1. We ask all students to select a city and to situate it within the questions, themes, or theories considered in class. You may select any city from any time period, and write approximately 4 double-spaced pages on its relationship to our classroom readings and conversations. This paper will be due in class on Friday, March 1, by 5 pm. Please bring one hard copy of your paper to Dana's office, as well as email us your paper as a PDF file.
2. Lisa and I will link your papers to the course webpage, where you will find them on the world map (we will do the same for your final project). We then ask you to read 3 of your classmates' papers and consider how their approach to this assignment complements and contrasts from yours. We will discuss your findings in class on Monday, March. 10 . Buon viaggio!
This assignment involves a careful examination of contemporary work by Chinese visual artists on the city. After reviewing gallery websites, artist websites, or the large collection of exhibition catalogs in the Reed Library, select one work. Following art-historical description (formal analysis) as well as the critical discussions in one or two of the texts we have read this semester, write a 4-7 page paper (12 font- double spaced) that examines how the artist is interacting with, representing and shaping urban space through visual media. Your investigation might consider issues of memory and nostalgia, the urban body, global versus local identity, and so on. Feel free to draw from texts discussed during the first half of the term. Include visual descriptions of the piece as much as you see it necessary (include, as well, an image of the work itself).
The artist need not be living in mainland China; you may take this opportunity to study the work of artists in the Chinese diaspora, cities as far flung as Taipei, London, Sydney, New York. Your essay will aid Lisa and Stephanie in making decisions about which pieces to include in a show slated for next spring in the Cooley Gallery on the theme of the environment--urbanscapes and landscapes--in contemporary China. We encourage you to select the work of an artist whom you would like to see invited to participate in this show.
Due Monday, April 21, by 9:00 am; email PDF file to Lisa and Dana, and drop off one hard copy at Dana's office; we will discuss the papers on April 28 (please read three of your colleagues papers, downloadable from the world map, in preparation for discussion).
Late assignment policy: Late assignments will be accepted, but will be reduced two grades and will not receive any comments. The final date to submit an assignment is the last day of class.
Note: If you are not in conference the day papers are returned (please review attendance policy below), you will be able to pick them up in the mailboxes outside Dana's or Lisa's office (Lib 323, 321).
All students are expected to do the weekly readings and participate regularly and rigorously in the conference discussion. If you miss a conference, you will be responsible to turn in summaries of texts that were discussed on the day of your absence (these summaries will not be returned to you until the end of the semester). More than three unexcused absences will result in no credit for the course. Acceptable excuses are illness and serious emergencies.
500,000 images, mainly European and American
This survey book, on reserve, can be used in conjunction with this digital database to search for images dating from neolithic China through today.
Style guide, handy abbreviated guide to using the Chicago style
Chicago Style Guide (15th edition) expanded guide
Web sources on Imperial Chinese Visual Culture
Late Neolithic period (ca. 5000-2000 BCE) through Qing dynasty (1644-1911)
Web sources on Contemporary Chinese Visual Culture
Republican era (1912-1949), Maoist China (1949-1976), and China Now (1976-today)
Museums (digital databases of museum collections)
Critically Assessing Information on the Web
Remember that materials on the web must be evaluated as critically as any other texts we consider in this course. See the UCLA library guidelines on thinking critically about the web as a starting point.