Requirements and Resources

Summary of course requirements

Late assignment policy: Late assignments will be accepted for up to one week after they are due, but will be reduced one full grade and will not receive any comments.
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 mailbox outside Lisa's office (Lib 321).

  • Conference Attendance and Participation: All students are expected to do the weekly readings, participate regularly and rigorously in the conference discussion, and lead conference discussion with one or two other students, as a group, two times during the semester. 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.

  • Leading Conference Discussion. During the semester, you and two other students will work together to facilitate the discussion at least two times. Before the conference meets (on Monday at 5 pm for Tuesday conference, and Wednesday at 5 pm for Thursday conference), please distribute a list of six discussion questions (complied jointly with your discussion co-leaders) to every member of the class on the course blog. Feel free to upload images to the blog or any other materials you think would be helpful to creating a dynamic discussion. All conference participants will read the questions and reflect on the issues raised before class.

    Each question should be preceded by two or three sentences that contextualize it and explain its significance to the discussion. Ideally, the questions will perform three interrelated functions: they will highlight the main point of the text, suggest its relationship to other texts we have read and images we have seen, and illustrate its influence on the way we look at and understand visual images under consideration. For an extended set of suggestions on how to lead a good discussion, click here.

  • One Research Project in Four Acts.

    1. Formulation of a question about a visual object dating from roughly 1800 to 2008. You can choose to write about a visual work that represents, plays with, disguises or questions the body. Consult course image databases, books on reserve, and books listed in the "further reading" links. Browse. Look for objects or pictures that strike you as absorbingly ambiguous. Spend some serious time mulling over what you see. And then, having selected a visual object that engages you (one object is recommended, though the number can be expanded for comparative purposes), what I would like you to do is to carefully think through and develop a meaningful, provocative question that you wish to pose of it. The work should suggest the question, and not the other way around. In your short essay, detail the process you used in devising the question, the problems you foresee in answering it, and why you think it is meaningful in relation to the body. That is to say, do not simply draft a generalized, simple statement of the question; I want to see evidence of your deliberate and reasoned approach to evolving a good question. Why are you asking this question? and not another question? Do NOT attempt to essay uninformed, generalized (and therefore uncompelling) answers to your own question. One lengthy paragraph or two, due in the fifth week (double-spaced, 12-point font, include images following format set forth on course resources page, linked below).
      FOR BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF BOOKS ON CONTEMPORARY ART IN CHINA IN THE REED LIBRARY, click here and here
    2. Brainstorming questions and images with small-group members in tutorials, week of October 7 (sign-up sheet will be posted on Lisa's office door, Lib 321).
    3. Redraft your question into a 2-3 PAGE project precis and turn it in along with an annotated bibliography of 6 sources, minimum (only one can be a textbook). Due November 6.
    4. Research project due DECEMBER 9. 15-20 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font, with images following format set forth on course resources page, linked below. No extensions on project deadline. No exceptions.

Searchable image databases

ARTStor
500,000 images, mainly European and North American. For a limited number of Chinese images, go to "Collections" and select the Huntington Archive of Asian Art

Craig Clunas, Art in China
See the textbook on main reserve for additional information about the images within this database.

Richard Vinograd and Robert Thorp, Chinese Art & Culture
See the texbook on main reserve for additional information about the images within this database.

Ellen Johnston Laing, The Winking Owl
Includes revolutionary woodcut prints from the 1930s and arts from the Maoist era (1949-1976). In order to use this database successfully, please consult the figure list from Laing's book (click here).

Electronic Resources

Web sources on Imperial Chinese Arts and Visual Cultures

Web sources on Contemporary Chinese Arts and Visual Cultures

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 this page at UCLA for brief guidelines on thinking critically about the web.

Museums

Language

click here for a Wade-Giles to Pinyin conversion table (UCLA)
click here for a Pinyin to Wade-Giles conversion table (UCLA)

Chinese pronunciation guide (Harvard)

Citations

Art historians use the MLA, Chicago, or APA citation styles. Whichever you choose, be consistent.
click here for overview of Chicago citation style

Creating Image Lists