Duke University 2009-2010 - Office of the Registrar - Duke University

382. Art and Commodity. Exploration of relations between unique objects (relic, monument, art work) and evolving
markets in the West from late antiquity to the present. Economic and theoretical texts (e.g. Aquinas, Adam Smith,
Mauss, Appadurai) as well as historical and art historical works (e.g. Schapiro, Greenberg, Belting, Mitchell) will
provide the ground for both formal and social understanding of particular works of art. The course will focus on
Jerusalem and its representations in the West. Instructor: Wharton. 3 units.
383. Art and Text. This seminar concerns ekphrasis, the problem of using verbal representation to describe visual
representation. Study of the interrelation between artists' theoretical writings and visual productions. Students may work
on art and texts in all traditional and experimental visual art media, as well as in photography, video, film, and electronic
multimedia. Instructor: Stiles. 3 units.
384. Art and Memory. Art can be a form for the remembrance, construction, recapitulation, and visualization of
memory. This seminar considers theories of memory, cognition, and perception, traumatic memory, dissociation, and
recovered memory, flashbulb memory, as well as eidetic and other anomalous forms of memory as they are displayed
in all traditional and experimental visual art media, including photography, video, film, and electronic multimedia.
Instructor: Stiles. 3 units.
385. Art, Violence, and Taboo. Art provides an unparalleled liminal space for the presentation and representation of
violence, destruction, sadism, masochism, and other breaches of moral code otherwise controlled and legislated against
in civil society. This seminar considers theories and practices of violence and taboo, and students may work on this
subject in all traditional and experimental visual art media, including photography, video, film, and electronic
multimedia. Instructor: Stiles. 3 units.
386. Fascism, Art, and Ideology. A study of the cultural politics of European fascism, from its origins in the synthesis
of nationalism and socialism before World War I, to its final eclipse in 1945. Analysis of art and architecture in Britain,
France, Italy, and Germany in terms of contemporary debates over what constituted a fascist aesthetic. Consideration
of the art and writing of the symbolists, futurists, vorticists, La Corbusier, German expressionists, and various German
and Italian realists in light of theories of fascism. Instructor: Antliff. 3 units.
387. Art History and Representation. Seminar in the production of art history through various forms of representation,
broadly construed, with special attention to issues of aesthetics, social context, historical location, and enunciative
position. Consideration of practices of collecting, translation, display, and knowledge formation in order to explore the
heterogeneous genealogy of art history. Instructor: Abe. 3 units.
389. Spatial Practices. Space, once a vacuum in which action took place, is now broadly acknowledged as a formidable
matrix that shapes agency. From medieval refectories to Starbucks, from Jerusalem to Las Vegas, from mikvaot to hot
spring spas, space produced for human use has in turn managed human performance. How space works--as reassuring
or threatening, as ordering or disordering--is the subject of this seminar. By reading selected theoretical texts (e.g.
Lefebvre, Habermas, Eliade, Zizek) and mapping specific historical landscapes, we will become more aware of the ways
space has shaped history and informed the objects of our scholarly research. Instructor Wharton. 3 units.
391. Individual Research in Art History. Directed research and writing in areas unrepresented by regular course
offerings. Consent of instructor required. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
392. Individual Research in Art History. Directed research and writing in areas unrepresented by regular course
offerings. Consent of instructor required. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
393. Colloquium in the History of Art. Topics of interest to art historians in every field, including ''The Question of
Originality,'' ''Implications of the Frame (or its absence), '' and ''Art and Economy: The Impact of the Market on Visual
Production.'' Faculty and students participate in the forum. Consent of instructor required. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
395. Topics in Art History. In-depth consideration of a specific art historical problem of a formal, historical, or
conceptual nature. Consent of instructor required. Instructor: Staff. 3 units.
Visual Arts (ARTSVIS)
208S. Poverty and the Visual. Relationship between art, visual culture, and poverty from the 1950s to the present across
cultures. Readings, research, visual analyses, and production assignments based on a broader understanding of poverty
as a philosophical, economic, social, and cultural concept. Instructor: Lasch. 3 units.
236S. Experimental Communities. Interdisciplinary seminar examining visual culture and experimental social
structures. Readings across academic spectrum focusing on alternative corporate models and workers' unions, early
soviet social networks, neighborhood associations, anarchist communes, art collectives, minority alliances, reality TV,
fan clubs and fundamentalist organizations, encouraging students to fuse theories of social change with practice to
produce new social structures. Class productions may include research papers, performances, experimental theater,
social actions, new media works, as well as conventional art forms. Work will be judged by its formal sophistication
or aesthetic merits, its social or political relevance, and its engagement with methods of ethical inquiry studied
throughout the semester. 3 units. C-L: Visual Studies 236S, Sociology 236S, Cultural Anthropology 236S
266S. The Human as Electrochemical Computer - Toward a New Computational and Aesthetic Paradigm. Weekly
discussions/lectures related to different disciplinary understandings of the body, exploring new computational and
Departments, Programs, and Course Offerings 60