Creativity
and the Arts - Spring 200
Dr.
Barbara Harbach
Lectures:
Thursday 3-5 CCC 111
E-mail: bharbach@umsl.edu Home Page |
316 Music Building Phone: 516-7776 |
| Attendance | Final Project |
Course Goals
for Creativity
in the Arts
Creation across artistic media and genres.
The nature of the artistic experience as expressed in art, theatre,
dance, music, film, video, and computer media.
The goal of the course - each
student will create and produce a video documentary or photo montage in
PowerPoint that will include pictures, narration, storyboard, and music.
Each week will provide new ideas and techniques to enable the students to
reach the course goal.
This is a course on
creativity, on what it means to create, and on who we are as creators. One of
our premises is that each of us is inherently creative in some unique ways,
and that by thinking about, writing about and discussing the nature of our
creativity, we can develop and enhance it as well as understand it more
clearly. This course is intended as a course in TNMA as well as the arts and
letters or humanities, the focus of which is actually what it means to be
human in this age of technology and the Internet. We'll explore how
creativity is intrinsic to our humanity itself.
The
book Creators on Creating provides us with the viewpoint of the artist
or creator from a personal perspective. Included in this book are all manner
of creative spirits, including musicians, poets, novelists, film directors,
and many others. Here you will find a fascinating range of authors, including
film director Federico Fellini, musicians Frank Zappa and Brian Eno,
psychologist Carl Jung, novelists Maya Angelou and N. Scott Momaday, and many
others. We'll plan on joining our readings with topics covered by our in-class
guest speakers. In fact, we
will have a wide range of speakers for the seminars this year, including
faculty from across the College of Arts & Letters, as well as from across
the university. Our goals in having these speakers visit us are not only to
provide us with connections across the college and university, but also to
provoke us to think about creativity in new ways on such issues as music,
theater, art, history, literature, languages and linguistics, philosophy, and
religion. As we will see, creativity is not separated from other disciplines
or fields, but is in some respects foundational for them and is deeply
interconnected with all of them.
If
Creators on Creating provides us with the observations of creators
themselves, our other books,
50 Fast Photoshop 7 Techniques and Photographic
Composition, offers "the tools
to clarify, intensify, and interpret events for television, computer, and film
presentation. In effect, it teaches us how to apply major aesthetic elements
to manipulate people's perceptions. Because media consumers are largely
unaware of the power of media aesthetics, they must and do trust your
professional judgment and especially your good intentions."
This
is a class in what is called "meta-education," which refers to
education not as the ingestion of information, but as inquiry into who and
where we are. The word "education" has among its meanings that of
"drawing out," and that's what I hope this course will do: draw out
of each of us our hidden potential so that we can realize it more fully. But
this course is also about understanding creativity better. Creativity is a
theme that transcends any particular field or discipline, and that inspires
all of them. To become more creative is to become more human and more alive,
and that is what this course is about.
Writings -
The writings or assignments in response to the readings, guest lectures,
and guided questions are to be posted
weekly in the Discussion Board listed each week on the Weekly
Schedule.
Electronic Discussions
Explanation
The electronic discussion will take place on the internet and will be filed for each assignment by you. The discussion must consist of the following:
1) A minimum of 250 words, no maximum, per assignment.
2) Reactions and questions based upon the assignments, including readings, tasks, lectures etc.
3) All entries should be submitted to the World Wide Web on the appropriate Discussion Page.
The discussion postings should have intellectual depth. Do not offer your opinion about what you liked and didn't like. You will get up to five points for each individual or pod writing, and each pod member will receive the same grade. It is up to the pod members to share the creative writing efforts, and select or rotate the member responsible for posting the writing. Late postings will be down graded.
If you complete the above, you will get no lower than a B for this assignment. There is no reason why everyone can't get an A for this part.
By
writing about the readings, lectures, or the enrichment activities you’ve
attended, you’re also working through what you think about them. Often,
people find that their views have changed or been clarified by the end of
writing about something, and you may find this as well. Some things to keep in
mind as you write might include:
1. What did the author or presenter actually say? By paying attention to
specifics, what you write and think about the subject will become clearer.
It’s better to write about exactly what Momaday means by “the magic of
words” than to respond only vaguely about the reading (or presentation) as a
whole.
2. Try to understand from a different perspective than your own—in other
words, if you don’t like a particular reading or presentation, ask yourself why
this individual thinks or expresses himself this way, rather than simply
dismissing out-of-hand the other’s perspective.
3. Your own experience may be valuable in helping explain why
something in you resonates with or against what you are reading, hearing, or
seeing. Connect your experience to your reading or to the event you have
experienced, if you think that is important and helpful in unveiling what you
think and why.
4. If you think something is boring, ask yourself why you think it’s
boring. It might be the fault of the presentation, but the fault might also
lie within. Remember that in a fair number of cultures, there is no word for
“boring.” There, the concept does not exist—nothing is boring;
everything is intrinsically interesting as it is. Why is it that we not only
have developed the concept of boredom, but so easily claim that we are in that
state? Is this a result of our current society or something we lack?
5. In short: think about what you’ve read or seen, to analyze it as
sympathetically as you can, and to draw conclusions about it based on your own
observation and experience. It’s a vital part of real education to be able
to develop your ability to do this, and will serve you well no matter where
you go in the future.
Class Participation:
The class will divide into groups
of two to discuss the class
lecture/film/readings/presentation. One
group per class will be the class leaders after the discussion.
It is neither my function nor yours to say "this work isn't
good," or "I don't like (or agree with) this essay." Rather, we
will be supportive of others' perspectives, and appreciate a work's strengths
even if we have suggestions for developing it. Our focus will be on not only what
we are learning, but on how we learn and create. While we have
developed a theme for the seminar, what happens here to a very large degree
depends upon you, upon your commitment and interest and creativity.
Attendance:
Attendance and participation are mandatory.
Each class is vital. Each class absence will
lower your participation grade by twenty-five percent - as a result, it is
possible to fail the seminar by way of absences alone. Traditional religious
holidays are, of course, an exception to this policy.
Lateness:
Late written work--and lateness to class--are unacceptable. The first is
unfair to the instructors; the second is unfair to the class. Habitual lateness will lower
your attendance grade.
Conferences:
We'll meet individually for conferences both during and outside of class
time. You'll need to tell us what your individual and final projects are well
before they are due. Please give
suggestions for the course, discuss possible topics, tell everyone what's
going on. You can also contact me by email at bharbach@umsl.edu.
Based
on student needs, course content is subject to revision.
Final Project
TBA
We will show the Final Projects on the last day of class as well as during the Final Exam period.
Grading:
A = 94-100%
A– = 90-93.99
B+ = 87-89.99
B = 83-86.99
B– = 80-82.99
C+ = 77-79.99
C = 7 3-76.99
C– = 70-72.99
D = 60-69.99
F = lower than 60
Send e-mail
to Barbara
Harbach