Humanities Arts Cultural Stu 0288 - Reconstructing Modernity

This seminar examines the art, architecture and design produced in Europe and the U.S. after World War II and the Holocaust, investigating artistic expressions of rubble and rupture in the context of a traumatized humanity and a ruined landscape. Attempts at rewriting the history of modernism, defining a new urban consciousness, and literally rebuilding the world will be among the themes explored in the work of artists groups such as COBRA, the Abstract Expressionists, Black Mountain College, and the Situationists; architectural organizations such as Archizoom, Archigram, and CIAM, design movements associated with the Ulm School, journals such as Domus and the theoretical writings of public intellectuals such as Adorno, Sartre, Arendt and Debord. Students are responsible for a series of presentations and papers.

Writing and Research Multiple Cultural Perspectives In this course students are expected to spend 6-10 hours weekly on preparation and work outside of class time.