Greetings all,
Welcome to Honors in Amsterdam 2010!
Along with Rob Corser, I am co-teaching the spring (in Seattle) and summer (in Amsterdam) courses. In preparation for our first class meeting next week, we have prepared a three-part (but still relatively short) assignment. The assignment includes 1) each person will set up an individual blog (level of difficulty is similar to setting up a gmail account), 2) once your blog is live, submit the URL (link address) to your blog on the course site, and 3) a visual thinking exercise that is your fist blog post for the class.
Part 1: set up a wordpress blog at: http://wordpress.com. Click on the ‘Sign Up Now’ button and follow the instructions. Your blog will serve as a research notebook for the duration of the Amsterdam program. Most assignments will be
Part 2: once your blog is operational, copy the URL (blog address) and submit the link on our course blog, here (reference screen shot below). By doing this you will add your blog to the list of student blogs in the next column.
- Link name = your First and Last name
- Link address: paste your URL in this field
- Link category: select ‘Student Blogs’
Part 3: Complete the following exercise (composed by Rob) and post the results on your freshly minted blog.
Close Looking -Interrogating Visual Material:
This first blog post assignment challenges you to look at a gallery of unidentified images from the Netherlands (all taken by me in 1999 -mainly in Amsterdam and Rotterdam), and to select two that you find particularly compelling in some way. You are NOT being asked to identify the subject matter, or to do any background research, but instead, to use your visual acuity to find aspects of the material culture in the pictures that spark your curiosity.
The point is to find some particular details, or relationships, or pieces of evidence that intrigue you, and to then write about them in your new Blog.
Specific requirements are:
1. Select two images from the gallery [here], and copy them to your blog. The pair MIGHT be related, but they don’t need to be. They could also represent contrast, or simply two aspects of the material culture that catch your eye. Perhaps your editorial choice of the 2 images might reflect an opposition, or a range, or a conundrum of some sort.
2. Identify some significant DETAILS of the image(s), and write a Blog post that:
- states clearly what exactly caught your attention.
- speculates about the various possible meanings of that particular detail or subject matter.
- asks some penetrating questions about what else you would like to know given what you’ve found.
Your work should result in a first Blog post that has the two selected images and your written response to the questions listed above. Devote as many words as you need to explicating your responses and questions. (NOTE: the themes or ideas you identify here DO NOT need to relate to your eventual choice of research topic for the summer course.)
We will share and discuss your Blog posts during our first meeting next Thursday.
Please do not hesitate to add any questions you may have to the comments section below. You are also welcome to email Rob or me with questions.
