imagination challenge #2
Lights Body Ink!
An Introduction to Literature and Film
Professors Nericcio, Holt, Hubel, Rosenberg, & Scott, inc.

Hello there, Literature-lover! Here is your challenge: To begin, you should take no less than 4 and no more than 8 pages (double-spaced typed, carefully proofread, with a dynamic, suggestive title) to complete your task. No cover sheet or folder-cover is necessary and late papers will NOT be accepted; I would like you to find and incorporate TWO outside research resources for this essay (NOTE: I DO NOT WANT YOU TO USE ONLINE RESEARCH RESOURCES NOR ENCYCLOPEDIAS; I ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO CAREFULLY AND WITH PLEASURE USE THE LIBRARY: acceptable research materials include: scholarly books and essays in academic journals. PLEASE cite these sources using the MLA Bibliography stylesheet. The completed essay is due at 12noon, under my office door, Adams Humanities 4117 on Thursday May 2, 2002. You are welcome and encouraged to show us a draft of your essay before the due date for comment and assistance. Recall that Bill Nericcio’s Office Hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:50 to 1:50 in AH4117. Please throw yourself into the pleasure of writing this paper!  Take chances and don't hold back--the best A+ essays will probably be efforts where the student, that's right YOU, adapts, warps, refracts, and/or re-imagines the questions provided. Select ONE of the following challenges:

Stereotypes
Stereotypes have been addressed significantly in our course this semester, most recently with Professor Nericcio’s lecture, essay, and screenings associated with Speedy Gonzales, but also in Professor Scott’s lecture on Man Ray, in particular, his representation of women. Referring to the definition given in Nericcio’s essay "Autopsy of a Rat," explore this phenomenon with regard to Expressionist painting (for a clear example refer to the lithographs on pages 18 and 19 of Ida Rigby’s book. As you craft your essay, you will want to keep in mind the specific illustrator’s relationship to the objects or people being depicted.

Love, love, and again love!
Everything you have read and seen during the course of the semester has dealt with this issue. Explore three male characters and their stance toward love as depicted in Godard, Mayer, Jonze, Freleng/McKimson, Ware, Man Ray, or pacific REVIEW. OR for the utterly ambitious: radically juxtapose the work of Kaethe Kollwitz ("The Sacrifice," Rigby, p.9) and Faulkner’s Addie Bundren.

Women in Frames
Frida Kahlo and Man Ray both offer us strange, sometimes disturbing representations of the female form. Are there similarities in what each artist is attempting to portray about the status of women? Select one image from each and compare how the feminine is (re)constructed.

Escaping the Real
Nostalgia, fantasy worlds, running away, inhabiting the minds of celebrities. Explore the idea of escapism in the works of Frida Kahlo, Chris Ware, and Spike Jonze.

Death and its Trappings
Compare, contrast and/or rethink the treatment of death in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych and Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library.

Art, Literature and the War of High and Low
Traditionally, certain genres of art have been judged either "high art" or "low art." Typical examples of high art include oil painting and poetry; examples of "low art" include comic books and cartoons. Explore the meaning and viability of these terms using any 2 or 3 of the works we have devoured since February 26th.

Puppets and their Habits
At least twice this semester we have run across images of puppets copulating. We have seen dolls and mannequins replace real people as sexual objects. We have seen characters use the bodies of others as puppet costumes. We have seen dolls become substitutes for human companions. Professor Nericcio has argued that one of the most significant characteristics of Mexican "marionettes" in American media is their sexual strength. In Tanizaki's The Key, Ikuko is reduced to a poseable doll to fulfill her husband's sexual fantasies. Explore the obsession with dolls and sex in contemporary literature and film.

The MEDIUM is the MESSAGE
How do painting, photography, film, and drama all elicit different responses to sexual taboos from the audience? In other words, the same/similar image causes us to react differently depending on the medium. Why do you think this happens? Cite examples from our works.

Film School 101
If you were to make a film about Frida Kahlo (as many have recently decided to do) how might you utilize the techniques of Jean-Luc Goddard and Spike Jonze to capture the different moods which inspired her art? Cite specific cinematic techniques used by these innovative directors as well as particular examples from the two directors’s works and select descriptions of key works/events from Kahlo’s oeuvre. Needless to say this question will require supporting illustrations.