This is
entirely a post to allow those of you who are curious to read my proposal for
my self-designed major (IDIM). Any comments (especially title suggestions for
my major) would be hugely appreciated--just e-mail me!
First, the
guidelines, as posted on the registrar's website:
“
An individually designed interdepartmental major (IDIM), reflecting
a disciplined area of inquiry crossing departmental lines, may be designed and
submitted for approval to the Educational Policy and Governance Committee
acting on behalf of the faculty. The provision for an IDIM—as one of the ways
in which a student may satisfy the graduation requirement of a major—is to
accommodate students with special educational goals which may be achieved
within the College’s overall curriculum but not through any of
the existing majors or interdepartmental majors (see 1 and 2 immediately above)
set forth in detail elsewhere in this catalog. To take advantage of this
provision, students are expected to design their program of study in advance of
doing the bulk of the course work for it.
Students seeking an
individually-designed interdepartmental major (IDIM) must present, not later
than the beginning of the registration period for the first semester of their
junior year, a completed proposal, signed by the student and three faculty
members, to the IDIM Subcommittee of the Educational Policy and Governance
Committee for consideration. In consultation with three faculty members of the
student’s choosing, the student must design a program of courses of study which
crosses departmental lines and, in doing so, represents a disciplined area of
inquiry not conveniently possible within the provisions of any of the existing
majors in the College’s curriculum. The proposal must include the following: 1)
A list of courses to be taken to complete the IDIM. This list must include a
minimum of forty-four semester credits in courses from a maximum of three
departments, and may include up to twenty-four additional semester credits in
courses (for a maximum of sixty-eight semester credits) from any relevant
department. There must be evidence of progression in the proposed courses. One
way to show progression is to use courses that have one or more prerequisites.
2) Letters of support from the three faculty who comprise the student’s IDIM
committee (a coordinator and two sponsors). These committee members must be
from departments that offer courses listed on the student’s proposal. Two
letters of recommendation must be from faculty members who have had the student
in class, who may or may not be members of the student’s IDIM committee. 3) A
carefully prepared written rationale. In this rationale the student is expected
to describe the focus and cohesiveness of all the courses of study included in
the IDIM and to indicate how this program of study meets the student’s
particular educational goals. The IDIM committee will also designate the
appropriate means for the completion of the senior capstone requirement within
the IDIM. The committee will meet with the student at least once every semester
to discuss the student’s progress towards completion of the IDIM. ”
And now, the
text of my proposal:
Proposal for
an IDIM in Visual and Literary Arts
The fields
of art and literature studies overlap constantly, not just in the actual works
chosen for study, but in the methods and history that go into understanding
them. In art history classes we “read” images and in English classes we find
imagery in written works. Paintings and photographs can be said to describe a
narrative as effectively as the text that inspired their creation and can, in
turn, inspire further texts. For example, Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus was inspired by the
Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus and went on to inspire W. H. Auden’s poem “Musée
des Beaux Arts” and William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape with the Fall of
Icarus”. In cases like these, it is
insufficient to read the poem by itself—one must also study the painting that
came before it (and the myth before that).
This
intersection of art and literature not only occurs frequently, but is often a location
of particularly interesting study and thought. One of these moments of intersection
is the entire discipline of theater studies. The text of most plays is claimed
by literature studies and the performance by those interested in the arts, with
the result that Theater, Art, and English departments all study both the texts
and performances of plays. Less abstractly, any work that combines text and
artworks—graphic novels, illuminated manuscripts, children’s books, much of our
everyday visual culture, etc.—necessarily requires the study of both.
Moreover,
those practicing art and those writing literature have traditionally been in
communication with each other (or one and the same person). The progressions of
visual artworks and literature throughout history are therefore inextricably
linked: William Blake’s poetry cannot be studied without his accompanying
artworks, Giorgio Vasari’s historical fiction on the lives of the artists is
crucial to the study of Renaissance art, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s artistic
thought was influenced by Paul Cezanne’s paintings—the list goes on and on. Art
history and literature are not parts of separate academic fields, but rather elements
of linked creative movements.
Considering
this, it seems possible that the divide between literature and art studies in
academia is increasingly an artificial one. A range of universities in the
United Kingdom (including East Anglia, Buckingham, and Oxford) now offer both
undergraduate and graduate programs allowing for concurrent study of these
fields. Furthermore, Robert Scholes, in a book about the future of English
education, writes, “ […] we must stop ‘teaching literature’ and start ‘studying
texts.’ […] Our favorite works of literature need not be lost in this new
enterprise, but the exclusivity of literature as a category must be discarded.
All kinds of texts, visual as well as
verbal, polemic as well as seductive, must be taken as the occasions for
further textuality”(16, emphasis added). The same could be said for studies of
the history of art.
My proposal
is for a major that would hope to achieve what Scholes is suggesting—a study of
both English and Art History not only as their own fields, but as inherently
connected ones. Although it would be possible to double major in these subjects
instead, such a decision would merely reinforce the divide between art and
literature and make it difficult to study the places these studies intersect—an
area that interests me particularly. Besides this rather philosophical reason,
the logistics of double majoring (especially with study abroad) would limit the
classes I could choose. Instead of always attempting to pick classes that would
best study this intersection, I would need to choose based on the requirements
of each individual major. Classes like “Shakespeare Studies”, “Twentieth
Century British Poetry”, or “Baroque Art” might fall by the wayside, despite
the contributions they could make to this particular area of study.
Additionally,
the requirements of each major’s capstone would demand specificity of topic and
would not allow for a project exploring the meeting place of these two fields. Each major (as a whole) attempts to teach its
texts separately from those belonging to the other field, but 18th
Century philosophical discussions of personhood can give insight into the
visual productions of the twenty-first century abortion debate and any study of the literary works of the Harlem
Renaissance would be incomplete without acknowledging the visual productions of
the time. Furthermore, a self-designed major allows some classes in other relevant
fields to be included. Classes like “Greek Myths” and “Texts and Power” allow
for further study of both textual forms, but would be impossible to include in
the double major format. As my current educational plans include a continued
study of both types of texts (visual and verbal) in graduate school—at one of
the programs mentioned above or an interdisciplinary program in either
field—allowing for this focus early on could be extremely beneficial. My
proposed major and class list is therefore an attempt to study both art
historical and literary texts not only as they have been studied, but as they
should be studied: as texts that are intrinsically in dialogue with each other
and with other fields of study.
Source:
Scholes,
Robert. Textual Power: Literary Theory
and the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Print.
Proposed
Course List
My goal in
choosing the classes listed below is to focus on this intersection of Art
History and English. When possible, I have chosen classes that specifically
interact with the meeting of visual and literary texts (Introduction to Visual
Culture or British Youth Subcultures, for example). The study abroad program I
propose also follows this goal admirably, allowing its participants to study
theater, literature, and art history in London and Florence. Other classes are
chosen from historical periods during which the literary and artistic movements
were in particular dialogue with each other (Harlem Renaissance, for example). The rest are selected to enhance my historical
and disciplinary knowledge in each field to allow for better understanding and
analysis of the texts I may encounter. The course list is as follows:
°
Introduction to Visual Culture [ART 149]
°
Topics in African American Literature: Harlem
Renaissance [ENGL 380]
°
Twentieth Century British Literature [ENGL 240] or
Twentieth Century British Novel [ENGL 341]
°
Contemporary Art and Critical Theory [ART 264]
°
Texts and Power: Foundations of Media and
Cultural Studies [MCST 110]
°
Topics in Theory and Method [ENGL 305] or
Readings in Critical Method [ENGL 205]
°
Art of the West I [ART 160]
°
Art of the West II [ART 161]
°
Shakespeare Studies [ENGL 310]
°
Drawing 1 [ART 130]
°
Intro to Creative Writing [ENGL 150]
°
Theater and Performance in the Twin Cities [THDA
105]
°
Twentieth Century Poetry [ENGL 350]
°
Baroque Art [ART 278]
°
Greek Myths [CLAS 129]
°
British Youth Subcultures [ENGL 294]
°
Classes from London & Florence: Arts in
Context (ACM) Study Abroad Program (if approved):
§
Embodying Spaces: Contemporary English
Theater in its Historical,
Architectural, Cultural, Geographic, and Moral Settings
§
London as Visual Text
§
The Medici as Patrons of the Arts
§
Florence Through the Eyes of the Victorians
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