FYSP 161 MONUMENT AND MEMORY IN WESTERN ART FALL 2003

Erik Inglis

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Office hours: Tu: 9:00-11:00, Wed 2:00-3:30, and by apptment.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Art has played a commemorative role in virtually every stage of human history. This course will study how monuments create and preserve memory through their iconography, historical context, materials, and location. We will approach this broad topic in three ways: by studying Oberlin's monuments; by comparing these monuments to earlier examples; and by examining Washington, D.C., the most important monumental complex in the United States.

Oberlin's monuments result from a contest between a fear of forgetting (has anything happened here that doesn't merit a plaque?) and an equally energetic amnesia (all the academic buildings built in the College's first fifty years have been razed). The first project will be an inventory of all the monuments in Oberlin, from the serious (Memorial Arch) to the playful (the busts of professors in Bosworth Hall's arcade). The completed inventory will allow us classify Oberlin's monuments in various ways. Studying the links between form and function, you will draw on primary sources in local history, such as the Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin Historic and Improvement Organization, and the News-Tribune archive. Additionally, we will study related historical examples to put Oberlin's monuments in context. Memorial Arch, for example, invites comparisons with Roman triumphal arches, while the statue of General Shurtleff can be studied with other Civil War Memorials.

The class will then turn to Washington D.C., whose monuments are as well- known as their origins are forgotten. These monuments include very traditional ones, like the Lincoln Memorial, and also more innovative ones--most notably Maya Lin's influential Viet Nam Veterans Memorial and the Holocaust Museum. The class will address the contentious nature of monument design by reviewing controversies both past and present.

At this point our understanding of the monument's problematic power will have prepared us for an in-depth examination of three works back in Oberlin: Memorial Arch and the two war memorials, the town's along Plum Creek and College's World War II monument on Finney's south flank.

Memorial Arch demonstrates how the meaning of a monument changes over time. If the Washington Monument was once controversial but now seems inevitable, the Arch has taken the opposite trajectory. The World War II Memorial, in many ways the Arch's antithesis, raises other questions, in particular the town-gown divide. While the town and College once shared a war memorial, it had fallen into such disrepair that it was removed in 1935, with its panels being re-installed as the Soldier's Memorial in 1943. Already by this point the monument commemorated only the town's fallen.

After this semester of retrospection, the last project will be prospective: each student will determine something which deserves a monument at Oberlin, and propose a specific design. This assignment will allow you to deploy what you've learned over the course of the semester.

This course will realize several goals of the First-Year Seminar program. You will participate in the complicated, messy process of making and interpreting meaning; research primary and secondary sources, and write up your findings; engage in conversation and debate to discover your own voice. Finally, you will get a very firm grounding in Oberlin, your home for the next four years.

Participation...................................................................................30 %

The Shaw Memorial Controversy...................................................10 %

Report on an Oberlin Monument....................................................15 %

Team-Chair a Session on a Washington Monument.......................10 %

Paper: Oberlin and Washington as Settings for Monuments..........10 %

Paper: Through or Around Memorial Arch....................................15 %

Design an Oberlin Monument..........................................................10 %

Inventory of Oberlin Monuments....................................................must be completed to pass the class.

NB: All percentages are approximate; if your work improves over the semester, later grades may carry more weight.

ASSIGNMENTS:

Participation

Participation includes but is not limited to: being prepared for each class by doing the reading and visiting the assigned monuments, speaking, listening attentively to others, encouraging others to comment, arguing respectfully, asking questions, clarifying areas of accord or disagreement, summing up the comments of others, and supplying useful bibliography. Since attendance and participation are essential to learning this material, I will deduct half a grade for every absence after the third.

The Shaw Memorial Controversy (3-4 pages)

Albert Boime says the Shaw Memorial is racist; Kirk Savage says it is not. Reading documents contemporary with the monument and later interpretations, come to your own conclusion. You should give a concise summary of each scholar's argument, and evaluate what evidence they use and how they treat it.

I encourage you to share your work with other students, seeking their input, comments and corrections. However, the paper must be substantively your own. Others may suggest how you might better organize your paper; they may not re-draft it for you.

Report on an Oberlin Monument (3-4 pages)

Each student will pick a monument in Oberlin, and will prepare a ten-minute oral presentation on it, to be followed by five minutes of discussion and questions. At the next class meeting, students will hand in a brief paper summing up their presentation, and incorporating any useful material from the discussion. The presentation should cover several aspects of the monument, such as its form, historical precedents, its original context, the reaction to it's placement and its current status on campus. This will require research in primary and secondary sources. You must cite all your sources in academically formatted footnotes. For guidelines to acceptable practices, see the brief outline Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing about Art, 6th edition, (New York, Longman, 2000), or the extensive version in the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition (Chicago, 1993) or 15th edition (Chicago, 2003), all available in the Art Library and/or Mudd reference section.

Team Chair a Session on a Washington Monument

Working in teams with my help, students will research one of Washington D.C.'s major monuments. They will decide what readings the class should do to understand the monument, or a particular aspect of it. They will then lead the discussion of this reading and the monument.

Paper: Oberlin and Washington as Settings for Monuments (4-5 pages)

After examining monuments in Oberlin and Washington in dept, students will write a paper comparing the two cities as settings for monuments. How are they similar? How are they different? I encourage you to share your work with other students, seeking their input, comments and corrections. However, the paper must be substantively your own.

Paper: Through or Around Memorial Arch (3-4 pages)

Having studied how monuments change over time, and considered in particular the changing responses to Oberlin's Memorial Arch, students will assess the two sides in the debate about the Arch's role at Commencement. You may take sides, but you do not have to. Even if you do argue for one position, you must do justice to each side's position before arguing against it.

Design an Oberlin Monument

Pick a subject that deserves a monument at Oberlin and design the monument. You can pick something that has never been memorialized before, or design a new monument to supplement or replace an existing or lost work. Your project should have both a visual component, giving a tangible idea of the work's planned appearance, and a written one, justifying your subject and explaining your design. Manual skills are not necessary; your project will be judged on the way it deploys what you've learned in class. I encourage you to share your work with other students, seeking their input, comments and corrections. You may accept good suggestions and even feature them prominently, but must give credit to their source in your written documentation.

Inventory of Oberlin Monuments

We will devise an inventory form in the first week of class, and gradually add to it throughout the semester.

Collaboration is required for this project to work. As each segment is turned in, we will exchange them to make sure the list is as complete as possible. Though you do not have to record all the data about each monument on site, you do have to visit them. When you hand in the final copy, you must affirm under the Honor Code that you have visited all the monuments on your inventory.

POLICY ON INCOMPLETE WORK, LATE WORK, AND ABSENCES:

Incomplete work: All work must be complete to pass the class. Failure to complete any assignment will result in a no entry for the class.

Late work: All work is due at the beginning of class on the assigned day. Assignments due on days when the class does not meet are due at 4:30. Late work will be accepted without penalty only in cases of true emergency or by prior agreement with me. In other cases, work turned in late will be accepted, with half a grade deducted for every day between the due date and the date it's handed in.

Absences: Since attendance and participation are essential to learning this material, I will deduct half a grade for every absence after the third. This can result in a no-entry for the course--even if all written work has been completed. As with late work, absences may be excused without penalty in cases of true emergency.