Course Description
This course is a laboratory course in writing, with written
exercises every week. We will ask you to share these exercises with
other students for comment and criticism and in some cases to rewrite and
rework an exercise as a second assignment. We ask you to save all of
your written work in a portfolio. You may also wish to keep a written
"journal" as part of this portfolio as you look at art, read, or work on
assignments. Writing (like exercise) improves the more you do it.
The subject matter represented in this course, "Asian art," is
meant both to inform you and to give you pleasure. The subject of this
course, however, is "writing about" (both art and Asia). To write well,
reading is a major component - both to read well, to read good stuff, and
to read often. We have ordered two survey books on Indian and Chinese
art and one one short study on "looking" at sacred art in India as
reference for you in your reading, writing, and thinking. These are
available at the Penn Book Center:
- Roy Craven, A Concise History of Indian Art;
- Michael Sullivan, The Arts of China;
- Dianna Eck, Dar an, Seeing the Divine in India.