Unit information: American Art: Art and Identity (Lecture Response Unit) in 2019/20

Unit name	American Art: Art and Identity (Lecture Response Unit)
Unit code	HART30026
Credit points	20
Level of study	H/6
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
Unit director	Ms. Tricha Passes
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History of Art (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit examines art in the United States up the end of the 1960's. It focuses on the ways that pictorial practices (including painting, photography, and magazine illustration) and film were used to articulate celebrations and critiques of American national identity. A key issue is the changing status of Americanism and the way in which attempts to convey nationalist imperatives through cultural forms shifted in relation to dramatic changes during the period, especially the onset of the Great Depression, and reflected critical examinations along the lines of class, gender, and race. The responses made by American artists to the emergence of the Soviet Union also marked a change in Americanism. In considering these themes, the unit considers a wide range of objects from figurative murals in post offices to experiments in abstraction, and from documentary photographs to dioramas. The unit will also concentrate on the realist depictions of American life as evidenced in the work of Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit students will be able to:

1. articulate an understanding of the relationship between art and memory;
2. analyse and generalise about the significance of art / visual culture to the act of remembering and memorialisation;
3. select pertinent evidence/data in order to illustrate/demonstrate more general issues and arguments;
4. identify a particular academic interpretation, evaluate it critically, and form an individual viewpoint.

Teaching Information

1 x two-hour interactive lecture per week

1 x one-hour seminar per week

Assessment Information

One 3000-word summative essay (50%) [ILOs 1-4]

One two-hour exam (50%) [ILOs 1-4]

Reading and References

Frances Yates, The Art of Memory, London, 1966

Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory 'in Medieval Culture, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 2008' Harald Weinrich, Lethe: The Art and Critique of Forgetting, Ithaca, 2004 Maurizio Bettini, The Portrait of the Lover, trans. Laura Gibbs, Berkeley, 1999 Robert Bevan, The Destruction of Memory: Architecture at War, London, 2006