AHST 3320 Section 501
Course in Contemporary Art: Kinetics of Urban Sprawl
Dr. Charissa N. Terranova
Spring 2008
Monday, 7:00-9:45

Course Syllabus (Word Doc)

Writing Tips (Word Doc)

SCHEDULE

January 7: Introduction: “Sprawl,” origin of a word

1. John Brinckerhoff Jackson, “Jackson, Thoreau & After,” in Landscapes: Selected Writings of John Brinckerhoff Jackson, pp. 1-9 e-reserve
2. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, “The Highway,” catalogue essay from The Highway, exhibition January 14-February 25, 1970, pp. 9-18, e-reserve

Highways, Sprawling Urbanism, and the New Domestic Frontier

January 14:  Sprawl: Urbanism in Defense

1. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Military-Industrial Complex Speech,” http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
2. Galison, Peter, "War against the Center," Grey Room 4, Summer 2001, 6-33, available at JSTOR

January 21:  Martin Luther King Day: No Class

January 28:  Interiors, Woman, and Pop!: Tom Wesselmann, Mel Ramos, and Andy Warhol

1. Andreas Huyssen, "Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism's Other," in Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, Modleski, Tania, and Kathleen Woodward, eds., Theories of Contemporary Culture, Series No: 7, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 188-207 e-reserve
2. Beatriz Colomina, “Cold War/Hothouses,” in Cold War Hothouses: Inventing Postwar Culture from Cockpit to Playboy, pp. 10-21 e-reserve
3. FILM LAB: Screening of Film and Film Clips by Charles and Ray Eames

February 4:  Prefabrication and Postwar Prosperity: Levittown and the Case-Study Houses

1. Neil Jackson, “Metal-Frame Houses of the Modern Movement in Los Angeles: Part 1: Developing a Regional Tradition,” Architectural History, Vol. 32 (1989) 152-172, available at JSTOR
2. Neil Jackson, “Metal Frame Houses of the Modern Movement in Los Angeles: Part 2: The Style that Nearly…”, Vol. 33 (1990) 167-187, available at JSTOR
3. Herbert J. Gans, The Levittowners, 3-12; 153-184 e-reserve

February 11:  Prefabrication and Postwar Prosperity: The Eichler Homes, Charles and Ray Eames, and George Nelson

1. Paul Schrader, “Poetry of Ideas: The Films of Charles Eames,” Film Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Spring 1970) 2-19, available at JSTOR
2. Beatriz Colomina, “Enclosed by Images: The Eameses’ Multimedia Architecture,” Grey Room, No. 2 (Winter, 2001) 5-29 available at JSTOR
3. Paul Adamson, “Modern Architecture and Everyday Life,” in Eichler/Modernism Rebuilds the American Dream, 20-40 e-reserve

February 18:  Strip Architecture and Lifestyle: Googie, Las Vegas, and Russel Wright

1. Alan Hess, Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture, 22-25; 44-65; 134=157; 168-177 e-reserve
2. Venturi, Robert, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown, Learning from Las Vegas, 3-12; 87-103 e-reserve
3. Russel and Mary Wright, Guide to Easier Living, 1-10; 124-163 e-reserve
4. Written Assignment  #1 due

February 25:  The Suburban Campus and Highway Aesthetic: The Architecture of Eero Saarinen

1. Reinhold Martin, The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media and Corporate Space, 14-41; 122-155 e-reserve
2. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (MIT Press, 1994) 3-21; 217-225

March 3:  Mid-term Exam

March 10:  Spring Break: No Class

Perception, Conceptualism, and the Double Aperture

March 17:  Conceptualism as Aesthesis:  Dan Graham and Robert Smithson

1. Leo Steinberg, “Flat-bed Picture Plane” excerpt in “Other Criteria,” Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twentieth-Century Art, 82-91 e-reserve
2. Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, vii-xxii; 5-9 e-reserve
3. Smithson, Robert, "A Tour of the Monuments of Passaic, New Jersey," Artforum, December 1967 e-reserve

March 24:  Conceptualism as Aesthesis:  John Baldessari , Dennis Hopper, and Ed Ruscha

1. Alexander Alberro, Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity, 1-59 e-reserve

March 31:  Conceptualism as Aesthesis:  Jeff Wall, Paul McCarthy and Richard Prince

1. Alexander Alberro, Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity, 60-122 e-reserve
2. Writing Assignment #2 Due

Cyborgs, Cybernetics, and the Automotive Prosthetic

April 7: In-Class Film: Duel

1. FILM LAB: Screening of Film:  Falling Down

April 14:  Los Angeles: Automotive Ecology

1. Reyner Banham, Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, 3-38; 77-92; 143-160; 195-204
2. Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, 502-513 e-reserve
3. Robert M. Keesing, Review of Gregory Bateson’s Steps to an Ecology of Mind, in American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 76, No. 2 (June 1974) 370-372, available at JSTOR
4. Bob Turner, Review of Gregory Bateson’s Mind and Nature, in RAIN, No. 36 (Feb.1980) 11-12, available at JSTOR
5. FILM LAB: Screening of Film: Blade Runner

April 21:  Cybernetics and the Cyborg Body

1. William Gibson, Neuromancer
2. FILM LAB: Screening of Film:  Death Proof from Grindhouse

April 28:  Prosthetic Bodies

1. Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (MIT Press, 1994) reread 3-21; 56-61; 77-105; 284-296; 308-360
2. Sarah S. Jain, “The Prosthetic Imagination: Enabling and Disabling the Prosthetic Trope,” Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Winter 1999) 31-54, available at JSTOR
3. Elizabeth Grosz, “Prosthetic Objects,” in Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power, chapter 9, pp. 145-205 [??? Uncertain about final page number of chapter] e-reserve
4. Written Assignment #3 Due

May 5: Final Exam: 7:00 p.m.

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