exam 1 Flashcards
Roman culture and our own current educational system owe a great debt to which three Greek philosophers?
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Why is a study of the humanities called “interdisciplinary”?
Because it makes the connections between broader academic fields such as philosophy, history, and fine arts.
What describes a “holistic education”? in humanities
transforming facts into knowledge and shaping knowledge into wisdom.
bring forth an intrinsic reverence for life and a passionate love of learning.
It nurtures a sense of wonder
What is a recurring symbol or theme in art, literature, and mythology, an archetype?
the Trickster character, nurturing maternal character, the antagonist
What does Renaissance mean?
rebirth of Greek and Roman ideals
Define “avant-grande”
It refers to creative endeavors that are experimental or innovative.
According to Neil Postman, which culture does the following describe: “They invented the idea of political democracy, which they practiced with a vigor that puts us to shame”?
Athenians
Fill in the blank from Neil Postman’s graduation speech: “To be ________ is to hold knowledge and, especially, the quest for knowledge in high esteem.”
Athenian
define Humanities, Classical definition
the general learning that should be the possession of all human beings. good breeding, education, and cultural refinement.
-Romans: used to refer to the legacy they inherited from Greek such as art and philosophy.
define Humanities, Medieval definition
-4th century said: “education and training in the good arts and disciplines” (skills to make a person humane)_
-Middle ages: seven Liberal Arts, develop skills through trivium(art of words), quadrivium(numbers), arithmetic, and music.
How to think logically, speak persuasively, write clearly, and measure accurately.
define Humanities, Modern definition
- the study of languages, literature, history, and philosophy; history, criticism, and theory of arts; history of law, religion, and science.
- from Italian Renaissance, include 5 disciplines: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy.
- “arts” of action and communication.
- since renaissance: religion, philosophy, art, music, literature, and history.
Changes in definition of humanity
- Classical: general learning- education, breeding, cultural refinement.
- Medieval: education in good arts and discipline. added Liberal arts.
- Modern: study languages, literature, history, art, religion, law, science. (more specific)
Archetype
recurring symbol or theme in art, literature, and mythology
Heroic cycle
archetypal pattern in which a person develops into hero.
- isolated, misunderstood
- initiation, difficult task to prove the hero
- triumphal return
Man vs. Man
conflict between
- man and himself
- protagonist and antagonist
Coming of Age
transition from child to adult with complications and excitements
Aesthetic
affecting the sense or taste, perception of beautiful, primarily concerned with issues surrounding creation, interpretation, and appreciation of works of art.
Genre
a type or category
medium
materials art is made of
classical/classicism
the Greco-Roman establishment of Wester Ideas and education
Renaissance:
rebirth
-originating in Florence, Italy.
-characterized by ideals of classic humanism, scientific naturalism, individualism.
“a season of giants” because of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael
Renaissance man or woman
a person who has broad intellectual interests and is accomplished in areas of both the arts and the sciences
Transcendentalism
any system of philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above empirical and material
Modernism
period: 1900-1950
art makes a self-conscious break with previous genres
Existentialism
a 20th century philosophical movement emphasizing the uniqueness of each human existence in freely making its self-defining choices
Postmodernism
beginning in 1960’s this movement incorporates a sense of ambivalence
Avant-garde
people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics
4 purposes for studying humanities
- arts can broaden our vision of the world
- arts connects us with others and with our own emotions
- through study we can experience the arts more deeply
- art tells us who we are
Postman speech, two cultures
- Athenian: productive great minded
Visigoths: ruthless, brutal
In the reason vs. emotion debate, why did the ancient Greeks, like Plato, fall?
Plato believed that the ideal Greek was a rational being and that emotion simply got in the way of the intellect.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the reason vs. emotion debate using the terms “Apollonian” (reason) and “Dionysian” (emotion). He feared that society in the nineteenth century had________.
elevated reason over emotion, cutting themselves off from deeper feelings
Sophic vs Mantic
Sophic: logic. pros and cons to make decision, buying a car that is safe rather than flashy, turning down lunch to study
Mantic: emotion. forgiving a friend who spread rumor, going out on a date with some who broke up with roommate
Recent studies of the brain suggest that….
There is no simple test for being right-brained or left-brained, and there is no simple designation. The two hemispheres do seem to have their own separate functions, but they must rely on communication with each other to accomplish even basic tasks.
The material about Socrates and Jesus in your text leads to the conclusion that….
No one is exclusively sophic or exclusively mantic. We each have aspects of both sides. Socrates may have been a mostly sophic philosopher, interested in reason and logic, but he listened to a mantic inner voice that guided him. Jesus may have been a mantic teacher focused on faith, but he was able to reason with and logically debate those who challenged him.
How does the humanities “bridge the gap” between the sophic and mantic?
By application of critical thinking skills to analyze and communicate emotional experience. The humanities asks us to use reason to inform and process emotional experience.
Your text describes the human urge to create but also focuses on a specific aspect of human creativity that embodies a “need beyond reason.” Which of the following scenarios is an example of this “need beyond reason”?
A poet creates a sonnet about the Snake River in Idaho.
the arts represent a “need beyond reason,” because for the most part, the arts are not practical.
If we believe John Ruskin’s quote about the most “trustworthy” way to read the history of great civilizations, which of the following artifacts would give us the most reliable insight into a historical event like the French Revolution?
- the painting Oath of the Horatii, an ancient scene which embodied the growing sense of morality and patriotism just before the outbreak of the French Revolution
- Ruskin said, “Great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others, but of the three the only trustworthy one is the last.” If we believe Ruskin, then the painting would be the most reliable insight into the French Revolution.
In his book Creating Minds, Howard Gardner identifies traits that are typically exhibited by creative people—traits like..
the ability to solve problems, a sense of self-confidence, driving ambition, and a strong work ethic.
we don’t know whether people with these characteristics become creative, or whether creative experiences endow people with these traits.
-Gardner asks a typical chicken-and-egg question, namely which comes first, creative experiences that foster certain character traits, or certain character traits that lead to creative experiences? The likelihood is that it is a bit of both.
Five stages of creative process
- first insight (mantic)
- saturation (sophic)
- incubation (mantic)
- aha (mantic)
- verification (sophic)
Mirror and window analogy for arts
- Window: through which we see into others’ lives
- Mirror: reflecting our own personal biases and attachments
Which of the five stages of the creative process involves the artist completing the work and getting response from an audience?
verification
The final stage of the creative process is the verification stage, in which the artist completes the work, performs or exhibits the work, and receives feedback to the work.
Gustav Flaubert, endlessly writing and rewriting drafts for his novel Madame Bovary, was smack in the middle of which stage?
saturation
Gathering information, doing research, and creating drafts and preliminary versions of a work are the hallmarks of the labor-intensive saturation stage.
Which stage depends upon the subconscious mind’s ability to solve problems or come up with new and better ideas?
incubation
From the outside, it may look like the incubation stage involves no deliberate work at all. However, even if you’re not actively writing the poem or choreographing the dance, your subconscious is still hard at work trying to make connections and solve problems.
Filmmaker Ingmar Bergman said that sometimes bits of a conversation or a few bars of music could spark an idea for a film. Bergman is talking about which stage of the creative process?
first insight
The genesis of any creative work comes in the first insight stage, when the creator has an initial idea or impression that prompts creation of a work.
Which stage comes at the end of the incubation stage?
aha!
When an idea is incubated—tossed around in the subconscious for a while—it typically snaps into focus at some point, which is the aha! stage. This is the moment when a new idea or a solution to a problem suddenly appears.
Which stages of the creative process require sophic capabilities?
verification and the saturation stage
-require discipline, hard work, and the ability to organize all the various ideas and impressions that have inspired the work.
Which of the following would be a good definition of the term “aesthetic”? study of aesthetics?
- anything that affects the senses
- study: discovering and contemplating creative expression
One reason we need beauty so desperately comes from our overemphasizing technology. T/F
True
How can beauty be considered a “softening agent”?
Beauty inspires introspection and reflection after the toughening of everyday life.
Who said, “The unexamined life is not worth living”?
socrates
What Socrates meant is that we mustn’t let ourselves go through life without considering its meaning and what makes it richer, for then we will know what to seek.
Which of the following is not associated with recognizing an aesthetic experience?
An aesthetic experience involves chance or coincidence.
Though some coincidences make us think, an aesthetic experience engages both thought and feeling.
The painting Guernica was inspired by
the saturation bombing of a Basque village in 1937.
Helen Keller essay
Don't know how to fully enjoy life 3 days sight 1st: things around her 2nd: history 3rd: colors
Aesthetic experience
- unconnected to any practical end. draws us into it and makes us forget who we are, compulsive focus on thing
- sympathetic attitude towards thing, acceptance. focus less on content and more on the form. music for rhythm
- drawn into trance or reverie, immersed in deep contemplation. engages intellectual, sensuous, and intuitive faculties. bring sophic and mantic together
define “Will it stand the test of time?”
We evaluate the work’s potential to interest people in the future, not whether it will physically disintegrate or not.
Which of the following describes sentimentalism in art?
an deliberate manipulation of the viewer’s emotions
Which of the following describes sincerity in art?
an expression of personal experience that becomes universal through carefully chosen metaphor, symbolism, wording, imaging, etc.
what is critical thinking?
Purpose to create light, not heat. intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing and evaluating. open mind
- consider what value a work adds to a person’s life.
- earn to take the facts and allow them to tell you more about the human experience
- appreciate a work of art from multiple people’s perspectives.
What we say in front of a work of art says perhaps more about us
than about the work we’re judging.
4 ways to judge art
- Artist’s intent (formalism, contextualism)
- Will it stand the test of time?
- elements and medium
- sincerity vs sentimentality
major components of any work that “works”
- It has integrity (balances unity and variety)
- It generates insight (balances clarity and complexity)
- It exhibits inexhaustibility (balances accessibility and profundity)
Four Reasons for writing about arts
- creates meaningful communication-context and contour
- heals the sophic-mantic split
- sharpens your critical thinking skills- analyze. sift through
- Puts you on the road to your authentic self-lets you know what you think
Writing about the arts “heals the sophic-mantic split” by requiring the writer to do which of the following?
articulate one’s emotional response to a work of art using analytical and organizational skills
writing loop
Prepare, participate, write, reflect
What does the “participate” step in the four-step writing loop encourages you to do?
actively involve yourself in an experience with the arts
Reading your course textbook actually falls within which of the four steps of the writing loop?
prepare
If I decide to attend a play, when, according to your text, should I employ the invention strategy of freewriting?
immediately after the play
What does the “reflect” step in the writing loop include?
evaluating my own writing as well as others’ responses to my writing
As a professional writer, which of the following two elements of writing would have been essential in helping Edelstein decide on the scope, focus and tone of his review?
audience and purpose
Which of the following lines from Edelstein’s review embodies the ability that good arts writing has to “create meaningful conversation?” Which of these lines reaches out to invite a broader view of the film Wall-E—a view that links up with our own life experiences?
“It’s as if those machines hold memories that humans forget—beauties that have been overlooked with growing up in a fast-paced cyber-world.
Write step in writing loop skills and strategies
invention: thoughts from art
purpose: wahts the purpose of writing
audience: who is it
substance: grammar and errors
style: how you write
