This page contains materials
intended to facilitate class discussion.
The materials are not necessarily the
same as the instructor's teaching notes
and are not designed to represent a full
exposition or argument. This page is
subject to revision as the instructor
finalizes preparation. (Last revised
11/16/04
)
Preliminary Class
Business
Presentations
Today: Bret Brinkman
Next class: Katherine
Voll
Prospectuses due this Wed.; Critiques
due next Wed.
Robert Rosenblum, Modern Painting
and the Northern Romantic Tradition:
Friedrich to Rothko (New York:
Harper and Row, 1975), p. 202:
"The
American landscape, with its
abundance of sublimities, was
particularly conducive to the
later flourishing of this Romantic
tradition that would continue
from Bierstadt and his late
nineteenth-century contemporaries
down to artists like O'Keeffe
and Tack, and ultimately, to
Still; but the tradition, of
course, was born of European
Romanticism."
Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse:
Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1978), p. 234:
"Foucault
proposes to substitute for
history what he calls 'archaeology.'
By this latter term he means
to indicate his utter unconcern
for the staple of conventional
history of ideas: continuities,
traditions, influences, causes,
comparisons, typologies, and
so on. He is interested, he
tells us, only in the 'ruptures,'
'discontinuities,' and 'disjunctions'
in the history of consciousness,
that is to say, in the differences
between the various epochs in
the history of consciousness,
rather than the similarities.
The conventional historian's
interest in continuities, Foucault
maintains, is merely a symptom
of what he calls 'temporal agoraphobia,'
an obsession with filled intellectual
spaces. It is just as legitimate,
and therapeutically more salutary
for the future of the human sciences,
to stress the discontinuities
in Western man's thought about
his own being-in-the-world."
Friedrich Kittler, Discourse
Networks, 1800/1900, trans. Michael Metteer
with Chris Cullens (Stanford: Stanford
Univ. Press, 1990) (orig. pub. in German
in 1985 as Aufscreibesysteme)
Some of the artists Rosenblum looks at
in his chapter on "Abstract Expressionism":
Nick moved along through
the shallow stretch watching
the banks for deep holes.
A beech tree grew close
beside the river, so that
the branches hung down
into the water. The stream
went back in under the
leaves. There were always
trout in a place like that.
Nick did not care about
fishing that hole.
He was sure he would
get hooked in the branches.
It looked deep though.
He dropped the grasshopper
so the current took
it under water, back
in under the overhanging
branch. The line
pulled hard and Nick
struck. The trout threshed
heavily, half out of
water in the leaves and
branches. The line was
caught. Nick pulled hard
and the trout was off.
He reeled in and holding
the hook in his hand,
walked down the stream.
Ahead, close to the
left bank, was a big
log. Nick saw it was
hollow; pointing up
river the current entered
it smoothly, only a little
ripple spread each
side of the log. The
water was deepening.
The top of the hollow
log was gray and dry.
It was partly in the
shadow.
Nick took the
cork out of the grasshopper
bottle and a hopper
clung to it. He picked
him off, hooked him and
tossed him out. He held
the rod far out so that
the hopper on the water
moved into the current
flowing into the hollow
log. Nick lowered the
rod and the hopper
floated in. There was
a heavy strike. Nick
swung the rod against
the pull. It felt as
though he were hooked
into the log itself,
except for the live feeling.
He tried to force
the fish out into the
current. It came, heavily.
The line went slack
and Nick thought
the trout was gone. Then
he saw him, very
near, in the current,
shaking his head, trying
to get the hook out.
His mouth was clamped
shut. He was fighting
the hook in the clear
flowing current.
Looping
in the line with
his left hand. Nick swung
the rod to make the
line taut and tried
to lead the trout toward
the net, but he was
gone, out of sight, the
line pumping. Nick
fought him against the
current, letting him
thump in the water against
the spring of the rod.
He shifted the rod
to his left hand, worked
the trout upstream,
holding his weight,
fighting on the rod,
and then let him down
into the net. He lifted
him clear of the water,
a heavy half circle
in the net, the net dripping,
unhooked him and
slid him into the sack.
He spread the mouth
of the sack and looked
down in at the two
big trout alive in the
water.
Through the deepening
water. Nick waded
over to the hollow
log. He took the sack
off, over his head, the
trout flopping as it
came out of water,
and hung it so the trout
were deep in the water.
Then he pulled himself
up on the log and sat,
the water from his
trouser and boots running
down into the stream.
He laid his rod down,
moved along to the shady
end of the log and took
the sandwiches out of
his pocket. He dipped
the sandwiches in the
cold water. The current
carried away the crumbs.
He ate the sandwiches
and dipped his hat full
of water to drink, the
water running out through
his hat just ahead
of his drinking.
It was
cool in the shade,
sitting on the log.
He took a cigarette out
and struck a match
to light it. The match
sunk into the gray wood,
making a tiny furrow.
Nick leaned over the
side of the log, found
a hard place and lit
the match. He sat smoking
and watching the river.
Ahead the river narrowed
and went into a swamp.
The river became
smooth and deep and the
swamp looked solid with
cedar trees, their trunks
dose together, their
branches solid. It
would not be possible
to walk through a swamp
like that. The branches
grew so low. You would
have to keep almost level
with the ground to
move at all. You could
not crash through the
branches. That must be
why the animals that
lived in swamps were
built the way they were.
Nick thought.
Marc Augé, Non-Places:
Introduction to an Anthropology of
Supermodernity, trans. John Howe
(London: Verso, 1995) [orig. pub. in
French, 1992] (book
cover)
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism,
or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Durham:
Duke Univ. Press, 1991) (images
of postmodern spaces)
Edward W. Soja, Postmodern Geographies:
The Reassertion of Space in Critical
Social Theory (London: Verso, 1989)
