Visual Learning Conference

Saturday, September 29, 2012
8:30-10:30 AM, Weitz Center Cinema

Seeing Shakespeare
Pierre Hecker, Assistant Professor of English, Carleton College

Given how inundated the modern world is with images it takes an imaginative effort to picture oneself in a pictureless world. Yet many people living in England in the late 16th and early 17th century would never have seen a picture, with the possible exception of the occasional painting in a parish church or the rare stained-glass window that had survived the Reformation. Shakespeare alludes to only one actual artist in all his plays, Julio Romano in The Winter’s Tale, and he gets it wrong, since Romano was a painter and not a sculptor as Shakespeare writes him.

The absence of pictures meant that one of literature’s important functions was to be itself pictorial. Horace’s famous phrase from the Ars Poetica, “ut pictura poesis” (as is painting so is poetry) was a commonplace of 16th century aesthetics. Literature, in other words, redresses the pictorial deficiency that characterizes English culture of the period.

It is for all these reasons that Shakespeare is vastly underestimated as a visual artist. His visual sensibilities are well understood in terms of his use of metaphor. Much less investigated, however, has been his use of images on stage. Many of the most deeply ingrained impressions we have of Shakespeare are not verbal but visual: Lear with Cordelia in his arms; the vanitas of Hamlet with Yorick’s skull; Shylock holding the knife and scales. This presentation explored the ways in which seeing Shakespeare is crucial to understanding him.

Pierre Hecker’s areas of teaching interest include Shakespeare; the drama, poetry, and prose of the English Renaissance; drama in performance; visual culture; the history, theory, and criticism of drama and film; screenwriting; and genre fiction. Degrees: Wesleyan University, B.A.; Columbia University, M.F.A. (Film); Oxford University, M.Phil and D.Phil.

Design as Pedagogy: Using Theatrical Design as a Method for Understanding Performance History and Influencing Performance Practice
Justin Thomas, Assistant Professor of Scenic and Lighting Design, Grinnell College

The Grinnell College Theatre and Dance faculty have distanced ourselves from a core-content curriculum largely because we believe that all performance begins with the combination of critical and creative thinking. Introduction to Theatrical Design and Technology has been largely effective at cultivating students’ ability to connect the creative and the critical by utilizing an understanding of visual design techniques to analyze historical performance and to influence contemporary performance practice.  
   
Within the course, small groups of students recreate historical performance spaces and designs and then “re-stage” scenes from various eras of theatre history.  These historic production projects allow for theatre history to be moved from the two-dimensional still image into a three-dimensional visual laboratory, which allows students the opportunity to embody and analyze how design influenced the staging of performance in historical eras.  In addition, it provides the opportunity for students to analyze primary and secondary sources and think creatively as to how they can recreate a Greek amphitheatre or a French tennis-court theatre with the materials on hand. These collaborative projects are presented to the remainder of the class, who are charged with providing analysis as to the historical accuracy of the group presentation.

Justin Thomas is Assistant Professor of Scenic and Lighting Design at Grinnell College and a professional lighting and scenic designer whose most recent work has been produced by the Lincoln Center, Studio Theatre, Arden Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company,Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center for the Arts, the 21st Century Consort, the National Cathedral, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Rorschach Theatre Company, Imagination Stage, The Festival Playhouse, Potomac Theatre Project, Daniel Phoenix Singh/Dakshina Dance Company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and the University of Maryland Opera Studio. Degrees: Kalamazoo College, B.A.; University of Maryland, M.F.A.

Chairman Mao Deep Down in the Jungle: Reading a Chinese Cultural Revolution Poster
Harry Williams, Laird Bell Professor of History, Carleton College

Professor Williams examined the idealized virtues of physical strength and military prowess characteristic of the Chinese concept wu masculinity through a study of visual coding of a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution poster. By analyzing "Chairman Mao is the great liberator of the world," Williams problematizes and clarifies constraints a visual artist faces when transnationalizing a domestic model to fit foreign conditions. As a facet of its foreign policy during 1966-67, the People's Republic published and distributed a small number of large multi-colored posters advocating anti-imperialist revolutionary action by former European colonies in Africa. Williams uses five major research strategies: (1) Chinese "wen-wu"constructions of masculinity; (2) "mainstream" Western theories about masculinities; (3) "outside" theories of masculinities - such as American "gay" or American black; (4) race; and (5) one case study. This research will be used in a class assignment for Williams' African American and United States survey courses.

Harry Williams began his career as a journalist and a professor of writing. Since 1989, Williams has had a very distinguished career at Carleton College. He has been the Laird Bell Professor of History, 2008-present. Prior to that he held the David and Marian Adams Bryn-Jones Distinguished Teaching Professorship in History and the Humanities, 2005-2008. He has held the position of Professor of History since 2001. In 2010 he served as the Director of the African/African American Studies program, during which time he conducted a full review of the program, and he has also been an active member of the American Studies program since 1989. For the 2011-2012 academic year, he was a Fulbright Scholar in China. Degrees: Lincoln University, B.A.; University of Missouri, M.A., Brown University, A.M. Ph.D.

Moderator

David Tompkins
Assistant Professor of History and Director of European Studies, Carleton College