1 QUEST 1: IDS 2935 POLITICS AND THE ARTS, 1910-2018 David Leavitt Office Hours: T 9:30-10:30 am and by appointment Office Location: Turlington 4101 Phone: 352 871 8120 Email: [email protected] TA: Django Ellenhorn Office Hours: R 9:30-10:30 am and by appointment Email: [email protected] Time: T 3-4, R 4 Location: Weimer 1094 Quest 1 Theme: The Examined Life General Education: Humanities, Writing (2000 words) (Note that a minimum grade of C is required for General Education credit) Class resources, announcements, updates, and assignments will be made available through the class Canvas site. COURSE DESCRIPTION The relationship between politics and the arts has always been a fraught one. At one end of the spectrum are those artists and writers who advocate a strict separation of art and politics (“art for art’s sake”); at the opposite end are those who consider it the creative artist’s duty to engage with the political issues of their time. In this course, we will look at five arenas in which politics and the arts became inextricably caught up with each other and artists found themselves obliged to enter into the political fray, sometimes even if they didn’t want to. Through the close reading of stories, novels, poems, and essays, as well as consideration of paintings and other examples of the visual arts, theater, dance, and film, we will examine how the arts have reflected, foretold, and sometimes brought about political change. Our approach will be to study these works less as discrete entities than as participatory contributions (sometimes polite, sometimes contentious, sometimes enraged) to an unending conversation about government, sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, war, and religion; in short, about what it means to be human. Please note that in this course, we will be focusing most of our attention on works of art and literature, including essays by writers. On occasional scholarly analyses, reportage, opinion pieces, political tracts, and theoretical texts will be used as we address our topic. The arenas we will look at: 1. The Emergence of Modernism 2 With her declaration that “on or about December 1910 human character changed,” Virginia Woolf drew a direct connection between the Modernist movement in the arts, as exemplified by the exhibit “Manet and the Post-Impressionists,” and the changes in “human relations” with which it was concurrent. In Woolf’s formulation, “when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature.” In this section of the course we will examine the ways in which Modernism both reflected and foreshadowed the collapse of nineteenth-century social and political institutions and the outbreak of World War 1. (This section will also include a brief foray into mathematics for which no mathematical background is required.) 2. World War Two, Anti-Semitism, and Diaspora In this section of the course, we will consider works of art that reflect upon and respond to the upheaval of World War Two, the plight of Anti-Semitism in Europe, and the vast human displacements that occurred in the wake of the Allied victory. 3. “The Love that Dares Not Speak its Name,” the AIDS Epidemic, and the Foundations of Queer Identity As early as the Wilde trials at the end of the nineteenth century, artists were challenging religious and societal intolerance of “the love that dares not speak its name.” Yet in England the notorious Labouchere Amendment, which criminalized acts of “gross indecency” between adult men, in public and in private, remained law until 1967. In this section of the course we will investigate how artists, directly or obliquely, argued not just for the legitimacy of same-sex love but for its vital cultural importance, as well as the profound effect of the AIDS epidemic on literature and the arts. 4. Debates Over Diversity, Inclusion, and Identity No debate has spotlit the question of whether the making of art carries a burden of social responsibility as urgently as the one over identity and cultural appropriation. To what extent are writers and artists obliged to represent the experience of their ethnic, racial, religious, sexual, or gender “constituencies” (to borrow a term from Susan Brownmiller)? Conversely, when a writer or artist speaks from the point of view of a constituency not their own, is it appropriate, or is it “appropriation”? 5. The #metoo Phenomenon and the Transcendence of the Binary: Gender, Sex, Power, and Trauma Although it extends far beyond the arts, the #metoo movement has had a powerful impact on artists. In this last section of the course we will look at how artists and 3 writers are contending with #metoo and the changes that the movement signals in our attitudes toward sexuality, power, and trauma. QUEST ONE AND GENERAL LEARNING OUTCOMES Quest 1 Description: Quest 1 courses are multidisciplinary explorations of truly challenging questions about the human condition that are not easy to answer, but also not easy to ignore: What makes life worth living? What makes a society a fair one? How do we manage conflicts? Who are we in relation to other people or to the natural world? To grapple with the kinds of open-ended and complex intellectual challenges they will face as critical, creative, and self-reflective adults navigating a complex and interconnected world, Quest 1 students use the humanities approaches present in the course to mine texts for evidence, create arguments, and articulate ideas. Quest 1 SLOs: o Identify, describe, and explain the history, theories, and methodologies used to examine essential questions about the human condition within and across the arts and humanities disciplines incorporated into the course (Content). o Analyze and evaluate essential questions about the human condition using established practices appropriate for the arts and humanities disciplines incorporated into the course (Critical Thinking). o Connect course content with critical reflection on their intellectual, personal, and professional development at UF and beyond (Critical Thinking). o Develop and present clear and effective responses to essential questions in oral and written forms as appropriate to the relevant humanities disciplines incorporated into the course (Communication). o Humanities Description: Humanities courses provide instruction in the history, key themes, principles, terminology, and theory or methodologies used within a humanities discipline or the humanities in general. Students will learn to identify and to analyze the key elements, biases and influences that shape thought. These courses emphasize clear and effective analysis and approach issues and problems from multiple perspectives. Humanities SLOs: o Identify, describe, and explain the history, underlying theory and methodologies used in the course (Content). o Identify and analyze key elements, biases and influences that shape thought within the subject area. Approach issues and problems within the discipline from multiple perspectives (Critical Thinking). 4 o Communicate knowledge, thoughts and reasoning clearly and effectively (Communication). Diversity Description: In Diversity courses, students examine the historical processes and contemporary experiences characterizing social and cultural differences within the United States. Students engage with diversity as a dynamic concept related to human differences and their intersections, such as (but not limited to) race, gender identity, class, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, and (dis)abilities. Students critically analyze and evaluate how social inequities are constructed and affect the opportunities and constraints across the US population. Students analyze and reflect on the ways in which cultures and beliefs mediate their own and other people’s understandings of themselves and an increasingly diverse U.S. society. Diversity SLOs: o Identify, describe, and explain the historical processes and contemporary experiences characterizing diversity as a dynamic concept related to human differences and their intersections, such as (but not limited to) race, gender identity, class, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, and disability (Content). o Analyze and evaluate how social inequities are constructed and affect the opportunities and constraints of different groups in the United States. Analyze and reflect on the ways in which cultures and beliefs mediate understandings of an increasingly diverse U.S. society (Critical Thinking). o Writing Description: The Writing Requirement (WR) ensures that students both maintain their fluency in writing and use writing as a tool to facilitate learning. Course grades have two components: the writing component and a course grade. To receive writing credit a student must satisfactorily complete all the assigned written work and receive a minimum grade of C (2.0) for the course. It is possible to not meet the writing requirement and still earn a minimum grade of C in a class, so students should review their degree audit after receiving their grade to verify receipt of credit for the writing component. o Writing Evaluation: o This course carries 2000 words that count towards the UF Writing Requirement. You must turn in all written work counting towards the 2000 words in order to receive credit for those words. o The instructor will evaluate and provide feedback on the student’s written work with respect to content, organization and coherence, argument and support (when appropriate), style, clarity, grammar, punctuation, and other mechanics, using