ARTH 388/4-A - Narration and Art: Beyond Disney: Popular Culture and the Mouse

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M-10:15-12:30
EV-1.605
INSTRUCTOR: DR. JANICE ANDERSON

How do our most familiar narratives both reflect and construct the world in which we live? This course will investigate the use of popular culture images and the stories they tell in various still and moving formats from the nineteenth century to the present. Focusing on the productions of Disney Studios, the course will look at the precursors to Disney cartoons, including the work of artists such as Honoré Daumier; at the ways in which Disney Studios appropriated both images and stories from European narratives in particular, and why; and finally at how the work of Disney itself has been appropriated in such art productions as Pop Art silkscreens. We will also consider the narratives of contemporary animation and how they play off, and also differ from, Disney's production. Throughout the course students will be encouraged to think critically about such key notions as reproducibility versus the unique work of art, how we might generalize from the works of Walt Disney to assess other cultural constructs, as well as how and why we might consider the differences between "high art" and "low art." Woven throughout the course will be considerations of gender, race, class and global corporate monopolies. Students will be expected to actively participate in the course through discussions, presentations, writing, and reacting.

*Students who have taken ARTH 263/4 with Dr. Janice Anderson cannot register for this class.