These are the prompts plus media for those registered in the HUM cross-section.

Blog Post One:

Instructions: Write a one-to-two page blog post from your personal perspective on any one of the prompts listed below.  This first Blog Post is due Tuesday, July 8 on our course on Blackboard; you can access the posting site by going to Blackboard, selecting the tab “Course Tools,” then “Blogs,” then click on “HUM Blog One: Tuesday July 9,” and post your essay by clicking the “Create Blog Entry” button and typing or pasting it therein. 

(A) Construct two arguments, one for and one against, the idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” (i.e., the relativism debate as to whether there can be an universal definition of taste/art). 

(B) Richly and fully define/explain beauty and monstrosity (the horrific or very ugly) and what you feel and think when confronted by something beautiful or monstrous. 

(C) Is Salvador Dalí’s “Lobster Telephone” art?

Salvador Dalí’s “Lobster Telephone”

1936, Steel, plaster, rubber, resin, and paper.

Tate, London.

Blog Post Two:

Instructions: Blog Post Two due Friday, July 18 on our Blackboard course site.  Write a one-to-two page blog post on one of the following two prompts:

(A)

First, explain the differences, according to Kant’s theory, between the beautiful, pleasant, and good. 

Second, carefully consider the following four works:

Pierre Bonnard’s “Basket and Plate of Fruit on a Red Checkered Tablecloth”

ca. 1939, Oil on Canvas,

Art Institute of Chicago

Marcel Duchamp’s “Bottle Dryer (Bottle Rack)”

  1914 original (lost) / 1964 (reproduction made), Galvanized Iron

Private Collection

Vincent Van Gogh’s “Irises”

1889, Oil on Canvas

Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA

and George Dawe’s “Portrait of General Pyotr Bagration”

1822-23, Oil on Canvas

Exhibition: The War Gallery of 1812 in the Winter Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russia

Finally, complete your post by explaining whether Kant would judge these works as beautiful, pleasant, or good, and whether and why you agree or disagree. 

(B) First, explore online to find two pictures that you think satisfy Kant’s explanations of the beautiful and sublime (include links in your post).  Then compose your post by analyzing why these examples satisfy the Kantian judgments.

Blog Post Three:

Instructions: For this blog post, you will select one or more examples in any one of the following mediums, view/listen to the selection, and complete a one-to-two page analysis that can be your choice of an aesthetic evaluation (beautiful? Sublime? Etc., how and why?), an explanation of its/their cultural and/or temporal importance, an analysis of their cult and commercial values, etc.:

(A) Photography: Select one or more works in photography to which you are drawn (please include links to them in your post or email jpeg file(s)); in your blog, carefully analyze it/them.

(B) Film: Select and view any film of your choice (please include title, director, and date in your post); in your blog, briefly summarize the film and then analyze it.

(C) Music: Select and listen to one or more musical pieces (please include a link to it/them online or email a sound file); in your blog, carefully analyze it/them.

(D) Design: Select and view/use/consider any object(s) of design—anything created by an agent (designer) to fulfill specific goals or serve a specific function, an applied art, be it industrial design (Eames’ chairs, Schreckengost’s bikes or truck, Noguchi’s tables or lights, the Studebaker Starlight, etc.), graphic design (from illuminated manuscripts to Arts and Crafts movement’s tiles to Art Nouveau’s advertising for biscuits, absinthe, chocolates, etc., Soviet Constructivism to the development of typefaces or consumer packaging), fashion design, etc.; in your blog, carefully analyze it/them.

Blog Post Four:

Instructions: Blog Post Four due Friday, August 1 on our Blackboard course site.  Write a one-to-two page blog post on the following: Using all of this week’s readings as guides, write your own manifesto—you can adopt any style of art to speak from/on behalf of or invent your own movement.