 minutes to present a concise synopsis of your research, your methodology, problems confronted, and conclusions drawn. You must use power-point, or other such technology, to illustrate the presentation. The presentation should be polished and timed in the format of a conference presentation. Please note the 10 minute time constraint and tightly time your presentation.
Final paper:You are required to write a paper for this course. Topics must be approved by Professor Baxter. Papers should identify a problem, present a critical discussion of the scholarship on the problem, and work towards a solution of that problem. Papers must be 12-15 pages of text including footnotes in Chicago Manual of Style format, with 1 inch margins in Times New Roman or similar 12 point font. You will be required to do substantial outside research for these papers. Monographs, the texts for this course, and web resources alone are not sufficient. You will need to consult the journal literature and/or anthologized texts as appropriate to your topic. Papers that do not fulfill these basic parameters will not receive passing grades. Consider meeting with Professor Baxter in office hours, by appointment, and/or via email at various times during the paper writing process. There are multiple deadlines associated with the final paper project. These preliminary components, along with the final product, will constitute the final paper grade. Late materials will not be graded.
Assessment of final paper:
Annotated preliminary bibliography5%
Statement of problem5%
Statement of thesis5%
Abstract and expanded bibliography 10%
Final paper text75%
Annotated preliminary bibliography: This should be your working bibliography at this point, in Chicago Manual of Style format, with one to several sentences about the relevance of this source and how it will impact your argument. You do not need to have the source in hand, or have yet read it, in order to do this. At this point your bibliography should have at least 10 sources.
Statement of problem: In one to several sentences, state the problem that your research paper proposes to answer.
Statement of thesis: In one to two sentences, explain your proposed answer to your problem. By this point your problem may have evolved.
Abstract and expanded bibliography: In addition to your updated annotated bibliography, which should by now be expanded, refined, and corrected, you will need to prepare an abstract of your paper. In 250 words or fewer you must explain the argument of your paper and the evidence that you will use to support your conclusions.
Final paper text: 12-15 pages, and absolutely polished.
Late Policy: Extensions for work may be granted in advance at the discretion of Dr. Baxter. Work that is late for which no pre-approved extension has been granted, will receive a grade of 0. No partial credit will be given for late work.
American with Disabilities Act (Disabilities Accommodation): The College of Visual Arts and Design is committed to full academic access for all qualified students, including those with disabilities. In keeping with this commitment and in order to facilitate equality of educational access, faculty members in the College will make reasonable accommodations for qualified students with a disability, such as appropriate adjustments to the classroom environment and the teaching, testing, or learning methodologies when doing so does not fundamentally alter the course.
If you have a disability, it is your responsibility to obtain verifying information from the Office of Disability Accommodation (ODA) and to inform me of your need for an accommodation. Requests for accommodation must be given to me no later than the first week of classes for students registered with the ODA as of the beginning of the current semester. If you register with the ODA after the first week of classes, your accommodation requests will be considered after this deadline.
Grades assigned before an accommodation is provided will not be changed. Information about how to obtain academic accommodations can be found in UNT Policy 18.1.14, at and by visiting the ODA in Room 321 of the University Union. You also may call the ODA at 940.565.4323.
Course Risk Factor: According to University Policy, this course is classified as a category one course. Students enrolled in this course will not be exposed to any significant hazards and are not likely to suffer any bodily injury. Students will be informed of any potential health hazards or potential bodily injury connected with the use of any materials and/or processes and will be instructed how to proceed without danger to themselves or others.
Building Emergency Procedures: In case of emergency (alarm will sound), please follow the building evacuation plans posted on each floor of your building and proceed to the nearest parking lot. In case of tornado (campus sirens will sound) or other weather related threat, please go to the nearest hallway or room on your floor without exterior windows and remain there until an all clear signal is sounded. Follow the instructions of your teachers and act accordingly.
Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities: Each University of North Texas student is entitled to certain rights associated with higher education institutions. See for further information.
Acceptable Classroom Behavior: Student behavior that interferes with an instructor’s ability to conduct a class or other students' opportunity to learn is unacceptable and disruptive and will not be tolerated in any instructional forum at UNT. Students engaging in unacceptable behavior will be directed to leave the classroom and the instructor may refer the student to the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities to consider whether the student's conduct violated the Code of Student Conduct. The university's expectations for student conduct apply to all instructional forums, including university and electronic classroom, labs, discussion groups, field trips, etc. The Code of Student Conduct can be found at
Dr. Baxter reserves the right to change this syllabus at her discretion, with or without notice.
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES
Week OneTuesday, 18 January / Topic: Introduction to the course
Thursday, 20 January / Topic: Art history, material culture, and the object
Readings:Excerpt on Formal Analysis from Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art. Please note that all readings will be disseminated electronically via ECampus. You are not expected to read them off the computer screen! Instead, print these texts and bring the day’s text(s) with you to the class meeting. Not all readings will be available online at the first class meeting. Many are in the process of being scanned. You will be kept informed about this process.
Due: Find and send an image of eighteenth-century French or British fashion, material culture, or decorative arts. This needs to be emailed, as an attachment, or as a link, within ECampus by 12noon. Excellent places to look for such an image include: ARTstor, Berg Fashion Library, or UNT’s own Visual Resource Collection.
RSVP for Rosenberg lecture: or 214-922-1391.
Week Two
Tuesday, 25 January / Topic: What is it and how do we approach it?
Readings: La Font de Saint Yenne from Reflections on some Causes of the Present State of Painting in France in Charles Harrison, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger, eds., Art in Theory, 1648-1815: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000): 554-561.
Skim: Pierre Bourdieu, “A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste,” in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, Translated by Richard Nice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984): 9-96.
Due: Write a think piece on the relationship between La Font’s arguments in the eighteenth-century about the roles of interiors and decorative arts and Bourdieu’s understanding of distinction.
Thursday, 27 January / Topic: Michael L. Rosenberg Collection and Lecture
Rather than holding class during our regularly scheduled time period, today will be devoted to the incredible collection and resources at the Dallas Museum of Art.
Dr. Kathleen Nicholson, Professor of Art History at the University of Oregon, “‘Beguiling Deception’: Allegorical Portraiture in Early Eighteenth-Century France,” Horchow Auditorium
Business attire
Please reply for the lecture and reception to
or214-922-1391 by Thursday, January 20.
Week Three
Tuesday, 1 February / Topic: Guest speaker: Dr. Amy Freund, Assistant Professor of Art History at Texas Christian University
Readings: TBA
Due: Write a 1-2 page paper summarizing and engaging with Professor Nicholson’s lecture. What was her argument? Her evidence? What questions did you have? What research would you like to see done? What interested you as possibilities for your own work in this course?
Thursday, 3 February / Topic: Objects and us
Readings: Siân Jones, “Negotiating Authentic Objects and Authentic Selves: Beyond the Deconstruction of Authenticity,” Journal of Material Culture 15 (2010): 181-203.
Mimi Hellman, “Object Lessons: French Decorative Art as a Model for Interdisciplinarity,” in Julia V. Douthwaite and Mary Vidal, eds., The Interdisciplinary Century: Tensions and Convergences inEighteenth-Century Art, History, and Literature. Studies in Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2005), 60–76.
Week Four
Tuesday, 8 February / Due: Preliminary paper presentations
Thursday, 10 February / Topic: Library Research Methods Day
Meet at Willis Library 136 (to the right as one enters the front doors of Willis Library) with Rebecca Barham.
Dr. Baxter at Academic Chairpersons’ Conference.
Week Five
Tuesday, 15 February / Topic: Leisure as work
Everyone Reads: Mimi Hellman, “Furniture, Sociability, and the Work of Leisure in Eighteenth-Century France,” Eighteenth-Century Studies32, no. 4 (1999): 415-445.
Katie Scott, “Introduction: The Anatomy of a Noble House,” in The Rococo Interior: Decoration and Social Spaces in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995): 1-10.
Due:Think piece either today or Thursday unless you are leading discussion or presenting a reading on Thursday.
Thursday, 17 February / Topic: Exteriors, Interiors, and Interiority
Everyone Reads: Meredith Martin, “The Ascendancy of the Interior in Eighteenth-Century French Architectural Theory,” in Denise Amy Baxter and Meredith Martin, eds., Architectural Space in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2010): 15-34.
Mimi Hellman, “Interior Motives: Seduction by Decoration in Eighteenth-Century France,” in Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, Dangerous Liaisons: Fashion and Furniture in the Eighteenth Century (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006): 15-23.
Discussion Leader:
Individual Reading: Kathryn Norberg, “Goddesses of Taste: Courtesans and Their Furniture in Late-Eighteenth-Century Paris,” in Dena Goodman and Kathryn Norberg, eds., Furnishing the Eighteenth Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us about the European and American Past (New York and London: Routledge, 2007): 97-114.
Presenter: Ashley Barnes
or
Individual Reading: Selection TBA from Meredith Martin, Dairy Queens: The Politics of Pastoral Architecture from Catherine de’ Medici to Marie Antoinette (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). Please note that this book has a February publication date and may therefore not be available for the time of this presentation. So, if you select this reading, have a back-up plan for another one later in the semester.
Presenter:
Due:Think piece if you didn’t turn one in on Tuesday, unless you are leading discussion or presenting a reading today.
Week Six
Tuesday, 22 February / Topic: What is a boudoir, anyways? Materiality in the boudoir and at the table
Everyone Reads: Jill H. Casid, “Commerce in the Boudoir” in Melissa Hyde and Jennifer Milam, eds., Women, Art, and the Politics of Identity in Eighteenth-Century Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003): 91-114.
Discussion Leader: Esther Park
Individual Reading: Bernard L. Herman, “Tabletop Conversations: Material Culture and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World,” in John Styles and Amanda Vickery, eds., Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006): 37-59.
Presenter:Bri Camp
or
Individual Reading: Amanda Vickery, “‘Neat and Not Too Showey’: Words and Wallpaper in Regency England,” in John Styles and Amanda Vickery, eds., Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America, 1700-1830 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2006): 201-222.
Presenter: Liss Sheppard
Due:Annotated preliminary bibliography
Thursday, 24 February / Topic: Formal analysis and the object: Case studies
Everyone Reads: Carolyn Sargentson, “Looking at Furniture Inside Out: Strategies of Secrecy and Security in Eighteenth-Century French Furniture,” in Dena Goodman and Kathryn Norberg, eds., Furnishing the Eighteenth Century: What Furniture Can Tell Us about the European and American Past (New York and London: Routledge, 2007): 205-236.
or
Dena Goodman, “Furnishing Discourses: Readings of a Writing Desk in Eighteenth-Century France,”in Maxine Berg and Elizabeth Eger, eds., Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires, and Delectable Goods (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003): 71-88.