Course Descriptions — Fall 2008
REQUIRED COURSES
Proseminar *
Monday, 12:00–1:50PM (CRN 1367); Monday, 12:00–1:50PM (CRN 3268); Sarah Lawrence, Director, MA Program in the History of Decorative Arts & Design; Ethan Robey, Associate Director, MA Program in the History of Decorative Arts & Design
The Proseminar equips students with the skills required for scholarship in the history of decorative arts. In-class discussions introduce a range of methodologies and critical approaches. Exercises train students in essential tasks such as conducting formal analyses, writing catalogue entries, and making visual presentations. This writing-intensive course stresses the mechanics of expository writing through projects that require students to conduct and integrate primary and secondary source research. Each student selects one work from the Cooper-Hewitt collection to study throughout the semester. Grades will be calculated as follows: Attendance/preparation/class participation (20%); Two short papers (10% each, 20% total); In-class presentation (20%); Final paper (20-25 pages) (40%). Preliminary drafts of papers, proposals, and bibliographies will also be submitted throughout the semester. These will be corrected but not graded.
Survey of Decorative Arts I: Renaissance to Neoclassicism *
Section B: Thursday, 12:00 – 2:50 PM (CRN 2542) Section A: Thursday, 4:00 – 6:50 PM (CRN 1366) Lorraine Karafel, Metropolitan Museum of Art
This course presents a broad introduction to European decorative arts from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, focusing on Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands. Issues of style, function, and meaning of objects in both public and private life will be explored. In class lectures and through readings that reflect a variety of scholarly approaches, the decorative arts will be considered within the larger cultural, political, and social contexts of their times.
Final grades will be determined by student work on the two 3-5 page formal analysis papers, one 8-10 page research paper, the midterm and final exams, and on class participation as follows: Paper 1: 10%; Midterm Exam: 20%; Paper 2: 10%; Paper 3: 20%; Final Exam: 30%; Class Participation: 10%.
* A requirement for students in their first year of study.
ELECTIVES
A History of Textiles: Design and Technique
Monday, 6:00–7:50PM (CRN 3110); Susan Brown, Assistant Curator, Textiles Department, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; This course has limited enrollment
This course will make full use of the Museum’s extensive textile collection to introduce students to the broad range of textile creation and use through history. The collection is organized by technique, so the course will use this as a starting point to examine the ways in which craft, technology and trade have informed the design and aesthetics of textiles and the related areas of interiors and fashion. While the primary focus will be on European and American materials from the Renaissance through the present, other cultures will be examined in their technical or aesthetic intersections with and contributions to Western design history.
Assessment: Three preliminary assignments on technical analysis, sources, and context: 30%; Object analysis quiz: 10%; Research paper and presentation: 45%; Participation: 15%.
Topics in Costume: Jewelry
Tuesday, 9:30–11:20AM (CRN 6561); Denny Stone, Collections Manager, European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Across cultures and through history people have chosen to ornament themselves with jewelry. An examination of jewelry illustrates the aesthetic, design, and technical developments of its time and offers insights into the cultural forces at work on both the maker and wearer. Jewelry, like all arts, responds to the need for beauty by creating works scaled and suited for the human body. However, unlike other art forms, jewelry requires the participation of a wearer. As personal adornment, jewelry exists at the intersection between the production of an artist, the desires of a wearer, and the perceptions of the viewer. This survey follows the development of jewelry as personal adornment from the renaissance through the twentieth century. In addition, this history emphasizes the interrelationships between jewelry, dress, and other forms of body adornment, as well as the connections between jewelry as personal and societal statement. This course builds the student’s knowledge of art historical periods, the nature and development of ornament and design, and the specific techniques and media principally employed in the creation of jewelry. Course requirements: a 2-4 page object analysis (15%), a 6-8 page research paper (30%), assigned independent fieldwork in area collections (15%), and a final exam (40%).
Domestic Life and the Arts in Renaissance Italy
Tuesday, 12:00–1:50PM (CRN 6546); Tracy L. Ehrlich
This class will explore the art of private life in Renaissance Italy, focusing on Florence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The material culture of the Florentine palace and the rituals of family life, in particular those associated with courtship, marriage, and birth, will be our focus. Over the course of the semester we will consider the organization of space in relation to function and use; the character and meaning of interior decorations, particularly moveable objects, and the role of gender and class in domestic space. Sessions will examine such objects as wedding chests (cassoni), dowry gifts, birth trays, glassware, majolica, tableware, and the rituals of domestic life associated with them. Special topics include studioli and collectors’ cabinets. We will be able to take advantage of two exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: “The Art of the Royal Court: Treasures in Pietre Dure from the Palaces of Europe,” (closing in late September) and “Love and Marriage in Italian Renaissance Art” (opening in early November). Class visits to these exhibitions will be mandatory.
Topics in Glass: Transformations in Glass
Tuesday, 2:00–3:50PM (CRN 4539); Diane C. Wright, Yale University Art Gallery
This course is designed to give participants an understanding of the fundamentals of glassmaking, namely the tools and techniques used in the creation of glass objects. With a strong foundation in glassmaking basics, students will then focus on the history of European glass and how the techniques, designs, and glassmakers themselves coming from this period and region of the world influenced, shaped, and in some cases transformed early American glass and the glass of the Studio movement of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Students will attend the 47th Annual Seminar at the Corning Museum of Glass where they will participate in special sessions with Corning curators in addition to the Seminar activities and lectures. Students will have the opportunity to study a world renowned glass collection and conduct primary research at the Rakow Library. Corning's 47th Annual Seminar will have a special focus on glass and alchemy, in conjunction with the Museum's major exhibition, "Glass of the Alchemists," (exploring Northern European glass of the Baroque period) as well as the American glass industry in honor of the 400th anniversary of glassmaking in America. Course lectures and discussions will parallel the Annual Seminar topics.
Requirements: Attendance at Corning's Annual Seminar is mandatory as it replaces a number of course lectures normally given in NYC. Students will be required to keep a journal where they will observe and sketch glass found in museums, auction houses, private collections, or antiques stores. A ten-page paper that incorporates objects or themes discussed in class and includes primary research will also be required. Each student will give a short presentation on their paper. A final exam will test students' knowledge of material presented throughout the course and at the Corning Seminar.
Grading: 20% Journal; 35% Paper; 15% Presentation; 30% Final Exam
Note: Students taking this course will be required to be in Corning, New York from approximately midday Wednesday, October 15 through Saturday, October 18. You will be excused from your Wednesday, Thursday and Friday classes that week. You will need to arrange your own transportation and lodging.
Class meets in New York City September 2, 9, 16; October 7, 28; November 11, 18; December 2, 9. Class meets in Corning October 15–18.
Designing Domesticity – Objects at Home **
Wednesday, 12:00–1:50PM (CRN 6544); Karen Zukowski; This course is currently full
"Home" is a constellation of locale, people, experiences and especially, spaces and things. This course will explore the concept of home by focusing on dwelling spaces and the objects gathered in them, especially American homes. We will take up themes such as: style and consumerism; fantasy and the home; the moral home in different eras; gendered spaces and furnishings; the home transplanted into museums; and the home as depicted in art, especially contemporary art. We will consider how the form of an object expresses ideas of domesticity, the processes by which objects destined for the home are developed, and who makes those choices. Class sessions will consist of presentations by the instructor and guest lecturers; these, along with readings, will serve as jumping-off points for discussion led by students. There will be one or more field trips. Along the way, students will write two short papers on influential figures and objects in the history of domesticity. A final project will be an exhibition of objects (preferably from the Cooper-Hewitt collection) illustrating some aspect of domesticity, presented as either as on-line exhibition, or as a poster session.
Assessment: Class participation: 50%; Short papers: 20%; Final project: 30%
Twentieth-Century American Popular Culture
Wednesday, 2:00–3:50PM (CRN 2630); Marilyn Cohen; This course is currently full
This course examines the intersection of the popular and the material in twentieth-century America. What is popular culture, and what does it reveal about life during the twentieth century? Is it a valid index? The course will be run as a seminar and will begin with an examination of theoretical constructs surrounding the study of popular culture including the perennial debate between high and low art. Topics will be taken from TV, movies, radio, and the like. Cars, sitcom interiors, Disneyana, costume jewelry, Barbie and her paraphernalia, film posters, packaging, fashion, the souvenir—are all potential areas of exploration. The new materials of the postwar world, such as plastic and aluminum, will be analyzed for their impact on design, the decorative arts, and contemporary life. So called “collectibles” will be explored within a political and postmodern context. Students will be expected to present and discuss popular objects considering the relationship of goods to class, kitsch, and gender.
Art Déco
Wednesday, 4:00–5:50PM (CRN 6545); Elizabeth DeRosa, Attingham Summer School; Jared Goss, Associate Curator, Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This course will examine developments in the fine arts, decorative arts and design that took place in France following World War I, and, following the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels of 1925, found an audience world-wide. The course will consider the major French art deco designers, their style sources, materials and artistic goals. The course will be object-based, with several sessions to be held at major museums and gallery collections. Students will need to allow themselves adequate time to travel to and from institutions in the New York metropolitan area before and after class.
Course requirements: Mid-term exam: 30%; Term paper of 15-20 pages--Each student will asked to select a topic from a list to be provided by the instructors; Final paper: 60%; Class participation: 10%.
A reading knowledge of French is strongly recommended, as a major part of the reading assignments will be in French.
House Proud: Watercolor Interiors as Documentation
Wednesday, 6:00–7:50PM (CRN 6543); Gail S. Davidson, Curator of Drawings & Prints, Cooper-Hewitt Museum; Floramae McCarron-Cates, Associate Curator of Drawings & Prints, Cooper-Hewitt Museum; This course is currently full
Using an important collection of European nineteenth-century watercolor interiors, the course will examine the interior space as it transitions from public formal reception rooms to more personal, private living spaces. Using these watercolors as reference points we will examine the development of nineteenth-century European styles in interior decoration from Neoclassicism to the Aesthetic Movement. We will also discuss the rise of the professional watercolor painter, and how technical developments in the watercolor medium contributed to the production of interior drawings. As many of these drawings were kept in presentation albums, referenced by family members, the function of these drawings as documents and tokens of remembrance will be discussed.
Class session will be taught in connection with the House Proud exhibition by the curators of the Department of Drawings, Prints and Graphic Design at the Cooper-Hewitt. There will be a few guest lectures who will discuss specific stylistic developments in the nineteenth century.
A take-home paper, a twenty minute oral presentation and a final paper will be required in addition to class participation. The class sessions will take place in the galleries of the Cooper-Hewitt, unless other wise indicated.
Objects and Histories: House Museums in New York City **
Fridays 2:00 PM – 3:50 PM (CRN 6547); Sean Sawyer, Department of History, Columbia University
Historic house museums are among the most common type of museum in the world, some counts suggest that there are over 5,000 in the US alone. They present an invaluable but often under-utilized resource for engaging the decorative arts in the interpretation of local, regional, and national histories, as well as a common career path for museum professionals.
This course will examine how the decorative arts can contribute to the interpretation of crucial themes in New York City history from the Colonial era to the mid-20th century within the context of its many and varied historic houses. Historical themes to be considered include: cultural identity and assimilation; slavery/servitude and freedom; status/class and consumption strategies; and gender roles.
The course will also explore the history of the house museum and current issues in its management and interpretation with a focus on the challenges and opportunities of the urban house museum.
Site visits will be a critical component to this course and will include trips across the City's five boroughs, including: Brooklyn's Dutch-American farmhouses, the Morris Jumel Mansion, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Frick Collection, and the Weeksville Heritage Center's Historic Hunterfly Road Houses.
Classroom time will involve lecture and discussion as well as conversations with museum professionals from across New York City.
Students will be expected to write short papers (20%), participate in class discussions (30%), and complete a final term paper/presentation (50%). The term project will require students to research and reinterpret specific historic interiors in existing or potential house museums.
TWO–WEEK INTENSIVE SEMINARS
French Visual Culture from Revolution to Art Nouveau, 1789–1900
September 15–26; Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 11:50 (CRN 6548); Anne-Marie Quette, Conférencière (ret.), Musées Nationaux de France
This seminar explores interactions among fashion, interior design, furnishings, and the decorative arts from the French Revolution to Art Nouveau. The visual culture of the long nineteenth century underwent tremendous changes, influenced by such factors as the rise of the middle classes, the transformations wrought by the Industrial Revolution, and the emergence of department stores. The course moves from the rooms and furniture created for Napoleon's court through the emergence of the flâneur in Haussmann's Paris, and concludes with the objects of Art Nouveau.
German Decorative Arts
October 13–24; Monday – Friday, 9:00 AM – 11:50 (CRN 6562); Ulrich Leben, Curator, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire
The course will investigate Germany as a center for the decorative arts--including interior decoration and furniture—between 1700 and 1980. Geographically situated in the center of Europe, and therefore on the crossroads of East-West and North-South trade, Germany saw a multitude of foreign influences coming from the craftsmen and trade of Italy and France, as well as the Netherlands and England. This had a great impact on the creation of a particular and unique German style, and has left a rich legacy open to new discoveries after the recent reunification of the country.
Religious divisions between the Catholic regions in southern and western Germany and the Protestant regions of the east and north also caused differences in political influences, which in return had an impact on style and taste. The 18th century saw a strong influence of French aristocratic art, which found individual interpretation in the German provinces, since the French prototypes were too expensive and were merely known through drawings or printed documents. Through the migration of craftsmen from Germany to the great capitals of Europe such as London, Paris and Petersburg, and later the young United States German craftsmanship had an influence on productions in these countries. The sober and elegant forms of the Biedermeier period of the 19th century displayed new attempts at creating a purely German style and had varying degrees of international success. The Jugend movement and the Bauhaus school established successful designers and creators who brought their vision abroad when many were forced into emigration after 1933. The sombre years of the “Third Reich” were followed by a research of reconciliation and connection with international trends which often were realized only with the modest means of a country which had a lost the war.
The main artistic currents and centers for the creation and the manufacture of fine furniture, art objects and porcelain (Augsburg, Dresden, Munchen, Dessau and Berlin) will be presented and discussed.
Lectures will be complemented by a visit to a Museum, the Drawings and Prints Collection and the Library at the Cooper Hewitt.
COURSES IN OTHER DEPARTMENTS
Global Issues in Design and Visuality in the 21st Century **
Art & Design Studies Department; Section: Tuesdays 4:30 PM – 5:45 PM (CRN 5432); 6 East 16th Street, room 911; Lecture: Tuesdays 6:00 PM – 7:15 PM (CRN 3228); Johnson/Kaplan 66 West 12th St., room 106; Susan Yelavich, Assistant Professor, Art & Design Studies
Impermanence may be the only permanent characteristic of the 21st century. People rarely live in just one place anymore. New urban landscapes are rapidly evolving in response to the tides of migration; at the same time, new geographies are mapped everyday on the internet. We have grown accustomed to buying products made in one place, manufactured in another, and sold everywhere. Goods, services, and images have become their own culture, transforming designers and artists into culture authors. How can we talk about these new cultures?
Beginning with an introduction to cultural theory, the course proceeds to an examination of the ways in which design and art mirror the state of contemporary culture and the ways in which they critique and change culture. We will become conversant with the dynamics of culture through lectures and readings by anthropologists, environmentalists, sociologists, and philosophers. Then we will see how those dynamics operate in the realm of art and design practice, through a series of case studies presented by an international roster of guest speakers, joined by members of Parsons’ own distinguished faculty. Among the many professional domains included are: fashion, performance art, environmental design, communication and product design, photography, architecture, interiors, and urbanism.
Note: Students must register for both the Lecture and the Graduate Section.
Exhibition Design **
Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting; Monday, 9:00 AM – 11:40; Tim Ventimiglia, Studio Director and Associate, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, New York; This course is currently full
This seminar will explore the ever-expanding sphere of interpretive space in our culture, its historic origins, its morphological and philosophical evolution, its politics, and the means and methods by which exhibitions are developed by today’s design practitioners.
The space of exhibition is defined by a broad set of categories including: permanent and temporary exhibitions located in social and cultural history museums, natural history museums, park visitor centers, historic sites, memorials, interpretive trails, living history centers, art galleries, science and technology centers, theme parks, trade shows, retail environments, traveling and temporary exhibitions in airports and shopping malls. The unifying concept behind all of these programs is that they are designed to facilitate the interpretation of places, objects, people, and ideas.
How do we design an exhibition experience? What is the role of the exhibition in society? If every exhibit has a narrative, then can we uncover the politics of its carefully crafted voice? How are exhibitions changing? Are there new hybrid models and new technologies to consider?
The class will require extensive reading and discussion, site visits and guest lectures as well as a short design assignment.
War, Trade, and Desire: The Conflicting Architectures of Global Cities
Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting; Monday, 9:00 AM – 11:40; Brian McGrath, Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting; Vyjayanthi Rao, Anthropology, New School for Social Research and International Affairs, New School for General Studies
How are global cities formed? This seminar examines the conflicting architectures of global cities formed through processes linked to war (territorialization), trade (capitalism) and desire (the human psyche). We will examine current trends and forecasts for cities within a global context mired in historical conflicts as well as new uncertainties and risks. The course situates architecture within expanded disciplinary and geographic fields, broadening urban analyses to consider eco¬logical, ethnographic and economic dynamics during a period of dra¬matic global change – environmentally, socially and psychologically. (Felix Guattari)
We first will examine cities as walled enclaves and centers of power in a hostile world defined through risk. We will then look at the world trading system both before and after hegemony (Abu-Lughod), through the development of capitalism from Braudel’s Mediterranean to Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and the African slave trade and diaspora. Finally we will look at religion, utopia and the “American Dream: in the global imagination. We will study the effect of the internet and tele¬communications have had on the flattening of the world (Friedman) and how America
Lighting: A Design History
Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting; Wednesday, 9:00 AM – 11:40; Pamela Z Kladzyk, Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting
Creating, controlling, directing and worshipping light has prompted imaginations throughout the world to respond in ways that inspire poets, as well as generate a myriad of daily and nightly activities. This elective course will draw from domestic, ceremonial, and commercial lighting and shading traditions of Native America, India, Japan, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe to learn about new, enduring, mordant, and hybrid approaches to lighting design. Students will be challenged to consider archetypes of great diversity. The siting of important buildings at Cahokia of the Mississippians, designs for light and shadow circulation of the mashrabiyas of Egypt, and duration in visual systems of light-artists such as James Turrell will be studied. Heating, cooling, and air circulation directly related to lighting design will be included. Design, regardless of scale, is a process that in one way or another represents the continuum of creativity through time. We will study how streams of ideas and components comprising lighting design and shadow play are used today.
Students will be expected to develop an understanding of fundamental standards, forms, aesthetics, and vocabulary for use in critical discourse. Creative relationships between architecture and illumination, light and shadow, symbol and technology from various world cultures will be analyzed in the process. Students will develop the ability to interpret, describe, and use historic and symbiotic relationships in their own designs.
Weekly class lectures will be followed by discussion of lectures and assigned readings. Lecture and reading material will present environmental, social, and formal responses to lighting design as well as focus on significant designers, architectural forms, implements, uses, and theoretical underpinnings.
Grading will come from in-class tests with sketches, small group presentations, a research paper on a relevant historical design, and the presentation of an original lighting and shading design based on an historical precedent.
Seminars in Architecture History
Department of Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting; Wednesday, 9:00 AM – 11:40; Peter Wheelwright; This course is currently full
Please note: Space is limited in these courses. You will not be able to register for courses in the Architecture, Interior Design and Lighting program unless you have first emailed Claire, and gotten the department’s approval.
SPECIAL REGISTRATION
Special Studies (CRN 1406), Special Studies 2 (CRN 3051) Registering for this course permits students to receive credit through Parsons School of Design for approved graduate courses taken at NYU, FIT, or the Bard Graduate Center. In addition, a student must have completed 12 credits in the Masters Program before taking courses elsewhere.
Independent Study (CRN 1407), Independent Study 2 (CRN 2293) Students who wish to pursue a specific interest, beyond what is available in any existing course, may work independently under the supervision of a faculty member or museum curator. To register for an independent study, the Contract for Independent Study is completed, which requires a description of the project and the signatures of the independent study supervisor and the department chair. A student must have completed 12 credits in the Masters Program before pursuing an independent study.
Independent Study: Thesis (CRN 1409) Limited to students who have had their Honors Thesis petition approved. To register for an independent study, the Contract for Independent Study is completed, which requires a description of the progress on the thesis and the signatures of the thesis supervisor and the department chair.
Internship (CRN 1410), Internship 2 (CRN 2091) Students who wish to acquire additional professional and practical experience in the field may choose to intern. Arrangements for and approval of any internship comes through the Chair; a student must have completed 12 credits in the Masters Program. As an intern the student is required to work a minimum of eight hours per week, or 120 hours total during the semester. In addition, the student keeps a journal reporting their activities that is submitted at the end of the semester to the Chair, who, in consultation with the internship supervisor, awards a grade on the basis of performance and written work. To register for an internship, the Contract for Internship is completed, which requires a description of the internship and the signatures of the internship supervisor and the department chair.
Maintaining Status (CRN 1567) Non-credit; limited to students who have taken 12 or more credits.
Equivalency Status (CRN 1408) Limited to students who have attempted, but not completed, 48 credits, and who need to be registered for six credits to retain student loans.
** This course fulfills the theory/museology requirement
