Humanities 161
Media Aesthetics: Image, Sound, Text
Winter 2002 (Sound/Composition)
Section 06: Tuesday/Thursday, 3pm
Instructor
Rebecca Zorach
Collegiate Assistant Professor
Gates-Blake 217
702-3299
Office Hours: Th 1-3pm (and by appointment)
Writing intern
Anne Stephenson
Office hours by appointment
Rationale:
The particular emphasis of this three-quarter Humanities core sequence falls on issues in aesthetics, and especially on the problem of “the medium.” We will analyze a wide range of texts, images, objects, musical compositions and films, asking how the experience of formal and conceptual meaning is shaped by the medium through which a given aesthetic object is presented to us. We will raise such questions as: What constitutes a medium? Can artistic media be distinguished in a rigorous and systematic way from non-artistic media? What, for instance, is the difference between sound and music? What does it mean to call a painting a "composition" or an "arrangement"? When is a speech-act a poem, or a song? When is a song a poem, or a poem a song? What happens to objects when we “translate” them into other media--poems into songs, sound into paint, the spoken word into text? The course encourages students to examine the relationship between the kinds of meaning fostered by various media and the analytical methods through which those meanings can be elucidated. Each quarter of the sequence will array a mix of objects and media for examination but will also carry a particular thematic emphasis. Winter quarter will focus on sound, and in particular on the issue of composition--on what it means for sounds, words, and works to be "composed."
Requirements:
You are expected to attend and participate in all class sessions. Since participation constitutes a substantial portion of your grade, you should come to class having read the assigned texts carefully and prepared with ideas and questions about them. Each week, half of the class will be expected to email a “response paragraph” (half a page of writing based on your reactions to the readings and/or class discussion) to the instructor and writing intern. You are also expected to attend and participate in four writing workshops led by the course intern; your contributions to these workshops will make up a significant part of your grade for the course. The practical purpose of this course is to help students develop the reading, writing and analytical skills they will need to pursue successful academic and professional careers. A number of assignments are designed to aid in this task. You will write four formal essays: three 3-page essays, and a 5-page essay. The due dates are noted on the syllabus. Assignments will lose 1/3 letter grade per day late. In addition to the essays you will write frequent short response papers on the reading assignments. The grade distribution is: participation
(workshops, attendance, class discussion, emailed discussion questions and response papers) 35%; essay #1 10%; essay #2 15%; essay #3 15%; essay #4 25%. For the third paper you will have the option of a creative topic or a rewrite of a previous paper. In addition to your meetings with the writing intern, you will be required to meet with me early in the quarter; and expected to take advantage of my office hours throughout the quarter.
Papers (2 copies!) are due by 5pm through the mail slot of Gates-Blake 217.
Texts available for purchase at Seminary Coop Bookstore and on reserve at Regenstein Library
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of Wagner, ed. Kaufman
(Random House, 1967)
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, ed. Donald B. Gibson (Penguin, 1996)
Samuel Beckett, Krapp's Last Tape, and Other Dramatic Pieces (Grove, 1969)
William Blake, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
David Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction, 6th ed. (New York: McGraw Hill, 2000) (optional)
Packet on Regenstein Electronic Reserve (through library website or “External Links” on course website at ). Hard copies of packet articles are on regular reserve at Regenstein Library.
Slides (available for viewing at: chalk.uchicago.edu)
Week 1Tu1/7Introduction: Sound and Voice
Berio, Sequenza III for Voice (CD)
Th1/9Composition: Part and Whole
Schoenberg, “The Relationship to the Text”
Call and Response (CD)
Week 2Screenings of Martin Arnold, Passage a L’Acte in Cobb 307 (M 1/13 at 11:30 and 12:00; T 1/14 at 1:30 and 2:00)
Strongly recommended: Adaptation (at various venues in Chicago)
Tu1/14Composition: Blues
Handy, “St. Louis Blues” (CD)
Handy, “Blue Diamonds in the Rough”
Mondrian, Broadway BoogieWoogie
Th1/16Composition: Blues, Theme & Variation
Blues from Bessie Smith to the Beatles (CD)
Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice”
Hughes, “The Weary Blues” (xerox)
Arnold, Passage à L’Acte (video)
Week 3Tu1/21Composition: Poetry
Wordsworth, “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge”
Williams, “This Is Just to Say”; Koch, “Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams”
Brooks, “We Real Cool”
Bishop, “Sestina”
Dove, “Parsley”
Whistler, Arrangement in Black and Gray (slide)
Th1/23Philosophies of Composition
Poe, “The Raven”
Poe, “The Philosophy of Composition”
Week 4Screenings of AriaTristan in Cobb 307 (W 1/29 at 11:30 and 12:00; F 1/31 at 3:00 and 3:30)
M1/27Essay #1 due
Tu1/28Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy
Th1/30Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy
Week 5Tu2/4Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy
Excerpts from Aria and Tristan and Isolde (video)
Th2/6Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Week 6Screening of The Piano for sections 01 and 06 (to be arranged)
Tu2/11Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Th2/13Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Selected Sorrow Songs, with Anderson and Robeson
Williams, “The Pain of Word Bondage”
Week 7M2/17Essay #2 due
Tu2/18Rhythm, Meter, Rhyme, and Line: William Blake
Blake, Songs of Innocence
Th2/20Blake: Poetry, Song, and Image
Blake, Songs of Experience
Oh Rose Thou Art Sick (Performed by Allen Ginsberg)
Week 8Tu2/25Blank Verse and Free Verse
Milton, Paradise Lost, “The Verse” and lines 1-26
Dickinson, #505; Lorde, “Echoes”
Campion, The Piano
Th2/27Indeterminate Sounds
Cage, "Composition as Process"
Cage, 4'33'' (performance in class)
Cage, TV Köln
Oliveros, Sonic Meditations
F 2/28Essay #3 Due
Week 9Screenings of The Conversation in Cobb 307 (T 3/4 at 9:00; M 3/10 at 11:00; F 3/7 at 11:00)
Tu3/4Radio (1)
Adorno, “The Radio Symphony”
Cheever, “The Enormous Radio”
Th3/6Radio (2)
Beckett, Embers and Act Without Words 1
LL Cool J, “Can’t live without my radio”
Week 10Tu3/11Film Sound
Coppola, The Conversation (video)
Chion, “On the Acousmêtre”
Th3/13Conclusion
Week 11M3/17Essay #4 due