New Fall Semester

I've finally experienced all of my fall courses and I'm really excited about this semester!

I'm taking 3 classes:  Deconstruction and the Arts, Documentary and Issues and Methods in Art Education, which is an online course.  

Last Thursday, ARTE started online.  I did the little readings and posted the online work and though this is my first online course, I like the pace and concept of it so far.  I think it will be a little challenging, since I don't come from an "art education" background, but I really look forward to creating a kind of unity in teaching film/video with the formulas and discussion of teaching "art."

Today, I hit up the first day of my other two classes.  First, Deconstruction.  A hot ensemble of Heidegger, de Man, Derrida, Merleau-Ponty, Fried, Clark, Marin, Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe. HOT!  The prof is captivating - he's young, brilliant, comfortable and coherent.  The day-one lecture took away the daunting, nauseating feeling I had about this class.  Intense in heavy cultural theory, focused on a sort of "over" period of criticism and philosophy, we'll weave out what works and doesn't in terms of deconstruction.  I'm particularly fond of the idea that we are supposed to do close, as in microscopic, readings of specific art works or texts for our papers.  And I also like that Prof. Cronan doesn't expect us to KNOW everything.  There's room to grow and learn and acclimate to this kind of mind-melting theory.  I'm a bit intimidated, but not grossed out.  And you can't ask for much more in a deep, intense course on brain-blowing, cranial-fcuk of a class.  

And then there's Documentary.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  If there wasn't a better class made for me here at MATX, well, I'll pay you $5 if you can prove me wrong.  Dr. Browder is great.  She's open, she's receptive, she's thrown herself into grant-writing and documentary making - not just film, but creative non-fiction, podcasts, blogs, etc.  She fired us up with a great debate about the differences between creative NF, "documentary" and journalism, notions of truth, perception, subjectivity and visual rhetoric.  She's assigned some fascinating texts and in true upper-academic fashion, expects some kind of documentary work from us.  Whether we do photo-essay, film, or a written version, we have to produce a project,  a 10 page proposal with budget, response papers to the readings and workshopping our projects as they come along.  

Considering that my thesis topic is trans-cultural and self-reflexive docs, as well as making one about Hungary and my mother's life and the 1956 Revolution, and that I've learned to teach and study docs from Dr. Marcus and from Joel, I think I'm in good shape.  I have a different kind of attitude here:  no more fish-out-of-water, this time I feel like I'm swimming comfortably and no matter, will always be able to tread water.  

Cheers to a great new semester!  After the havoc and craziness of this summer, all the wonderful things I experienced and the delight of living in a new house, I'm ready for the massive shit-storm coming my way.  In fact, I kind of look forward to it...