ARTH 200, FALL 2004, Sect. 001
PROF. LAWRENCE BUTLER
COURSE SYLLABUS
This course will introduce students to the arts of the ancient and medieval Mediterranean world. We will study the great monuments, the cultural background, and persistent themes of western art, through slide lectures, reading, and assigned exercises and discussion. We will also discuss how archeologists and art museums work, and the ways they teach us to understand the past. This course has no prerequisites and presumes no prior knowledge of Art History.
COURSE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES. In this course, students will:
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS:
TEXTBOOK: Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12th edition, Vol. 1. Older editions of Gardner should be fine; page numbers will vary, maybe a few different photos, but the chapters are essentially the same.
HOW TO REACH ME:
Attendance is necessary; much of the material will only be covered in our slide lectures. You are responsible for getting notes, and for all consequences of missed classes. Class participation will affect your grade, if it is conspicuously good, conspicuously lacking, or continually disruptive. I will be making spot checks of attendance—they’re not perfect, but they help us both recognize a pattern.
Classroom atmosphere. Courtesy and common sense, please. We’re all adults; sometimes emergencies come up. However, talking to friends during lectures, wandering in and out, cell phones, and eating food are all badly distracting to everyone else. Chronic chatterers and latecomers are disruptive, and will be asked to leave the classroom (Oh yes I can do that—University policy.).
Written work is a major part of the course, and will count heavily towards your final grade. Please study the explanation of my writing standards, attached to this syllabus. In short: Papers must be written in good formal English, with full documentation in a standard format such as MLA or Harbrace. All students are expected to use word-processors with spell-checkers. Spelling and grammar count. Please submit papers typed, double-spaced, and PROOFREAD. Badly written work will be downgraded, returned for a rewrite, or flunked, as I see most appropriate.
No email submissions of papers, except in special cases with my prior permission. Sorry—I’ve tried—it causes too many problems. Written work is due in hard copy in class on the due date. Papers will not be considered “on time” unless and until I receive them I hard copy.
Late work will be graded down five points per day and ten points over a weekend. Plan ahead--last-minute hard-disk and printer failures are your problem, and do not constitute legitimate excuses. By the final exam, all missing work becomes F work. Make-up tests and elaborate medical excuses will require verification with a physician's or assistant dean's excuse. There will be no make-up final exams.
English as a Second Language: If English is not your first language, I will be happy to help you do your best in the writing assignments--by previewing papers, offering extra help, that sort of thing. But the final result must be written in good standard English. Please work with The Writing Center in Robinson I, Room A116. Call them at (703) 993-1200, or see their web page for English language help, at: writingcenter.gmu.edu .
Learning disabilities will be accommodated as required according to University policies. Learning disabilities must be documented by the Disabilities Support Services. It is the student’s responsibility to get tested, present the documentation to me, and request accommodations in a timely way (i.e. not on the day of the test; not after-the-fact). For more information on this, call the GMU Disability Resource Center at (703) 993-2470, or visit their website: www.gmu.edu/student/drc/ .
Religious holidays. I have planned this course according to the George Mason University calendar. If you observe a religious holiday that the University does not, please let me know and I will make necessary accommodations for you (but not for the whole class).
Auditors are welcome to sit and listen, if there is room. If you would like to participate more actively, that’s fine with me if (!!) you are keeping up with the assigned class reading. Otherwise, please be quiet.
Academic honesty is expected in all tests and writing. Please respect the Honor Code, our classroom standards, your fellow students, and yourself. The Honor Pledge will be required on all tests. Please report violations to the Honor Committee. See the explanation of plagiarism in the guidelines for writing.
TESTS must be taken on the scheduled date. If there has been an emergency, it must be documented by a note from the dean’s office or your doctor. In those cases, there will be one make-up test given, probably during the subsequent class. Tests will be graded by percentage. Grades will be calculated as follows:
I may award a final A+ in rare instances: 4.0 average plus unusually good writing and class participation.
WRITTEN WORK may be graded by points, or by the following criteria, as appropriate:
POLICIES ON GRADE ADJUSTMENTS AND UNGRADED WORK:
FINAL GRADES will be based on the average of your paper, test and class grades. Each assignment will be weighted thus:
Final grades may be raised or lowered from strict average in the following circumstances:
There will be two short papers assigned for this class. Specific directions will be handed out when the papers are assigned. I expect papers in my classes to be formal academic writing, using correct standard English and essay organization. They should be presented as finished products, unless otherwise specified. In general, all written work for me, or for Art History in general, must observe the following rules:
Organization: College-level essays are to be carefully constructed and presented as finished products. They are not just journal entries or stream-of-consciousness. This means they must have a thesis of some sort, and present reasoned arguments through the examination of evidence. There should be an introductory thesis statement and a conclusion. Paragraphs should be used as a way to structure the argument so a reader can follow your thinking. An interesting or informative title is necessary. A funny title is fine. “Art Paper #1” is not.
Mechanics: All papers must be typed and double-spaced, using a standard font in 10 or 11-point size. Please stick to plain old white paper and standard fonts. Handwriting is not OK. Quadruple-spacing is not OK. Writing the whole darned thing in italics or Olde English is not OK. (Why not? Because italics are to be used for specific reasons: emphasis and foreign terms. Because Olde English on perfumed blue paper is too-too high school). Pictures are nice, but strictly optional. Pictures cannot be a substitute for writing. Nice presentation is always welcome, but please be clear that adding pictures will not affect your grade unless they are explicitly part of the assignment.
Spelling and grammar are expected to be excruciatingly correct. Use the spell-checker. I will mark down work for sloppy spelling and grammar. If the writing is really awful—ungrammatical, no evidence of proofreading, horrible spelling, or laughably short—I will not read it. I’ll return it as unacceptable, with an F. Early in the semester, I’ll allow a rewrite (for a maximum of C, which is the average of F and A). Late in the semester there will be no time for a rewrite.
Page limits should be observed, and should be your guide to the depth of writing: a one-to-two page paper is pretty much a quick observation, with thesis and conclusion. Three-to-five pages means there is time to develop a thesis and argue it through several paragraphs, considering several different questions, angles or pieces of evidence. An eight-to-ten page paper usually includes research (this will be made clear in the assignment), and anything over ten pages is probably expected to include a great deal of research.
Citations. Any time you use a source of information you should consider citing it, to avoid the appearance of plagiarism. Generally-known facts are not normally cited. Anything else is, including a long recitation of facts from one source that you are paraphrasing, a single opinion stated by another author, and any direct quote.
Citation style: There are several acceptable citation styles in academic writing, and you probably have been taught several here and there. Please use the one you know best, or the one most appropriate to your major. In history and art-history, we usually use the Chicago style, which uses footnotes. In English and other language humanities, MLA style is the standard, with short parenthetical references to authors and page numbers, and a list of works cited at the end. The social sciences use the similar APA style. In any case, use one style correctly and consistently throughout your essay. Take the necessary time to learn the standard rules, and follow them carefully. The rules are easily found in any writing manual. Don’t remember the rules? Go to the GMU Writing Center web site, find “resources,” and click on their “on-line style guides.” It’s just that simple. Here’s the URL: writingcenter.gmu.edu/resources/onlinestyleguides.html
Submission. All papers are to be submitted in hard copy in class on the due date. I cannot accept email submissions—sorry, but they cause too many problems. Papers will not be considered “on time” unless I receive them in hard copy.
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense. Here is how the GMU Honor Code defines it:
B. Plagiarism encompasses the following:
1.Presenting as one's own the works, the work, or the opinions of someone else without proper acknowledgement.
2.Borrowing the sequence of ideas, the arrangement of material, or the pattern of thought of someone else without proper acknowledgement.
That means you must acknowledge your source, even if it is an anonymous museum pamphlet or long museum label. Those, too, are reasoned writing. I get very unhappy when I read something that sounds like it was copied from a museum website, even if a word is changed here or there. So, I copied the above from the Honor Code listed in the Faculty/Staff Handbook on-line, along with judicial procedures, at www.gmu.edu/facstaff/handbook/aD.html
The good news: Plagiarism is easily avoided. Just acknowledge all your sources, using footnotes or other acceptable form of reference. That’s really all there is to it. The bad news: Plagiarism on tests and papers is CHEATING and will be reported to the Honor Committee!
Optional review session before the test, beginning at 7:30 AM.
All classes will be held in the Fine Arts Building, Room B110. Section 001 meets on Monday and Wednesday mornings from 9:00 to 10:15 AM. Reading should be done just before or just after the lecture; by the test, at the latest. “Gardner” refers to your textbook, Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, 12th edition. If you are using an older edition, please find the appropriate chapters—it shouldn’t be hard to do. Addresses for assigned on-line documents and websites will be found on thIS class web page as soon as I can find them and get them linked.
The first museum paper and first map exercise will be assigned during this part of the course.
WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION
WEEK 2: ANCIENT NEAR EAST
WEEK 3: EGYPT
WEEK 4: EGYPT
WEEK 5: Mixed plate
Mon. Sept. 27: Test on the art of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.
WEEK 5, continued: BRONZE-AGE AEGEAN
WEEK 6: EARLY GREECE
WEEK 7: LATER GREEK ART.
WEEK 8: ROMAN ART.
WEEK 9: THE WORLD OF LATE ANTIQUITY.
WEEK 10: REVIEW AND TEST ON CLASSICAL MEDITERRANEAN ART
The second museum paper and a map exercise will be assigned in this part of the course. The list of on-line primary sources may be revised at some point.
WEEK 11: BYZANTINE ART
WEEK 12: 11/14: ARTS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD.
WEEK 13: 11/21: EARLY MEDIEVAL WEST
WEEK 14: 11/28: ROMANESQUE ART AND ARCHITECTURE
WEEK 15: 12/5: GOTHIC ART AND ARCHITECTURE
FINAL EXAM: Monday, December 13, 8:30 to 10:15 AM.
(Optional review beforehand, beginning at 7:30 AM)