University Honors Program, UHON 402-001 (senior level), 3 credits
Dr. Troy R. Lovata and Elizabeth Mickey, Undergraduate Co-Teacher
University of New Mexico, University Honors Program
Dr. Rosalie Otero, Program Directory
Course Description: This course examines the public made physical. People across the world and time have marked significant events with public displays. Monuments serve as both divisive focal points for political debates as well as vivid connections to history. Students explore: why we commemorate certain events while ignoring others; the role of public art in public memory; the process of developing monuments; the political debates surrounding monuments from other eras; and the ways in which monuments change meaning, are defaced and even destroyed. Students take multiple tours and attend meetings of the Albuquerque Arts Board to see how work is funded, sought, and chosen.
(As with all University of New Mexico
Texts
Students use an Honors program produced reader (individual readings discussed below) and Kenneth Foote’s book Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy (2003).
Syllabus
| Date | Topic |
|---|---|
| Week 1 |
Introduction to class policies, procedures and assignments Read: excerpts from Pencil Sketching and Sketching with Markers by Thomas Wang (2001, 1981) |
| Week 2 |
Memorials Around Campus Read: ‘Monuments’ by Robert Musil (from his book Selected Writings, 1982) and Cornelius Holtorf’s ‘Megaliths, Monumentality and Memory’ (from the Archaeological Review of Cambridge, vol. 14, no. 2, 1997) |
| Week 3 |
Public Art Around Campus Read: ‘The Gigantic’ (by Susan Stewart, from On Longing, 1993) and excerpts from Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs: Public Art and Cultural Democracy in American Communities (by Erika Doss, 1995) |
| Week 4 |
Cemeteries: Marking Time and Remembering the Past |
| Week 5 |
Cemeteries cont’d Read: Kelke’s Churchyard Manual, with designs for churchyard memorials (1851) |
|
Week 6 |
Introduction to War Memorials and Landscapes of Violence Read: Chapters 1-5 of Foote’s Shadowed Ground *Assignment 2 due (sketches of gravestones and markers, 2 page essay on cemeteries as endangered places) |
| Week 7 |
War Memorials and Landscapes of Violence cont’d Read: Chapters 6-9 of Foote’s Shadowed Ground |
| Week 8 |
In-class, student led discussions of War Memorials and Landscapes of Violence *Part 1 of Assignment 3 due (sketches and plan maps of memorial parks) |
| Week 9 |
Spring Break: No class |
| Week 10 |
Introduction to Public Art and Design Controversy Read: Louis Menard’s ‘The Reluctant Memorialist’ (The New Yorker, July 8, 2002) and ‘The Art of Honoring the Dead’ (Newsweek, Sept. 9, 2002) *Part 2 of Assignment 3 due (essay on heroics, violence and memory) |
| Week 11 |
In-class discussion of Design Controversies in Public Art Read: ‘The Persistence of Controversy: Patronage and Politics (from Harriet Seine’s Contemporary Public Sculpture, 1992) *Assignment 4 due (presentation of mock memorial designs based on the Maya Lin model) |
| Week 12 |
Albuquerque’s Controversial Monuments and Art Read: The City of Albuquerque Ordinance for Art in Public Places and selections from Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998) |
| Week 13 |
Monuments to Greed and Consumerism Read: J.M. Barol’s Monument to Process (2005) *Assignment 5 due (essay on public art controversies) |
| Week 14 |
Introduce Design Competition Final Project (collaborative, student produced designs for a modern monument based a comprehensive view of their studies throughout the semester) Read: excerpts from Kay Wagenknecht-Harte’s Site+Sculpture: The Collaborative Design Process (1989) and The Harwood Art Center/New Mexico Art’s Public Art Workshop Handbook: Designs to Provide Artists with the Sources, Skills and Knowledge to Conceptualize Public Art Commissions (2000) |
| Week 15 | Design Competition In-class Discussion and Group Work Day |
| Week 16 | Last Day of Class Presentation of Final Projects to a Public Audience and a Mock Selection Committee |
Grading:
Grades are based on a 1000 point scale with 10 points equaling 1% of the final grade (an "A" is earned at 90% or 900 points). Students will be sketching and taking notes during tours and working out possible designs for the final project in a sketchbook/portfolio, which will be graded separately from other assignments. This is a social science, not an art studio, course and your sketchbooks will be evaluated on the quality of thought, not your skill at drawing. A portion of the class participation grade is based on out of class attendance of a monthly meeting of the City of Albuquerque’s Public Arts Board.
Grades are determined as follows:
Attendance/Class Participation in Seminar Discussions....100 points
Portfolio Notes and Sketches…150 points
Assignments…500 points (5 @100 points each)
Final Project (Monument Design Competition)....150 points
Contact person: lovata@unm.edu.