Course: American Culture of 20th Century

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Course title American Culture of 20th Century
Course code KAA/BAMKU
Organizational form of instruction Seminar
Level of course Bachelor
Year of study not specified
Semester Winter and summer
Number of ECTS credits 3
Language of instruction English
Status of course Compulsory-optional
Form of instruction Face-to-face
Work placements This is not an internship
Recommended optional programme components None
Lecturer(s)
  • Bubíková Šárka, doc. Ph.D.
Course content
Roots of American art: Benjamin West and painting history; J.S. Copley and portraits; Thomas Cole and landscape; Winslow Homer. Ex-patriots and impressionists: Sargent, Whistler, Mary Cassatt - new ways of seeing light and figures. The city in painting: Ash Can School, Modernism in painting, the Precisionists. Skyscraper as an urban icon. Chicago School of architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright. "The Roaring Twenties", Jazz. Cinema and the emergence of film industry. Golden era of Hollywood comedy. Film noir. Response to crisis: American Scene Painting. Documentary Photography. Art Unleashed: Abstract Expressionism. The Mirror of Mass Culture: Pop Art. Hollywood Renaissance - the new wave of American cinema. The Streets Speak: Graffiti; Art in the Wild: Earth and Site Works; Lifelike Lies: Hyper-Realism. Post-modernism: the Remix Era.

Learning activities and teaching methods
Monologic (reading, lecture, briefing), Dialogic (discussion, interview, brainstorming), Work with text (with textbook, with book)
  • Contact teaching - 26 hours per semester
  • Home preparation for classes - 36 hours per semester
  • Preparation for a credit (assessment) - 12 hours per semester
  • Independent critical reading - 12 hours per semester
Learning outcomes
The course will provide students with a good overall knowledge of the development of the arts of the era and enable them to see it in connection with changes in social and cultural paradigms. The course maps the cultural development in the US during the 20th century, focusing mainly on important artists, movements and events in visual arts, architecture, and music. These will be studied as cultural phenomena in a broader socio -cultural context mostly from the point of view of cultural studies, but also of art history.
Students will develop their intercultural competence and improve their ability to analyze cultural phenomena.
Prerequisites
unspecified
KAA/BKSA

Assessment methods and criteria
Written examination

80% seminar attendance. Final written test.
Recommended literature
  • ARNASON, H.H. History of Modern Art. Prentice - Hall, New Jersey/Abrams, New York. 3rd edition, 1986.
  • GABLIK, S. Has Modernism Failed?. Thames and Hudson, 1985.
  • GOETZMANN, W. H. The West of the Imagination. W.W. Norton &Co., New York, London, 1986.
  • GRUNZWEIG, W.; MAIERHOFER, R.; WIMMER, A. Constructing the Eighties. Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen, 1992. ISBN ISBN 3-8233-5.
  • CHAFE, W. H. The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York., 1995.
  • JANSON, H.W. History of Art. 3rd edition (for students desiring more art history contextual knowledge). Prentice - Hall, New Jersey/Abrams, New York., 1986.
  • LANE, J.; O'SULLIVAN, M. A Twentieth-Century American Reader. Vol.1 1900-1945. USIA: Washington, 1999.
  • TALLACK, D. Twentieth-Century America. Longman Literature in English Series. Longman, 1991.


Study plans that include the course
Faculty Study plan (Version) Category of Branch/Specialization Recommended year of study Recommended semester