Presentation:

This session focused on how to combine humanistic scholarship with the arts in the classroom and then how to use outside resources in conjunction with classroom to strengthen and reinforce the classroom experience. The session used examples of courses that connect literature and music and art produced in a particular period to illustrate how by exploring the historical, cultural, and aesthetic relationships of the period, these courses enable students to gain deepened knowledge of their own field by placing it within a larger context and to engage the combination in genuine scholarly or creative activity. The session also considered strategies for helping student gain the interdisciplinary perspective necessary for understanding the relationships.

Part One
The first part of the presentation was devoted to music and in particular to two courses developed by session leader Hertz to enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of music as an art form shaped as much by cultural, aesthetic, and historical forces as by the composer’s own creativity. Professor Hertz was motivated to develop these courses by the current crises in the arts and his conviction on “How the Humanities can Help Save Classical Music.” Two indicative signs of the crises, he noted, are, first, the enormous deficits facing orchestras around the country due to increasingly smaller audiences, and, second, a recent NEA report “Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America,” that highlights how people are reading less and reading books of lower quality. Professor Hertz pointed to the digital culture in which we live as one of the primary causes for this crisis in the arts because it provides people with quick and easy sources of information and communication. Another cause he suggested, and one that is particularly relevant to this conference, is the tendency academia has to preoccupy itself with abstract, theoretical language, which becomes an obstacle to undergraduates and those not specialized in an academic field. The modern university, one of the great achievements of our culture, with its abundance of resources, is one place where countermeasures can be taken to address this crisis.

To illustrate this point, Professor Hertz described two courses he has taught-- “Debussy and His Era” and “Beethoven and His Era” – in which he tries to increase the literacy of his students so that they may better appreciate what they hear. In both courses, his approach is to contextualize the work of the composer by bringing in the art and visual imagery of the period, as well as readings from other disciplines, such as Hegelian philosophy for Beethoven, a point he illustrated by playing some music for the attendees. He also attempts to make the personal experience of the artist more alive by emphasizing the “drama of the composer’s life story” through letters and other biographical sources. All of his students are required to attend music festivals and concerts. This requirement serves several purposes. It not only enables students have the visceral experience of hearing works they have studied in class, but it simultaneously stimulates and reinforces their understanding of the works and the artists and the times. Professor Hertz underscored the importance of students’ having such experience that confirm the connection between the cultural life of the arts and classroom study.

Professor Hertz urged a better coordination of resources in undergraduate education so that study in the classroom is informed and enlivened by cultural practices. Cultural practices, in turn, should be supported by humanistic study, extensive reading in biography and cultural history, teaching simple tools of analysis, scholarly activity, exploratory research papers and projects, discussion, review, and everything else that can done in the humanities classroom to stimulate students. In general, classes should be coordinated with cultural events on a continuous basis and on a much larger scale than Professor Hertz has been able to do or that is commonly done on most university campuses.

Another strategy is to develop programs on our campuses, similar to the one Leon Botstein initiated at Bard College, in which performers and scholars meet for an extended period of time. These clustered activities can engage students as well as communities.

Finally, we need to rid our sense of academic snobbery and pass on the best accomplishments in the arts to the next generation.

Part Two
The second part of the presentation focused on art as session leader Maiorino described his experience teaching comparative arts courses that combine literature and art. He began by outlining the basic principles of comparative arts, using the same approach and making the same comparisons as he does in his course “Modern Literature and the Other Arts” –which is the oldest inter-arts course in the country, first developed by professors at Indiana University some 50 years ago. He uses the example of comparative literature to make his argument for comparative arts study. Comparative literature as a mode of study allows students to gain a broader understanding of a given period, for example, following the path of Romanticism from Germany to England. Comparative arts provides an even more holistic view by emphasizing the extent and ways in which ideas move across the arts and how the arts themselves reflect underlying historical, cultural, and aesthetic crosscurrents. During the Renaissance, for example, the rebirth of the arts preceded a rebirth in literature. Thus comparative arts studies offers undergraduates the opportunity to gain an organic view of intellectual history.

To exemplify the relationship between literature and art and the range of questions that might be studied, Professor Maiorino used as his starting point the writings of Lazarillo de Tormes and Velasquez’s painting “The Water-Seller. He described both similarities and differences between the two, which demonstrate the life of the “picaro” or underdog in Renaissance society and have He suggested that students might probe such questions as, Why do we compare literature and the arts? Is it smart or is it necessary? Both of these works have poor characters. What are the similarities and what are the differences in the way they are depicted as a result of their medium? Why is it important to compare poor characters? How important are poor characters in the art of the Renaissance? When do humble characters appear in literature and the arts? Why do we compare? What do we compare? How do we compare? Comparative study of their depictions points to different aspects of the Renaissance, one “humanistic” and the other the “anti-humanistic.” Such comparisons can help students to solidify the conceptualization of cultural phenomena.

Just as the “high” Renaissance of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, for example, diverts viewers from the everyday reality of life in the streets, in academia, humanists often become practitioners of “high” “humanistic” study, to our own detriment because it we direct our teaching to the minority rather than the majority. We ought to do the reverse by building cultural literacy from the bottom up, by meeting undergraduates where they are, not where they ought to be.

Discussion:

The group discussion focused on several issues raised in presentations. Some questions were concerned with how to implement research in the classroom. How can research papers be incorporated into the course so that they simultaneously build upon classroom and cultural experiences and take students to the next step? How can projects be formulated so that they foster the integrative interdisciplinary learning both session leaders advocate? Another set of questions addressed “low” or “popular culture” versus “high culture.” Should we “meet students where they are at” by using films, video games, rap lyrics, and other forms with which they are familiar and comfortable in our teaching? A third group of questions centered on practical ways in which we can promote student attendance at concerts, visitations to museums and other cultural practices. One attendee noted that we ought to include dance among these cultural practices, a suggestion embraced by the presenters.

Recommendations:

For Individual Campuses

• Create strategies to promote a more vital cultural practice. Professor Hertz stressed the point that we should combine cultural practice with our undergraduate teaching. As a model, he teaches music history in the humanities classroom, takes students to concerts and explains the material in the course. Professor Maiorino added that our goal ought to be to expose students to the arts and encourage them to build up a frame of mind that allows them to appreciate and take advantage of the visual culture around them.
• Develop educational strategies that apply contemporary contexts and critical
  thinking to the creative process. Both professors believe we should reconsider the assumption that having students research and enter into academic “conversations” is the primary way to recuperate the humanities. Exploratory research is valuable, but more important is the need to dynamically expose students to the cultural resources that the university offers, resources that will enliven the reading, research, and analysis undertaken in the classroom. As Professor Hertz wrote, “[i]f cultural conditioning is necessary, let’s give it to our young people and find a way to usher them into this culturally rich world, a world that offers lifelong pleasure, solace and the best of company.”

For the Reinvention Center

• Lead an effort to redefine and achieve consensus on what constitutes “research” in the arts and humanities.

Resources/References:

Websites

1. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. NEA Research Division Report #46. June 2004. http://www.nea.gov/pub/ReadingAtRisk.pdf
2. Bard College Music Program http://music.bard.edu/html/home.html
3. Indiana University’s Comparative Literature Department http://www.indiana.edu/~complit/index.html
4. Indiana University’s Honors College: http://www.indiana.edu/~iubhonor/
5. Lotus World Music Festival website: http://www.lotusfest.org/
6. For more information on the The Bard Music Festival Bookseries visit: http://www.bard.edu/bmf/2004/bookseries

Publications

1. Applebaum, S. (Ed.) (2001) Lazarillo de Tormes. Bilingual Edition. New York: Dover Publications.
2. D’Indy, V. (1990) Beethoven: A Critical Biography. Temecula, CA: Reprint Services Corporation.
3. Lockwood, L. (2003) Beethoven: The Music and the Life. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
4. Schiller, F. (1994) On the Aesthetic Education of Man: In a Series of Letters (reprint) Wilkinson, E.M. and Willoughby, L.A. (Eds.) New York: Oxford University Press.
5. Merimee, P (2004) Carmen (reprint). Brown, A. (trnsltr). London, Hesperus Press.
6. de Molina, T. (1986) El Burlador de Sevilla (reprint). Lectorum Publications Inc.
7. Dumas, A. (1937) La Dame aux Camelias (reprint). London: Curwen Press.
8. Tolstoy, L. (1966) War and Peace. New York: W.W. Norton.