Courses

Aesthetic Scandals of the 20th Century

English 5850

This course is based on some major aesthetic scandals of the twentieth century — in literature, visual art, and music. Every week or two weeks the seminar will discuss a different scandal, and the artist/work that precipitated it. The course spends about half its time on literary scandals, with the remaining time spent on scandals in the other arts and on theory. A list of the people/events to be studied includes (in roughly the order taken up in class):

  • The 1913 Armory and 1910 Postimpressionist shows
  • Paris Premiere of The Rite of Spring (1913)
  • T.S. Eliot The Waste Land (1922)
  • Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc (c.a. 1989)
  • Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (1914)
  • Ern Malley (Australia, 1944)
  • James Joyce, Ulysses (1922-1934)
  • Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio (Cincinnati, mid 1990s)

The following issues will be part of our discussion of these events:

  • The nature of scandal, theoretically considered
  • Recurrent patterns of behavior in scandals
  • The roles of difficulty, fraudulence, and obscenity in scandal
  • Formalism as a technique for dissipating scandal
  • The relation of scandal to canon formation and cultural capital
  • Relationships among high art, middlebrow culture, and a professional literary academy
  • The relationship between high modern scandals and the institutionalizing of literature as a discipline in universities.

In addition to writing several one-page essays, students will write a research paper based on one of the events/works listed above, or on another event.

The bookstore will have in stock copies of Wendy Steiner’s The Scandal of Pleasure, Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons, and James Joyce’s Ulysses. Students will also need to have their own T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The remaining course materials will be available to be photocopied or downloaded.

 

Major Texts
  • Joyce, James.  Ulysses
  • Williams, William Carlos.   Imaginations
  • Eliot, T.S.  The Waste Land
  • Stein, Gertrude.  Tender Buttons
  • Frost, Robert.  Poems by Robert Frost: A Boy's Will and North of Boston

Photocopy packets in department lounge
Books on Reserve in the Killam Library
Resource packet in department lounge

 

5850 Syllabus

 

“Thus the new art was born under peculiar circumstances — 'under the sign of scandal' — and scandal became the tactics of Italian Futurists who have professed their 'delight in being hissed' and their contempt for applause."
— Kaun, Alexander S. "Futurism and Pseudo-Futurism." The Little Review 1, no. 4 (1914).

[1] September 8: Theoretical Backgrounds

Required

  • Diepeveen, Leonard. Chapter 1 from The Difficulties of Modernism. New York: Routledge, 2003. (Available both in the Killam Reserve Collection and in the Department lounge. You should photocopy items left in the department lounge; you may not remove them. The photocopy of my book in the department also includes other chapters. Photocopy only what you need.)
  • Dutton, Denis. “Forgery and Plagiarism.” Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics. Ed. Ruth Chadwick. Vol. 4 vols. San Diego: Academic Press, 1998. (Read it online at: http://www.denisdutton.com/forgery_and_plagiarism.htm)
  • Fine, Gary Alan. From: Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. “Fatty Arbuckle and the Creation of Public Attention,” 130-166. (This is available only in the department.)
  • Thompson, John B. “Scandal and Social Theory.” In Media Scandals, ed. James Lull and Stephen Hinerman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 34-64. (This is available only in the department.)

Additional

[2] September 15: Rituals of Scandal—Armory Show (1913)

Required

  • Anonymous. “Non-Controversial Christ Painting under Fire from Art Community.” The Onion June 13 2001: 1, 6. (This is available in the department or at http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28377
  • Dunlop, Ian. From The Shock of the New: Seven Historic Exhibitions of Modern Art. New York: American Heritage Press, 1972. Pages 162-197.
  • From The Armory Show; International Exhibition of Modern Art, 1913. 3 vols. Association of American Painters and Sculptors. New York: Arno Press, 1972. (Spend one hour with volume 3 in particular. On reserve at the Killam).
  • Diepeveen, Leonard. Material available on my website, http://myweb.dal.ca/diepev/
    Images and descriptions of the work at the Armory Show can be found at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MUSEUM/Armory/entrance.html. Spend a little time at this site.

Additional

  • Diepeveen, Leonard. Chapter 2 from The Difficulties of Modernism. New York: Routledge, 2003.

[3] September 22: Rituals of Scandal— Post-impressionist Exhibit (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913).

Required

  • Dunlop, Ian. From The Shock of the New: Seven Historic Exhibitions of Modern Art. New York: American Heritage Press, 1972. Pages 120-161.
  • Eksteins, Modris. From Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1989. Pages 9-54.
  • Video of historical reconstruction of Rite of Spring (4 p.m. Sept 21 in Department Lounge—if you can’t make this, borrow the tape from me, and see it at your convenience).

[4] September 27, 7 pm: Difficulty—T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922)

Required

  • Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land.
  • Selected reviews of The Waste Land (approximately 50 pages)

[5] October 6: Difficulty and Fraud—T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, cont. (1922)

Required

  • English, James F. “Winning the Culture Game: Prizes, Awards, and the Rules of Art.” New Literary History 33 (2002): 109–35. Available online through Killam: http://www.library.dal.ca/main/articles.htm
  • Rubin, Joan Shelley. “Between Culture and Consumption: The Mediations of the Middlebrow.” The Power of Culture: Critical Essays in American History. Eds. Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears. Chicago and London: University of Chicago  Press, 1993. 163-91.  (Available in the department.)
  • Menand, Louis. From Discovering Modernism, 97-132. (Available in the department.)

Additional

  • Strychacz, Thomas. From Modernism, Mass Culture and Professionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. Photocopy in department.
  • Levine, Lawrence W. From Highbrow / Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Pages 171-242. (On reserve in library.)

[6] October 13: Difficulty—Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc (c.a. 1985-1989)

Required (read these in the order presented here):

  • Diepeveen, Leonard. From The Difficulties of Modernism. Pages 137-144.
  • Moorman, Margaret. “Arc Enemies.” Artnews May 1985: 13, 156.
  • Storr, Robert. “‘Tilted Arc’: Enemy of the People?” Art in America 73 (1985): 90-97.
  • “‘Tilted Arc’ Hearing.” Artforum September 1985: 98-99.Phillips, Patricia C. “Forum: Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall.” Artforum 23 (1985): 100-01.
  • Senie, Harriet. “Richard Serra’s “Tilted Arc”: Art and Non-Art Issues.” Art Journal 48 (1989): 298-302.
  • ---. “‘Tilted Arc’ Destroyed.” Art in America 77 (1989): 35-47.
  • Horowitz, Gregg M. “Public Art/Public Space: The Spectacle of the Tilted Arc Controversy.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54 (1996): 8-14.
  • Danto, Arthur Coleman. “The Museum as Will-to-Power” Salmagundi. 139/140 (2003): 100-11. (Available online from the Killam: http://www.library.dal.ca/main/articles.htm)

Additional

  • Weyergraf-Serra, Clara, and Martha Buskirk. Selections from Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum, 1988.  (On reserve in Killam)
  • Weyergraf-Serra, Clara, and Martha Buskirk, eds. The Destruction of Tilted Arc: Documents. MIT Press, 1990.

[7] October 20: Fraud—Theories of Fraud

Required

  • Schrero, Elliot M. “Some Rhetorical Aspects of Ironic Satire, Parodic Hoax, Sting, and Fraud.” Hypotheses: Neo Aristotelian Analysis 24 (1998): 21-23.
    Stewart, Susan. From Crimes of Writing: Problems in the Containment of Representation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pages 3-30.
    Truzzi, Marcello. “The Sociology and Psychology of Hoaxes.” Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Ed. Gordon Stein. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993. 291-97.
    Ruthven, K. K. From Faking Literature. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pages 34-62.

[8] October 27: Fraud—Gertrude Stein (1913-1914)

Required

  • Gertrude Stein. Tender Buttons
    Selected press clippings and reviews of Tender Buttons (50 pages)
    Diepeveen, Leonard. Material available on my website, including a fairly complete collection of criticism by Don Marquis: http://myweb.dal.ca/diepev/

[9] November 1, 7 pm: Fraud—Ern Malley

Required

  • Kane, Paul. “An Australian Hoax.” Raritan 11:2 (Fall 1991): 82-98.
  • Malley, Ern. Collected Poems. HarperCollins, 1993. v—x; 1-46. Spend some time at the Ern Malley website: http://www.ernmalley.com/index.html

Additional

  • Hayot, Eric R.J. “The strange case of Araki Yasusada: Author, subject.” PMLA 120:1 (2005): 66-81. (Available online from the Killam: http://www.library.dal.ca/main/articles.htm)
  • Carey, Peter. My Life as a Fake

[10] November 10: Obscenity, Difficulty, Fraud—James Joyce, Ulysses (1922-1934)

Required

  • Ulysses—Nausicaa and Hades episodes. Pages 331-365; 408-565.
  • Selected reviews of Ulysses (50 pages—Woolsey decision needs to be read for the next week)
  • Jay, Martin. “The Aesthetic Alibi.” In Cultural Semantics: Keywords of Our Time Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1998. 109-119.

[11] November 17: Obscenity, Difficulty, Fraud—James Joyce, Ulysses (1922-1934)

Required

  • Ulysses—Penelope episode. Pages 690-732.
  • Vanderham, Paul. From James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses. Washington Square, New York: New York UP, 1998. Chapter 4, pages 87-114.
  • Woolsey decision (included in  selected reviews of Ulysses).
  • Pagnattaro, M. A. (2001). “Carving a literary exception: The obscenity standard and Ulysses.” Twentieth Century Literature, 47(2), 217-240. (Available online through the Killam: http://www.library.dal.ca/main/articles.htm)
  • Alter, Robert. “Joyce’s Ulysses and the Common Reader.” Modernism/Modernity 5.3 (1998): 19-31. (Available online through the Killam: http://www.library.dal.ca/main/articles.htm)
  • Steiner, Wendy. From The Scandal of Pleasure. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995. “Introduction,” pages 1-8.

Additional

  • Vanderham, Paul. James Joyce and Censorship: The Trials of Ulysses. Washington Square, New York: New York UP, 1998.

[12] November 24: Obscenity—Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio (Cincinnati, mid 1990s)

Required

  • Hickey, Dave. From The Invisible Dragon, “Nothing Like the Son: On Robert Mapplethorpe’s X Portfolio.” Pages 27-37. Also available online at: http://www.unlv.edu/faculty/pkane/ART242X/beauty/son.html
  • Steiner, Wendy. From The Scandal of Pleasure. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995. Chapter one, pages 9-59.

Additional

  • Hickey, Dave. From The Invisible Dragon, “Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty.” Pages 11-24.
    You could also look at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~rachelk/mapple.html

[13] December 1: Conclusions

Required

  • Steiner, Wendy. From The Scandal of Pleasure. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1995. Chapter two and conclusion, pages 60-93; 209-212.