Cindy McMann?

“Art as Propaganda/ Art as Protest”

Mondays, 7-9pm, Massey Hall, room 203, University of Guelph campus, STARTING FEBRUARY 25th

This course intends to explore the relationship between art and social change by asking questions about how art is idealized in our culture as transcending politics, and how that ideal of art is manipulated for political ends. I hope to investigate how various kinds of art are used to endorse present systems of power, and how these different arts can be employed by, for example, governments and corporations to downplay the need for protest. The course will also examine the opposite side of the question, exploring whether and how can art function as social protest (if it should at all), and what might make a particular piece of art effective/ineffective as a means for bringing about social change. Students will be encouraged to bring in examples of different art forms past and/or present every week to discuss. Examples could include (but not be limited to) a recording of a song, song lyrics, a poem, pictures of any kind of visual art, a recording of a dance number or performance piece, etc. Format would be restricted only to that which can be shared, i.e. anything that could be brought in, or adapted to a laptop. I will bring in examples of my own, both mainstream as well as countercultural, as potential starting points for discussion, although they need not be used at all, if the class has other interests. The individual mainstream pieces I wish to look at have been chosen because I think they give evidence of continuing racial, gender, and class exploitation, and of continuing discrimination against racial minorities, gays and lesbians, the disabled, and women. The more marginal individual pieces have been selected because I think they offer strategies by which to counter present day apathy towards social problems, and the perception that protest is unnecessary. While I have tried to restrict my findings by and large to pieces that are Canadian, or which have a direct influence on Canadian culture, examples which speak to oppression in other countries would, of course, be welcome. Some weeks, I have opted for a more broad-based discussion where I felt that might be more useful. In these discussions, I would try to incorporate close-reading skills to determine what possible meanings a piece of art might be communicating, how art conveys messages, what makes art effective/ ineffective, and why, while trying to keep discussion relevant to larger questions of the place of the arts within the political landscape. By learning both about the mechanics of meaning creation in art, and the ways in which art can be made to serve particular interests while seeming to remain impartial, these discussions will (hopefully) allow us to come up with practical strategies to counter the use of art by the establishment.

Tentative Schedule (schedule and texts subject to change):

Week One: Introduction and General Discussion

Week Two: Music Mainstream Songs: Shedaisy, “God Bless the Canadian Housewife” Discussion of Protest Songs in general: Is the protest song dead in Canada?

Week Three: Visual Art Mainstream Visual Art: The Western Art tradition Countercultural Art forms: Graffiti

Week Four: Poetry Academic Poetry / Avant-Garde Poetry: Christian Bok, from Eunoia

Week Five: Dance Popular Dance: “Dancing With the Stars” Experimental Dance: Adwoa Badoe*

Week Six: Theatre Mainstream Theatre: The Stratford Experience Performance Art: Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa

Week Seven: Film and T.V. Popular Movies: “The 300” Making/ Stealing your own programs: Youtube and the Internet

Week Eight: Closing Discussion

*since Adwoa Badoe is a local artist, I would like to speak with her about the possibility of coming in and talking to the class about her performances

-- AnarchistUGuelph - 17 Feb 2008