Summer 2024 Writing UN3215 section 001

WRITING ABOUT ART

Call Number 10050
Day & Time
Location
MW 1:00pm-4:10pm
409 Dodge Hall
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Thomas A Donovan
Type SEMINAR
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description

Prerequisites: No prerequisites. Department approval NOT required. 

This course will introduce students to writing about visual art. We will take our models from art history and contemporary art discourse, and students will be prompted to write with and about current art exhibitions and events throughout the city. The modes of art writing we will encounter include: the practice of ekphrasis (poems which describe or derive their inspiration from a work of art); writers such as John Ashbery, Gary Indiana, Eileen Myles, and others who for periods of their life held positions as art critics while composing poetry and works of fiction; writers such as Etel Adnan, Susan Howe, and Renee Gladman who have produced literature and works of art in equal measure. We will also look at artists who have written essays and poetry throughout their careers such as Robert Smithson, Glenn Ligon, Gregg Bordowitz, Moyra Davey, and Hannah Black, and consider both the visual qualities of writing and the ways that visual artists have used writing in their work. Lastly, we will consider what it means to write through a “milieu” of visual artists, such as those associated with the New York School and Moscow Conceptualism. Throughout the course students will produce original works and complete a final writing project that enriches, complicates, and departs from their own interests and preoccupations.

Web Site Vergil
Subterm 07/01-08/09 (B)
Department Summer Session (SUMM)
Enrollment 10 students (15 max) as of 9:05PM Monday, December 2, 2024
Subject Writing
Number UN3215
Section 001
Division Summer Session
Fee $20 Creative Writing C
Section key 20242WRIT3215W001