Rheinische Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversität Bonn Philosophische Fakultät universität bonn Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie 53113 Bonn Prof. Dr. Sabine Sielke Leiterin Sprecherin Institut für Anglistik, Amerikanistik und Keltologie Nordamerikastudienprogramm German-Canadian Centre Zentrum für Kulturwissenschaft / Cultural Studies M.A. seminar, summer term 2015 “The Black Mountain College Revisited, 2015: Poetry, Creativity, Performance” Co-taught (in English and German) by Prof. Dr. Sabine Sielke (North American Studies Program) and PD Dr. Thomas Fechner-Smarsly (Institut für Germanistik, Vergleichende Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft) Focused on the art scene and pedagogy of the legendary Black Mountain College, this seminar is a unique cooperation between the North American Studies Program and the Institute of German, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies in Bonn, the American artist Arnold Dreyblatt, and the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin. Our seminar takes part in the current revival of interest in the avant-garde practices of those artists and writers who taught, studied, or worked at this alternative school near Asheville, North Carolina, between 1933 and 1957 – figures who were formative for what became American postmodernism. Inspired by the Bauhaus as well as by American pragmatist John Dewey’s understanding of teaching and learning as an interactive social process, the Black Mountain College in turn inspires our own proceedings. Like the unconventional, transdisciplinary approaches to the arts practiced at the college, our seminar aims at engaging in unconventional, creative forms of learning and collaboration. The block seminar explores the approaches and achievements of the Black Mountain College by way of the poetry and essays of Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and Robert Duncan as well as the art of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly, among others. At the same time, we interrogate the school’s new forms of creativity and communication such as happenings and performance. A central part of our collaboration is a field trip to Berlin (July 12 to 21, 2015) where the Hamburger Bahnhof currently prepares an exhibition project with Arnold Dreyblatt. Dreyblatt’s work Performing the Black Mountain Archive is conceived as an autonomous art project integrated within the exhibition Black Mountain – Explorations of Creativity, showing at the Hamburger Bahnhof from May 29 to September 27, 2015. The project contemporizes the Black Mountain College through the active participation of students from European arts academies and universities during the exhibition period. A small number of our seminar’s participants will have the opportunity to take an active part in the performances that Dreyblatt stages within the exhibition space. The seminar consists of an introductory session at the end of the winter term 2014–2015, three block seminars – taking place on weekends in May, June, and late July and possibly featuring guest lectures (by Arnold Dreyblatt, among others) – as well as the field trip. Credit requirements are thorough preparation of assigned and collectively chosen texts, regular active participation in the block seminars and engaged, supportive attendance of the field trip, a short oral presentation, and an exposé (500 words, due in July 2015) delineating the ideas for your final paper (due September 15, 2015) of about 7000 words (this corresponds to about 15 pages). Since our collaboration with the artist and the museum has started already and the number of participants is limited to 20 – 10 each from German Studies and North American Studies –, you need to voice your interest and register now (or no later than January 6, 2015) by sending an email to [email protected].
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