Description
HIS205: “A HISTORY OF ARTS & IDEAS”
Offered: 2022 Term 2. Fridays 11:00am-1:00pm beginning 13 May 2022.
Location: EarthDiverse, 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (see map below under Location tab), on-line via Zoom, or through video recordings of our live-streamed sessions posted 1-2 days after each class.
Time Zone equivalents:
-
- New Zealand: Fridays 11:00am-1:00pm beginning Friday 13 May 2022
- Honolulu, Hawai’i: 1:00-3:00pm beginning Thursday 12 May 2022
- US Pacific: 4:00-6:00pm beginning Thursday 12 May 2022
- US Eastern: 7:00-9:00pm beginning Thursday 12 May 2022
- New Delhi: 4:30-6:30am beginning Friday 13 May 2022
- Sydney, Australia: 9:00am-11:00am beginning Friday 13 May 2022
Distance Learning: This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:
- attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time,
- attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time,
- watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.
These options can be mixed and matched throughout the course to suit your own availability and location.
COURSE OUTLINE:
Week 1: The Greek World: Heroic Age. Geometric art, archaic sculpture. Homer and Hesiod. Pre-Socratic philosophers. Classical Age. Vases – Black, Red, White figure. Classic sculpture. Tragedy, Sophocles. Comedy, Aristophanes. Socrates and Plato.
Week 2: The Roman World:
The Romans copied the Greeks both in their art and thinking. Wall murals, mosaics and sculpture all reflected styles from the past. Poets like Virgil and philosophers as different as Seneca and Lucretius provided the cultural backbone to the Empire. The Mystery cults evolved alongside.
Week 3: The Early Christians:
Art in the catacombs, mosaics and relief sculpture all reflected the new emerging Christian ideas that had been promulgated by Jesus and St Paul. St Augustine, Boethius, Dante, Thomas Aquinas, Geoffrey Chaucer all helped spread and sustain this new belief system.
Week 4: The Renaissance:
Cimabue, Giotto, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonard de Vinci, Raphael, Shakespeare, Montaigne, John Donne were just some of the artists, thinkers and writer that were part of this new cultural revolution.
Week 5: The Age of Enlightenment:
Baroque, Neo Classical and Romantic styles of art all contributed to the excitement of this cultural and intellectual period. Thinkers as diverse as Hobbs, Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau and David Hume all participated. Jonathan Swift, Pope, Wordsworth, Byron, David, Ingres and Casper David Friedrich all added another rich layer to the mix.
Week 6: The Early Modernists:
This is the era when modern art and thought began to hit its straps. From Impression to Expressionism, these revolutionary art forms left their mark on the cultural world of the times, and for generations to come. Monet, van Gogh, Munch, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Walt Whitman, Dostoyevsky, Dickinson and Thomas Hardy were just some of the prominent figures involved.
Week 7: 20th Century Modernism:
The 20th century saw a flood of art styles from Abstraction to Surrealism to Pop Art.Writers like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence, T S Eliot, F Scott Fitzgerald and Samuel Beckett were all part of the cultural dynamics fuelling the energy of these decades.
Week 8: Postmodernism:
Suddenly every art style was let loose on the world as artists like Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons practiced various conceptual approaches to their discipline. Writers and thinkers as diverse as Don DeLillo, Richard Rorty, Jacques Derrida, Don Cupitt and others all chipped in to make these years as revolutionary and game changing as they were.
Prerequisites: There are no prerequisites for this course.
Distance Learning: This course has distance-learning options for those unable to attend the live class sessions in Hamilton. Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:
- attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regularly scheduled day and time,
- attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time,
- watch the live-recorded class sessions at your leisure, at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.
These options can be mixed and matched throughout the course to suit your own availability and location.
Peter Dornauf (MA, Dip Tchg) has taught in secondary schools, Wintec and Waikato University collectively for over 25 years. He is a well know Waikato artist, art critic and a writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. He currently teaches course for EarthDiverse in the fields of Art & Architecture, History and Philosophy. His book Days of Our Deaths serves as the basis for his “A Cultural History of Death” course, which is also offered in Term 3 this year.
DISTANCE-LEARNING OPTIONS:
In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, This course offers distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.
Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.
Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.
- Detailed Syllabi are available at the start of each Term.
- Any Term can be taken independently of the others, and there are no prerequisites for any of the Term courses.
- This class has no assignments, required readings, quizzes, tests or exams.
- All classes encourage questions and group discussion.
- PDF copies of each class presentation are emailed to all participants the next day so that you are free to focus on class content rather than taking notes. You are most welcome to come, sit back, relax, take part in and enjoy the discussions!
- Course fees include a short tea/coffee/snack break in the middle of each session.
- There are no refunds for missed classes.
- Guests of registered participants are welcome to attend a single class at no charge.
- Certificates of Completion for any particular Term Course or Series are available for Professional Development purposes upon request at the end of each Term or Series.
Cost per person per Term (4 class sessions):
- Waged: NZ$150 (includes GST + online registration fee)
- Unwaged (unemployed, students, seniors): NZ$125 (includes GST + online registration fee)
LOCATION: All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.
DISTANCE-LEARNING: You get to chose your location when you Zoom in to our live classroom sessions, or access our classes at your leisure and at a time and day of your choosing by watching the video recorded sessions from each class. This allows you to study at your own pace.
