Boston College Summer Schools 2012 |
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June 4 - 29, 2012
Drawing from the Venetian Masters This is an introductory-level studio art course that examines the process, materials, and issues addressed in exploration of the basic principles and concepts of making visual artwork through drawing. The goal of this class is to connect to that tradition by synthesizing visual language, images that one would want to contemplate and retain. The first few days will be spent learning drawing skills through daily class assignments. After a few introductory drawing classes at the school, most of the classes will be spent visiting museums and churches to view and draw from the great works. The class will make multiple visits to the Gallerie Dell’ Accademia. The development of Venetian art is represented in the Accademia collection. You will draw workings by Giovanni Bellini, Vittore Carpaccio, Titian Vecello, Jacopo Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and others. The class will also visit the paintings housed in their original sites at: The Basilica of Santa Maria Gloriosa Die Frari, The Basilica of Santa Maria Della Salute, Church of the Gesuiti, The Scoula Grande di San Rocco, and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, and other sites. The readings from Painting in Renaissance Venice, by Peter Humfrey, will introduce students to the history of Venetian Renaissance Painting. The class will challenge the students to absorb and understand the visual culture of Venice, its traditions and achievements. ________________________________________________ The Imaginary City: Why Writers Love Venice Venice occupies a unique place in the artistic imagination of the west. Rising from the lagoon in a riot of color, form, and texture, the shimmering reflections of Venice incarnate the essence of beauty. This seminar studies some of the most important ways modern writers have discovered in Venice an opportunity to explore and unsettle the traditional meaning that beauty holds for thought, art, and life. Starting with the post-romantic era, the seminar focuses on how several literary giants refashion the beauty of Venice into a paradox of great richness and complexity. For Henry James, Thomas Mann, and Marcel Proust, the beauty that is everywhere visible in Venice also possesses a hidden side of risk and peril. The course will study the specific ways that each of these writers—along with John Ruskin before and Joseph Brodsky after them—reveals Venice to be an imaginary site of powerful tensions, traversed by the competing forces of growth and decay, desire and knowledge, truth and illusion. The seminar studies also offers students the means for experiencing their own stay in Venice as a valuable source of self-reflection, an intellectual voyage into unfamiliar territory and waters. To encounter the beauty of Venice fully can open new perspectives on what it means to live, to love, and to understand wherever we find ourselves. Alongside its central focus on literary masterworks from the modern European tradition, the seminar also develops three complementary areas of instruction: a philosophical context stretching from Plato to Nietzsche and beyond; a cinematic dimension composed of "Summertime," "Morte a Venezia," (Death in Venice) "Don't Look Now," "The Comfort of Strangers," and "Pane e Tulipani" (Bread and Tulips); and a regular supplement of on-site visits to Venice itself—the marvel of its churches, palazzi, museums, pathways, and waterways. ________________________________________________ Venice: an Imperiled City in Comparative Perspective This seminar focuses on the plight of cities perennially imperiled by floods comparing Venice to Amsterdam and New Orleans. It combines the study of history, ecology, public policy and political science. It examines how floods and the threat of flooding have shaped physically, politically and culturally shaped these cities. The readings for the seminar include works of fiction, memoirs, journalism, and architectural history as well as ecology, political science and public policy. Since the seminar takes place in Venice, students are able to observe firsthand the variety of ways in which the flood threat has affected the city and the diverse means it has adopted to cope with that threat. ________________________________________________ This seminar introduces students to the legal system and the social, legal and regulatory environment of business, as well as ethical decision-making relating to law and business, using a modified case method of instruction. While it is a CSOM core course, it is appropriate for students from all schools, no matter what their majors or areas of concentration. There are no prerequisites for taking this course. Particular emphasis is placed on the similarities and differences between U.S. and Italian law and legal training; issues that relate to international law and ethics; and other topics of special interest (e.g., the influence of Roman Law of the evolution of the jurisprudence of the United States). Venice offers unique opportunities to incorporate outside activities, and excursions, into the learning experience presented by this course. Students read and analyze cases and other course materials that illustrate the role of law in society and the impact of law upon the business environment. Emphasis is placed on active student participation to assist students in the development of orderly thought processes, critical judgment, and articulate expression. Current events impacting upon the legal environment of business are integrated into class discussion. The legal, ethical, social and economic consequences of various business decisions are highlighted. The seminar begins with information on the legal system, and the sources of law. Important provisions of the U.S. Constitution are reviewed. Criminal and civil law are distinguished, and civil wrongs (torts) are identified by their elements and characteristics. Contract law is discussed in some depth, with particular emphasis on formation requirements and remedies for breach of contract. The administrative agency is viewed as a regulatory mechanism that impacts business, the environment, and the individual. A survey of substantive subject matter areas, including antitrust, securities regulation, intellectual property, international trade, cyber-law, consumer, environmental, and employment and labor laws, helps to illustrate the role of agencies in our legal system and the impact of law on every individual’s life, as well as providing students with an understanding of primary global business law issues. |
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