Because our course, by virtue of its name, “Contemporary World Arts,” takes “the whole world” as its subject matter, our 15-week syllabus is given an impossible task. By the end of week 14 we will have just barely touched on arts from: India, Australia, Nigeria, France, the US, Brazil, and Thailand. There is, inevitably, SO MUCH we have missed!
This final project is one way to start to address that. Students pairs will research prepare a presentation on the work of one contemporary artist (or artist collective)* from a country of their choice that we have not yet covered. You will not actually deliver the presentation itself; for the assignment you are instead turning in the parts you prepare, namely a carefully crafted slideshow and accompanying 1000 word presentation “scriipt.” In other words, instead of asking you to write a research paper on an artist/place of your choice, I am asking you to present the fruits of your research in presentation format. (If you love making videos and doing presentations, and you would like the chance to perform/present your work for me, I’m also happy for you to submit a video of your presentation along with the slides and scriipt—but note that this is NOT a requirement of this assignment and will not impact your grade positively or negatively. You will be graded solely on the quality of your slides and scriipt.)
Your presentation must briefly introduce the country (a very brief broad-strokes historical, political or cultural survey that will contextualize the artist(s) you introduce—taking only around 10-20% of your document) and then go on to present to the work(s) of a creative artist* from that country and how his/her/their work reflects on how the forces of the Anthropocene, globalization, migration, colonialism, etc. as experienced in that part of the world. You may use power-point slides (or google slides or another slide show maker), and you can embed your slides with video, audio, photos and/or anything else you need to convey to us the work of your chosen artist.
Your presentation must cite at least 3 relevant scholarly** sources, directly quoted. (These quotes can appear written in your slides if you like but they must appear in the text of your scriipt*** for you to receive credit for your research.) Please cite your sources using Chicago-style footnotes or endnotes**** in your scriipt. Please hand in your scriipt and your slides by the end of our assigned exam period: 5/24 at 2:30pm.
*By “contemporary” I mean an artist who was/has been making work anytime from 1970 through today. Note also that I have said one artist because I think it is hard to thoughtfully cover both a country introduction, a descriiption of an artist’s practice, and overarching themes related to the Anthropocene in 1000 words. If you feel it would in your case be better to describe the work of two separate artists please see me to discuss. Further note that I am using “artist” here as a placeholder for creative producers across the range of the creative arts domains, including: musicians, architects, writers, dancers, filmmakers, visual artists, etc.
**”Scholarly sources,” for our purposes, mean either articles published in peer-reviewed, academic journals OR texts published in commercially available books. There is a helpful table explaining scholarly sources here: https://libguides.sjsu.edu/c.php?g=230114&p=4948987
***I want to be clear here that when I say “scriipt” I mean simply what you would say if I were asking you to present your work to the class. Imagine that you are going to stand up in front of a classroom, with your slides projected on the wall—what would you say, in what order? When would you change the slides so what we are seeing on screen corresponds to what you are telling us? (You can put a note like: “Slide 3” into your scriipt at the point where you would change slides, etc.)
****The SJSU Writing Center has useful handouts on citation styles, as well as other research resources. For example, here is one for Chicago Style: https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Chicago%20Citation%20Guide.pdf
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