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History 495-Special Topics Seminar
History of Public Art and Urban Monuments in the United States
Dr. Sarah Schrank
CSU Long Beach
Department of History
Fall 2003
Class meetings: M 6:30-9:15
Classroom: PSY 152
Office Hours: MW 3:30-4:30
Office: F02-204
Phone: 562.985.2293
Course Description:
This course examines the historical role of public art and monument-building in creating a national identity in the United States and civic identities in specific cities. Public art and monuments are usually produced within a dominant framework of values as important visual elements in the construction of public memory. Yet, most cities where monuments appear have a more diverse population than the monuments allow. There is thus a gap between the representation of a national or civic public and the actual public. As a result, local landmarks are not always produced by a state or municipal government but by the people themselves. Students will learn to critique the ways in which national and civic history is created by the state and find ways in which history is inscribed on the urban landscape through alternative art forms like murals, graffiti and outsider art. The class will grapple with conceptual questions such as: What happens when the dominant framework of values clashes with the values of urban communities? What are the politics of public memory? What racial, gender, and political assumptions are made when monuments are built? What are examples of “counter-monuments”? How do people from outside the political and economic mainstream claim public space? Theories of space, art, culture and identity will be examined along with the major categories of race, class, and gender as we determine how urban space is meted out, controlled, and contested.
Student Responsibilities and Assessment:
Students must complete four (4) assignments and participate in class discussion in order to fulfill the requirements of this course. These include one reader report, one oral presentation of a week’s reading assignment, completing a journal outlining experiences of public art and (counter) monuments outside the classroom, and a final research paper/presentation. Class attendance and completing the assigned readings are mandatory to successfully complete this course.
Class Participation:15%
Reader Report:15%
Oral Presentation:20%
Journal:25%
Research Paper/Presentation: 25%
Total: 100%
Course Reading: Reader available at CopyPro
TOPICS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT PROFESSOR’S DISCRETION
Important Note for History Majors:
The History Department now requires majors to move through a series of courses that begins with History 301, is followed by 302, and culminates in a Senior Seminar (499) that matches one of the areas of concentration selected for the major. History 499 must be taken in the last semester of work, or after 18 units of upper-division work have been completed in the major. Those 18 units must include at least six units (two courses) in the concentration that is the focus of the 499. Students in 499 are required to assemble a portfolio that reflects their work in upper-division history courses. This portfolio is designed to enable students to show development in the major, and their mastery of key analytical, mechanical, and presentation skills. As a part of the process, history majors (or prospective majors) should save all work from upper-division history courses for potential inclusion in this portfolio. For portfolio guidelines, see For questions and/or advising about the portfolio, contact Professor Houri Berberian at , or telephone 562.985.4524.
WEEK ONE 9/1
Labor Day---CLASS CANCELED
WEEK TWO 9/8
Introductions
Readings: Guy DeBord, “The Society of the Spectacle,” Patricia C. Phillips, “Temporality and Public Art,” Erika Doss, “Contemporary Public Art Controversy”
WEEK THREE 9/15
The Landscape as American Identity
Readings: Angela Miller, “Thomas Cole: Self, Nature, and Nation;” Jim Pomeroy, “ Rushmore-Another Look;” Brenda Jo Bright, “Remappings: Los Angeles Low Riders”
WEEK FOUR 9/22
The Mall in Washington and Public Parks: Monuments to Social Order
Readings: Kirk Savage, “The Self-made Monument: George Washington and the Fight to Erect a National Memorial;” Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, “The Great Rendezvous of the Polite World” and “A Park Properly So-Called”
WEEK FIVE 9/29
Civic Monuments and Civic Identity
Readings: Michele H. Bogart, “The Rise and Demise of Civic Virtue;” Anthony Lee, “When Murals Became Public;” Erika Doss, “Public Spirit and Spirit Poles: Public Art Controversy in the Civic Sphere”
WEEK SIX 10/6
Civilizing Rituals: Public Art Museums
Readings: Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, “The Love of Art: European Art Museums and their Public;” Andrew Ross, “The Great Un-American Numbers Game;” Chon A. Noriega, “On Museum Row: Aesthetics and the Politics of Exhibition”
WEEK SEVEN 10/13
The Federal Government and Social Muralism
Readings: Erika Doss, “Liberal Reform and the American Scene: Benton’s 1930s Murals;” Marlene Park and Gerald E. Markowitz, “New Deal for Public Art,” Anthony Lee, “Revolution on the Walls and in the Streets”
WEEK EIGHT 10/20
Race, Space, and Monument-Building
Readings: Donna Graves, “Representing the Race: Detroit’s Monument to Joe Louis;
Sarah Schrank, “Picturing the Watts Towers: The Art and Politics of an Urban Monument;” Dolores Hayden, “The View from Grandma Mason’s Place” and “Rediscovering an African American Homestead”
WEEK NINE 10/27
Public Art in the Corporate Sphere or “Plop” Art
Readings: Erika Doss, “Public Art in the Corporate Sphere;” Sharon Zukin, “High Culture and Wild Commerce in New York City;” George E. Marcus, “Middlebrow into Highbrow at the J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles;” Casey Blake, “An Atmosphere of Effrontery: Richard Serra, Tilted Arc, and the Crisis of Public Art”
WEEK TEN 11/3
Art as Urban Space/Urban Space as Art
Readings: David Harvey, “The Urban Experience;” Dolores Hayden, Urban Landscape as History: The Sense of Place and the Politics of Space;” Malcolm Miles, “Art and Metropolitan Public Transport”
WEEK ELEVEN 11/10
Graffiti, Murals, and Ethnic Urban Identities
Readings: Marcos Sanchez-Tranquilino, “Space, Power, and Culture: Mexican American Graffiti and Chicano Murals in East Los Angeles, 1972-1978;” Susan A. Phillips, “Graffiti for Beginners”
Film: “Chicano Park”
WEEK TWELVE 11/17
Popular Culture and Public Memory: Movies, Parades, and Shrines
Readings: WJT Mitchell, “The Violence of Public Art: Do the Right Thing;” George Lipsitz, “Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and Counter-Narrative in Black New Orleans;” Danielle Rice, “The Rocky Dilemma: Museums, Monuments, and Popular Culture in the Postmodern Era;” Erika Doss, “Saint Elvis”
WEEK THIRTEEN 11/24
Maya Lin and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Readings: Marita Sturken, ‘The Wall, the Screen, and the Image: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial;” Charles L. Griswold, “The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Washington Mall: Philosophical Thoughts on Political Iconography”
Film: “Maya Lin”
WEEK FOURTEEN 12/1
Research Paper Presentations
WEEK FIFTEEN 12/8
Research Paper Presentations
FIELD TRIPS: The Watts Towers, Thursday, October 2
Downtown Los Angeles, Saturday, November 22
The Great Wall of Los Angeles, tbd.