HON 121 Seminar 1: The Arts in New York City [86955]
Fall 2014, Prof. Sylvia Kahan
Wed. 2:30-5:20 p.m., 1P-125

Prof. Sylvia Kahan
Office: 1P-203E; Office hours: Wed. 12:30-2:30
Phone/voice mail: (718) 982-2556
E-mail: skahanpf@aol.com, sylvia.kahan@csi.cuny.edu

Kamili Posey, Instructional Technology Fellow
Office: 1A-206; Office hours: Mondays (and some Mondays), 12:00-6:00 p.m.
Phone/voice mail: (917) 825-1258
E-mail: kposey@gc.cuny.edu

Seminar I:
Seminar I explores the diverse arts in New York City. During the semester, students attend performances and exhibits of the current cultural season. In addition to opera, dance, theater, and the visual arts covered in all sections of Seminar I, faculty choose from a variety of textual, photographic, musical, and performance genres to explore how New Yorkers understand, enjoy, and create art. Students tackle such questions as: What does each genre offer? How does each speak to us? How does art create, serve, and represent the people of the City and its diverse communities? Aesthetic appreciation is supported by social and historical investigations so that students are provided with opportunities for different kinds of engagement with art forms, including interpretation, analysis, and creative endeavors. The work of the seminar will culminate in a student-curated exhibit of their own work for Snapshot NYC, an ongoing exhibition of photographs of student views of New York City.

Course objectives:
In this course, you will:
1. Explain the role of the artists, the arts, and artistic institutions in the lives of New York’s diverse citizens and the city itself.
2. Identify the key features of the different artistic forms studied in the class.
3. Construct clearly written and well-reasoned analyses of these art forms for multiple audiences (e.g. reviews, arguments, summaries, personal responses, blogs, etc.)
4. Analyze artistic forms for their formal qualities.
5. Formulate their own individual aesthetic values after having studied the city’s wide range of artistic expressions.

Course Requirements:
1. attendance and classroom participation (20%)
2. a blog, responses to classroom lectures/discussions and field trips (20%), due Sunday nights
3. three group projects (5% each, 15%)
4. four short papers on assigned readings, 500 words each (5% each, 20%)
5. poetry recitation and recording (5%)
6. final paper, on subject tbd, 10 pages (20%)

Reading Assignments:
1. John Berger, Ways of Seeing
2. J. D. Salinger: Catcher in the Rye (Little, Brown)
3.. Play readings, poetry readings and additional readings tbd

Class meetings and course content (the latter subject to change)
1. W 9/3: Introductions; ways of seeing, ways of listening; the “three readings”;
Introduction to the visual arts: painting, sculpture, photography

2. W 9/10: Visit to the High Line, Manhattan

3. W 9/16: Introduction to photography

Wednesday, 9/24: no school

4. W 10/1: Introduction to poetry

5. W 10/8: Introduction to literature

10/11: Snapshot NYC

6. W 10/15: Introduction to drama

Sunday, 10/19: Dr. Kahan performs piano recital at CSI, 3 p.m.

7. W 10/22: Midterm: poetry readings

8. W 10/29: Introduction to music

9. W 11/5: Introduction to orchestral music

10. W 11/12 Introduction to opera

Saturday, 11/16: Dr. Kahan performs with Metro Chamber Orchestra, Brooklyn

11. M 11/19 Excursion to music event or opera, Manhattan

12. W 11/26: TBA (Dr. Kahan out of town)

13.W 12/3: Introduction to film

14. W 12/10: Introduction to film

Final class meeting (if necessary): W 12/17 (final exam week)
Final paper due on Wed 12/17
Groups

Some of your assignments will be group projects. The groups consist of the following:

1. Bergen, Crespi, Denio Feliciano
2. Chen, Fining, Grunkina, Syed
3. Ferrando, Higgins, Iqbal, Joyce
4. Hayes, Lei, Matteo, Merchant
5. Hermus, Odessa, Quereshi, Richards