DUE:
Web page: Monday, May 18, 12:00 noon Pacific Daylight Time
Written Paper: Friday, May 22, 12:00 noon Pacific Daylight Time
CONTENT: You will prepare an analysis of one work of art available on the World Wide Web (which you will choose) from the theoretical perspective of one philosopher/theorist on the list below. In a "traditional" course, you would typically take a final exam and submit a final term paper. This Final Project replaces such requirements. It calls upon you to synthesize material learned in the course, to demonstrate your understanding of that material, to conduct research on the Web, and to present the conclusions of your research.
Philosopher/theorist: Please pick one (and only one) of the philosophers/theorists on the list below (#1-9). Do not select the philosopher/theorist you wrote about for Short Paper II. For whichever philosopher/theorist you choose, please refer to the recommended on-line secondary sources at the end of the assigned reading. You should also look for additional information about your philosopher/theorist on the World Wide Web, using the World Wide Web Resources on the class Resources page and Web search engines (listed at the end of the Resources page and also available by clicking "search" on your Web browser).
- Bullough: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Bullough for the course: "Psychical Distance".
- Plato: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Plato for the course: "The Ion" and "The Republic" (Book X).
- Aristotle: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Aristotle for the course: "Poetics".
- Clive Bell: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Clive Bell for the course: "Art".
- Leo Tolstoy: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Tolstoy for the course: "What Is Art?".
- Arthur Danto: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Danto for the course: "Art, Philoosphy, and the Philosophy of Art" and "Works in Progress: Art and the Historical Modalities".
- David Hume: Your principal focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading on Hume for the course: "Of the Standard of Taste".
- Gregory Currie: Your principle focus will be the ideas in the assigned reading, "Art, the Mind and the Brain" and other work by Currie on film theory that is available on-line; for a complete list, go to his home page and look under "Research/Publications." Students choosing to write about Currie should select a film as your work of art. It is recommended that students attempt this option only if you have had previous work in art theory, film studies, or philosophy.
- Walter Benjamin: Your principal focus will be the ideas in his article "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". [If that site is off-line, the article is also available here.] Although we did not study this essay in our course, it is a well-known and influential essay. It is recommended that students attempt this option only if you have had previous work in art theory, literary criticism, or philosophy.
Selecting a Work of Art: As the focus of your project, select one work of art in any medium available on the World Wide Web. Please do not select a work which you have previously written about for Short Paper I or II. The work may be in visual art, music, performing art, film, architecture, or any other art-medium. Your work might be chosen from "popular culture," if you believe it should be counted as a "work of art." The selection of the work is an important step of this project; you should select a work that gives you a great deal to consider and is interesting to you in some way, as you will be conducting a close analysis of the work. To find works of art: use the World Wide Web Resources on the class Resources page and Web search engines (listed at the end of the Resources page and also available by clicking "search" on your Web browser).
Content of your analysis: Put yourself in the theoretical "shoes" of the philosopher/theorist you select and conduct a thorough analysis of the work of art you have chosen. To conduct this analysis, you will need to do a close reading of the material on the philosopher/theorist you have chosen and go back to discussion questions, comments, and lecture notes. Your analysis should include at least the following broad types of categories:
- Description of the work: How should the work be described? What properties of the work are most important in understanding and appreciating the work? What properties are least important or irrelevant? Should you focus only on perceivable properties of the object? Should you also focus on the history of creation of the work? Should you focus on the context of presentation of the work?
- Status of the object as art: What makes the object you have chosen a "work of art"? Is it the properties of the object itself? Is it the context of appreciation by the observer? Is it the context of presentation by the creator? Is it something else?
- Meaning/interpretation of the work: How should we determine what the work means, if anything? Should we look only to evidence in the object itself? Should we look to the intention of the artist? Should we look to the cultural norms of the observer? Should we look to the culture of the times in which the work was created?
- Value of the work: How should we evaluate the work? Should we look to formal properties of the object alone? Should we consider the moral content of the work? Should we consider its historical accuracy? Should we consider the impact it has on the observer of the art?
PRESENTATION OF YOUR ANALYSIS: For this project, you are presenting the results of your project in two formats, a Web page that the class can look at and a written paper that you will submit to the instructor as an e-mail attachment.
Web page: Your Web page should include:
- Text explaining your analysis in a nutshell so it can be readily understood by others in the class. You do not need to post your entire written paper, although you might post excerpts or summaries of your written conclusions.
- Presentation of the work of art you have selected, either by setting up hyperlinks to your work on another site on the web and/or by incorporating graphics or sound files of your work. (Please stay with hyperlinks to other sites if the material is copyrighted.)
- Hyperlinks to other sites on the Web that will inform the reader/browser about the context of your project. This might include links to other informative sites about the work of art and the philosopher/theorist you have chosen.
Most people in the class do not know how to create and post a Web page. Please see Lecture Notes for Week Ten for information on training options in April and May for learning how to do this. Relax! We are going to teach everybody how to do this, if you don't already know how. Grade school children are creating and posting Web pages and so can you.
Written paper: The written paper on your project should include (a) a verbal description of the work you have chosen (1-2 paragraphs), (b) a brief, nutshell summary of the ideas of the philosopher/theorist you have chosen (2-3 paragraphs), and (3) analysis of the work from the perspective of the philosopher/theorist, using the questions above.
LENGTH-Written Paper: 1200-2000 words (ordinarily, this would print out to 6-10 pages, double-spaced, with normal margins and type sizes)
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR WRITTEN PAPER: Please submit your paper as a file attached to an e-mail message. Step-by-step instructions are available on-line by clicking here.
When you name the file on your paper, please give it a name distinctive to you: e.g., smith.wp or jones.doc Please do not name it Paper or 361 or a name others in the class are likely to use. The extension on your file name (the last three letters to the right of the period) should indicate the word-processing program you are using (.wp = WordPerfect, .doc = Word, .txt = text, etc.)
GRADING CRITERIA: In our class discussions, we have worked on elements of good reasoning: e.g., clarifying terminology, looking for supporting examples and counter-examples, making explicit the assumptions which are implicit and perhaps questionable. Your project should demonstrate your development of these good reasoning skills. You should also explicitly use the ideas in the article by the philosopher/theorist you choose. Please adhere to good standards for composition. Check spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
Grading will consider the comprehensiveness of your analysis, the range of reasons discussed, your demonstrated and detailed understanding of the material in the course (the writer you select and the reasoning skills we have worked on throughout the course), the comprehensiveness of your research on the Web, and the variety of properties of the art that you explore.
Grading will also consider the effectiveness of your overall presentation. For your Web page, you need to make decisions about how to effectively communicate the content of your project, just as you do in completing the written paper.
GRADING: ASSIGNMENT OF POINTS:
The Web page is worth up to 12 points
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The written paper is worth up to 24 points
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LATE SUBMISSIONS: Late pages and papers will be accepted for up to 48 hours after the deadline, but will receive an automatic 4 point deduction. No Web pages will be accepted after Wednesday, May 20 at 12 noon PDT. No written papers will be accepted after Sunday, May 24 at 12 noon PDT. If you have a medical or other emergency, we will comply with University regulations. Please let me know by e-mail ASAP if you believe you qualify for an emergency University extension.
TECHNICAL EMERGENCIES: Please plan ahead. The Internet is full of surprises, not all of them happy ones.
- Don't wait until the last minute to look at the Web sites for the assignment - they might be off-line just when you need to see them.
- Please don't wait until the last minute to figure out how to send the paper as an e-mail attachment. If you want to, you can send me a near-final draft a few days ahead, just to be sure it's in on time, and send me your final version by the deadline.
- If you have a technical emergency beyond your control on the day of the deadline, you can meet the deadline by faxing a print-out of your paper to the department fax: (562) 985-7135, but you must still send me your paper as an e-mail attachment as soon as possible - preferably the next day. This option should be reserved for extraordinary emergencies.
- If we have a major disaster on the Long Beach campus that knocks out the entire computer system or electrical power (El Nino flooding? 7.0 earthquake?), I will obviously extend the deadline until we're back on line.