Fall 2019: Ordinary to Extraordinary: How the Arts Transform Life — COLA 1500-014

Students in this comparative, interdisciplinary advising seminar will explore the myriad ways in which artists manage to find, and represent, beauty in the banal. While critical readings on the aesthetics of the everyday will inform our discussions of work from the modern and contemporary periods that testifies to the transformative power of art, a series of short assignments will encourage students to become more sensitive observers - and practitioners - of the quotidien. Topics may include, but are not limited to: urban poetics (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Whitman, Beastie Boys); extraordinary edibles (Manet, Proust, asparagus); shocking Surrealist objects; how to make a good metaphor; photographers of everyday life (from Atget to Gursky); making something from "nothing" (Flaubert, Toussaint, Seinfeld).

* 1 Credit

Instructor: Ari Blatt (ajb6f@virginia.edu)

Enrollment Requirement: 1st Year Arts and Sciences