“Fairy Tale – Folk, Fiction, and Film”

Dr. Cheryl Cardiff

THIS COURSE INTRODUCES you to the forms and practices of fiction writing by way of the study of fairy tales from established practitioners of this early short story form. Why fairy tales? Studying these tales allow beginning storytellers basic guidelines to understand concepts such as rising/falling action, tone, narrative, character, lesson, motif, and the like. By the time we get to the tales of the 19th century, we’ll see how writers of this period experimented with the form, revising or breaking old rules in favor of psychological depth, surreal imagery, or a more expansive storyline. Background and secondary literature allow us to understand as well that these tales functioned as sites for protest, with writers using the tales to criticize reigning social institutions. Once you are ready to write your own, you will keep to this social and critical agenda established by fairy tale writers past writing to an adult audience. To help you in your endeavor, Vladimir Propp’s study of plot sequence in tales will help provide an understanding of plot cohesion. Psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung’s theories of the conscious allow writers a way to conceive characters and character tension. One of the features of the course will be THE WORKSHOP, which will develop the skill in writing stories. To help foster student work, biweekly exercises will help develop an understanding of the elements of the craft of fiction writing. Writers also will be expected to read peer work with care and to discuss this writing with constructive, informed, and articulate criticism to specific elements of the text that go beyond simple like and dislike. By the end of the semester, you and your class peers will conceive and produce a “digital storybook” to contain a collection of tales within a specific context and that will feature each of your literary fairy tale contributions to educate, entertain, and delight present and future general university audiences.

“Theft, Looting, Forgery: Contemporary Issues in Art and Cultural Property”

Dr. Lisa Broome-Price

Art and cultural property theft is reported to be fourth highest-grossing criminal industry worldwide, with as much as six billion dollars' worth of art being stolen every year, and this figure typically does not account for the traffic in forged art and archeological objects, which falls into a more general category of “art crime.” Art or cultural property crime is often represented romantically in popular culture as being perpetrated by a “gentleman burglar” (such as Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair), masterminded by a maniacal aesthete (such as Dr. No of James Bond film fame), or mostly glossed over among the adventures of intrepid artifact hunters (à la  Lara Croft, Tomb Raider)—but the reality of cultural property crime is far different from its representation. A recent example of cultural property crime worth juxtaposing with fictional treatments of art theft is the looting of antiquities from the Iraq National Museum in 2003. 

Our proseminar, “Theft, Looting, and Forgery,” will survey longstanding issues in the worlds of art and cultural property. We will examine the perception and representation of cultural property crime, using art heist or caper films, mystery novels, and other media, and we will examine the reality of cultural property crime and attempts to combat it, using, for example, documents from the international legal landscape (e.g., 1954 Hague Convention & 1970 UNESCO Convention). We will begin with a brief introduction to evolution of cultural property crime and the contemporary art world, and then turn our attention to three broad topics of study: theft, looting, and forgery.

“Religion and art in the Abrahamic religions: problems and possibilities”

Dr. Oliver Leaman

We generally think that the views of an artist will affect his or her art. We also tend to think that the culture in which art is created plays a role in shaping the work and if that culture is religious, then the religion will be important in understanding the art. Commentators frequently analyze paintings and other artifacts in terms of the religious views of their creators, or patrons, and clearly much art is directly related to religion since that is its subject and context. But when we examine in some detail how this is supposed to work for Christian, Jewish, and Islamic art, it is often difficult to be confident that our intuitions here are justified.  The links between the visual arts and religion are more complex than appears to be the case initially, and the seminar will explore this relationship in the three religions.

The focus will be on the visual arts, both formal art and craft. We will be looking at relevant images, of course, but the main focus will be on what is available in Lexington as paintings, buildings, textiles, and book illustration in the artistic tradition of the three Abrahamic religions.

“Animal Images in Modern Art and Modern Dance”

Dr. Rayma Beal

The use of animal images by artists and dancers have been sources of inspiration for Picasso, Brancusi, Miro, Giacometti, Eric Hawkins, Jose Limon, Alvin Ailey and Donald McKayle.  The UK Art Museum and the Kentucky Horse Park Museum will be local sources for visual art research.  A trip to New York City is planned so professional modern dance performances, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Guggenheim Museum of Art exhibits can be observed and analyzed.  A creative dance performance using animal images in 20th and 21st century artworks will the culminating event for the class.