Aesthetics

Assignment:

Major Essay: Aesthetic Inventory of Transy and Environs

Purpose(s):

To familiarize the student with phenomenological description. To sensitize students to surroundings. To move from discrete sensory experience to total affective experience. To consider how an environment contributes to the enrichment or impoverishment of life, especially life at college.

Due date:

List - Oct 5

Essays - Dec 2

Abstracts - Dec 9

Content/Instructions:

There are three parts to this assignment, the last being collaborative. First, each students finds and describes 20 sites in and around the Transylvania campus, ten of which provide positive aesthetic experiences, ten of which provide negative (absences).

The positive

Something that should be replicated in the principle it embodies in order to increase the pleasure of the campus setting.

Examples: The shape of the surround created by the library, Haupt, (the auditorium) and the gymnasium. Or, on a different scale, the benches around the fountain/pool behind Haupt. Or, concerning organic/natural/living, the size, shape, age, and spread of the tree in front of the library steps. The lower hall between business and science, where students can often be found conversing or studying. Or, the change in elevation as you enter the ____

The negative

How elements of the environment inhibits or demeans aesthetic experience and could be healed.

Example: Making a parking lot of the arch facing Broadway. The lack of a path running between Haupt (southwest end) and the library. The lack of coffee in the hall between science and business.

Major Aesthetic Essays

Once the list has been developed, the student will then choose one of the positive and one of the negative sites of most interest, and develop an aesthetic essay concerning them. For examples of what I mean, see Hudson in Dewey 125, Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (chapter 6, “The Present”), Charles Scott’s The Lives of Things (chapter 1, “Facts and Astonishments”). The essays should include the results of some research into the two kinds of features you are dealing with. Since you will be investigating and describing features of our environment (a hybrid of natural and built), you should make use of the architecture library at UK for technical details.

Abstracts for Publication

From these essays, once finished, the student will abstract or excerpt about 600 words to be published as an issue of Alter Pamphlets. These abstracts of your major essays are to communicate the essence of your essays to a general audience. Readability is a primary goal.

Format: oral/written, Length (minutes or words), citations (number and format),

The list of 20 sites

is to be divided into the two categories indicated. The descriptions should include identity, location, scale/size, and such sensual qualities as are important: color, light, sound, texture, etc. Also include a one-sentence explanation of why the element is positive or negative. Avoid giving traditional stylistic names to features (For example, do not say that Mitchell is a Modernist building). Simply describe.

The Essays

Each essay should run between 2000 and 3000 words. The essay is to be typed. Put your name and date at the top, insert two blank lines, and then begin the essay. No cover pages or report covers, please. Citations should follow MLA.

The Abstracts

The abstracts must be delivered to me electronically, either in MSWord or Wordperfect, and should have a minimum of formatting applied (no indentations, no font treatments, etc.). Send them as email attachments. I will put them all into a single pamphlet document and on our last day will distribute copies for all to have.

How graded and percent of final grade:

List - completeness of information 5%

Essays - descriptive vitality, insight into the phenomenon, argument supporting your judgement, clarity of writing, organization 20%

Publication - readability, clarity of writing 5%