As registration for the Fall 2016 academic semester begins soon, I wanted to provide more information about courses I will begin teaching starting September, 2016. Please see detailed descriptions below. If you have any specific questions that are not answered here, you can contact me directly. I look forward to another rich and engaging semester with both new and familiar faces. **NOTE: Pre-requisite changes for ARTH 3122 allow for more flexibility in registration for non-Fine Arts students**
iHeart, Nobody Likes Me (2015) ARTH 1140: Introduction to Visual Art, Urban, and Screen Culture is a new course at KPU that poses the question of how we navigate and make sense of the fast-changing world of new urban visual environments and the emerging world of screen culture around us.
Jacques Louis David, Intervention of the Sabine Women (1796-1799)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Wednesday's 7:00-9:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: 6 credits of ARTH or 18 credits of 1100-level courses or higher, and ENGL 1100.
Social and political revolutions evolve hand in hand with the production and circulation of radical and countercultural art, and today we are witness to these transformations on a global scale. In this seminar, students will explore shifting ideas related to industrialization, political ideology, rapid urban growth, global commerce, and the new media technologies of an expanding consumer culture in defining a wide range of revolutionary visual art and culture from the 18th through 20th centuries.
*note* ARTH 3122 is being offered in anticipation of the FINE ARTS PARIS/DOCUMENTA 2017 Field School planned for May/June 2017. This course is a fantastic introduction to the art and politics of France and includes study of many artworks to be visited at the Louvre Museum.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course provides an introduction to the complex ways in which social and political change, and ideologies of gender, class, race and ethnicity, worked to shape aspects of 19th and early 20th century visual culture in Europe and North America. Emphasis will be placed on the roles played by industrialization, political ideology, rapid urban growth, global commerce, and the new media technologies of an expanding consumer culture in defining a wide range of visual culture. Throughout the term we will also examine different representations and debates around the idea of modernity and the “modern,” exploring the dynamic relationship between image and event.
Since the time period under investigation has often been called “The Age of Revolution”, we will also pay particular attention to shifting ideas related to labour and leisure, urban social space and spectacle, and issues bearing on empire expansion in relationship to key historical moments of radical political and social transformation (including but not limited to the French, American, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Revolutions). Importantly, this seminar will also consider the constructed nature of the discipline of art history within the context of revolutionary discourse in order to trouble assumptions, both historical and contemporary, regarding the nature of art, its relation to different social and political institutions, and issues of patronage and viewing publics.
This course will explore case studies in street and graffiti art, hip-hop and punk culture, video gaming, anime, new media and Internet art, urban performance art, activist art, grassroots fashion, street photography, and the world of mobile photography and filmmaking.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Wednesday's 4:00-6:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: None
I am excited to share details of this new course that has been a long time in the making! Formulated to compliment ARTH 1130: Introduction to Film Studies, this course extends the conversation about screen culture to the world of urban studies and public art. We begin with the question "How do we navigate and make sense of the fast-changing world of new urban visual environments and the emerging world of screen culture?" and explore case studies in street and graffiti art, hip-hop and punk culture, video gaming, anime, new media and Internet art, urban performance art, activist art, grassroots fashion, street photography, and the world of mobile photography and filmmaking.
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Students will study the broad field of contemporary visual art and culture with a specific focus on the role of urban environments and the emerging world of screen culture in shaping new possibilities for global art production and circulation. Students will explore how they can become active agents rather than passive observers through engagement with the diversity of visual art and culture surrounding them. They will investigate interdisciplinary topics connecting the world of visual art with urban and screen cultures through case studies in street and graffiti art, hip-hop and punk culture, video gaming, anime, new media and Internet art, urban performance art, activist art, grassroots fashion, street photography, and the world of mobile photography and filmmaking.
The evolving role of Hollywood studios and the emergence of the movie sequels/prequels and franchise film phenomenon is just one of many topics explored in this course.
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Friday's 1:00-4:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: None
The ever popular film studies course is continuing to evolve and update to consider recent developments in the film industry, together with new research that links histories of cinema's past to its present. This is a course that will have you thinking critically about motion pictures long after the final exam-- it also provides an opportunity to visit and see films at the Vancouver International Film Festival (September 29- October 14).
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Students will study the history and development of world cinema, and the comprehension and theory of film as a visual language and art-making practice from its inception in the late nineteenth century to the present. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the critical interpretation of the cinema and the various vocabularies and methods with which one can explore the aesthetic function, together with the social, political, and technological contexts and developments, of moving pictures. The format of this course (as a 4 hour block each class) will normally entail a one hour lecture, the screening of a full-length film, and a focused group discussion. Each film will serve as a starting point and gateway for discussion about the course’s daily theme.