Fall 2017
MLAS 6100-57
Printmaking 101: Delving Deep into the Matrix
Instructor: Prof. Mark Hosford
Location: Ingram Studio Arts Center, Room 320
Days and Time: Thursdays from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Dates: August 31st to December 7th
Course Description: Printmaking was the original mass media technology. Through the use of reproducible images and text, information could be shared and disseminated in unprecedented ways. Prints helped spread the rise of literacy, documented historic events, gave voice to social and political movements, and are even stapled on telephone polls to promote live events. It all began with papermaking and wood block printing in China, but soon evolved into processes such as letterpress printing, etching, lithography, screen-printing, and digital printing. For this course, students will learn the history and evolution of printmaking techniques, by exploring their ideas through various print media. Students will be encouraged to find and develop their artistic voice and aesthetics as they progress through projects, discussions, and critiques. The projects in this course will follow the evolution of the major printmaking principles as they developed through time. Projects will be kicked off by slideshows and demonstrations. We will start with relief printing, where linoleum will be carved in order to print the top surface of the material, creating bold and graphic imagery. We will then move on to metal etching, using copper and acid in order to etch imagery, printing all the lines and material underneath the top surface of the plate. From there we will move to lithography, where a chemical resist between oil and water allows for planography methods of printing. Lastly, we will end with sceen-printing, where photo emulsions are used on stretched mesh frames in order to create stencil printed forms. With equal parts, messy, mathematical, and Methodical, this class will be a truly unique experience, working in a fully equipped printmaking facility. Much like alchemists trying to turn base metals into gold, we will transform the basic materials around us into visual forms of enlightened expressions.
About this instructor: Mark Hosford was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974 and grew up in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas. He moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1993 to pursue a BFA in Studio Arts at the University of Kansas with a concentration on printmaking. He received his MFA in 2001 from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. That same year, Hosford accepted a teaching position at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Art. Hosford has served as Vice President of Outreach for SGC International, the largest international printmaking organization. Hosford has a national and international exhibition record, including exhibitions in Poland, Germany, South Korea, China, New York, Boston, and California. His work is included in numerous public and private collections. He is represented by Cumberland Gallery in Nashville, Tennessee and LeMieux Galleries in New Orleans, Louisiana. Specializing in drawing, printmaking, and animation, Hosford’s work draws from a fascination with counter-culture imagery, spiritualism, curiosities, obsolete technology, stream of consciousness, and personal narratives.
MLAS 6300-09
Food, Identity, and Culture
Instructor: Prof. Norbert Ross
Location: Garland Hall 2A
Days and Time: Tuesdays, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Dates: August 29th to December 5th
Course Description: Food, Culture, and Identity is a course about exploring culture, identity politics, and the social through the lenses of food, food production and food consumption. Looked at from this angle, it seems that nutrients and energy are the least important aspect for what and how we eat. Instead table manners and food choices seem to be telling us more about who we are and who we want to be in terms of our positioning in society. We will investigate conceptions of traditional food in combination with eating out, the hole-in-the-wall-restaurant, acquired taste, but also look at gender roles at home and in cooking shows, both in terms of preparation and consumption. This will lead us to discuss the changed role of food over time and how it plays out in restaurants, but also home architecture: where and how big is the kitchen in the 21st century home? All this goes to show that taste, food, and eating are social phenomena, and need to be understood as such. Of course, we cannot talk about food without touching on production, distribution, and consumption, all political projects that at time get rejected and contested. Through discussions of readings and movies the class will provide you with a broad overview of important issues in contemporary social sciences viewed through the lenses of food and eating. We will bring our own experiences to the discussions, improving thereby our understanding of what we eat, why and how. Class sessions will consist of discussions - at time at local restaurants. Participation is obligatory and reflects a good part of the grade. Students will keep a food-journal throughout the semester and write a final paper (topic to be discussed with the instructor).
About this instructor: Norbert Ross is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Psychology. He conducts research in Mexico, El Salvador, and Kurdistan on issues related to culture, cognition, identity and power. He has an ongoing research project on food and migration in Nashville, that explores migration as viewed from both inside and outside as it relates to food. What does it mean consuming other people’s food? What does our craving for authentic ethnic food tell about us? Are some of the questions he is interested in. He is currently preparing a book related to food and migration in Nashville, where he tries to bring the cooks, their lives and stories center stage. The research and teaching on food reflect Norbert’s personal interest in food and eating. He is an avid foodie, maintains a food blog featuring not only recipes but also thought about food (norbertross.com/foodie).
Cuba and the United States
Instructor: Prof. Frank Robinson
Location: Buttrick Hall 206
Days and Time: Wednesdays from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Dates: August 30th to December 6th
Course Description: Today, Cuba and the United States are taking historic steps to chart a new course in their relations. Throughout the twentieth century, and especially since Fidel Castro's takeover in 1959, the histories of Cuba and the United States have been deeply intertwined. Of all the peoples in Latin America none have been more familiar to the United States than Cubans--who in turn have come to know their northern neighbors equally well. In 1899, as the United States settled into its occupation of Cuba after the Spanish-Cuban-American War, President William McKinley offered his famous observation about the relationship between the two countries: “The new Cuba yet to arise from the ashes of the past must be bound to us by ties of singular intimacy.” Clearly, Cuba occupies a unique place in the history of American imperialism, and this course seeks to trace the complex political, cultural, and economic ties between Cuba and the United States with an eye to assessing the current normalization of relations between the two countries.
About this instructor: W. Frank Robinson is an Assistant Professor of History who completed his undergraduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University and received his graduate degrees from the University of Florida and Auburn University with concentrations in African Area Studies and Latin American history. He specializes in the history of Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on twentieth century political and social movements, nationalism and populism, and Caribbean diaspora communities. At the moment, Robinson is researching the underlying historical context of recent attempts to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States.
MLAS 6700-10
Music of the Outliers (Core Course)
Instructor: Prof. Michael Slayton
Location: Blair School of Music 2133
Days and Time: Mondays from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Dates: August 28th to December 4th
Course Description:
“To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.” --David Byrne
How does music affect us as listeners? How are musical “standards” created? How does the unorthodox become orthodox? To what degree are composers and artists obligated to move us forward, to “push our buttons”? What constitutes “going too far?” These are the types of questions raised, explicitly or inexplicitly, by concert-goers, educators, music critics, and composers. Perhaps more than any other medium, music has been expected to hold to certain standards of beauty or sensibility, often at the expense of progressive thought. This course, then, will venture into the world of the “outliers,” those composers and artists who challenged the world around them to think about sound in new ways, to listen with unorthodox ears. Much can be learned from their approaches to what music actually is, and what it could be.
About this instructor: Michael Slayton is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Music Composition and Theory at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music. He has composed works in a cross-section of musical genres, with specific emphasis on chamber music. His continuing dedication to the value of artistic exchange has afforded him opportunity to write for distinguished performers all over the world, and his music, published by ACA, Inc. (BMI), is regularly programmed in the U.S. and abroad, most recently in London and Birmingham, United Kingdom; Melbourne, Australia; and New York, NY. His latest CD, Surusm, was released through Parma Recordings (Naxos) in November 2016. Slayton is author/editor-in-chief of Women of Influence in Contemporary Music, a book detailing the lives and music of several of America’s notable women in composition (Scarecrow Press 2011, winner of the 2013 Pauline Alderman Award). A member of the American Composer’s Alliance, Society of Composers, Inc., the College Music Society, Connecticut Composers, Inc., and Broadcast Music, Inc., Slayton continues to be an active participant in the national and international music community.