HUM 291 : Honors Seminar in Postmodern Studies

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This interdisciplinary humanities course introduces postmodern theory as it applies to contemporary popular art, architecture, literature, philosophy, music, film, and the Web. Considered as both a reaction to modernism and an extension of American civil rights and counterculture movements, postmodern texts challenge culturally oppressive notions of Absolute Truth through the practice of deconstruction. Students create a final project that may be showcased at a state-wide conference. Practitioners may include The Beatles, Jorges Luis Borges, Caryl Churchill, Don Delillo, Jacques Derrida, Matt Drudge, Philip Glass, Michael Graves, Marshall McLuhan, Camille Paglia, Suzi-Lori Parks, Art Spiegelman, and Andy Warhol. Prerequisite: Enrollment in the Commonwealth Honors Program or permission of the instructor. Three hours of lecture per week. Instructional Support Fee applies. Gen. Ed. Competencies Met: Ethical Dimensions and Multicultural and Social Perspectives.
Students who successfully complete this course will be able to:
  1. Become conversant with postmodern discourse: its language, art, theory and thinkers
  2. Distinguish a modern text from that of a postmodern text
  3. Understand how postmodernism was borne out of the civil rights and counter culture movements of the 1960’s
  4. Apply postmodern theory to a variety of texts and genres from popular culture
  5. Demonstrate the ability to deconstruct a “text”
  6. Understand the ethical dimensions of flattening hierarchies
  7. Produce a work of multi-media art/discourse which embodies the tenets of postmodernism

Overview

Program

Humanities

Credits

3