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  are. Unclothed. Revealed. Unadorned. Without
cover. In a word, “naked.”In this 2017 version of English 301 entitled Naked I/Eyes and Psychedelic Mirrors, we will use concepts of "the naked," "psyche," and "the psychedelic" to explore the minds, bodies and art of women and men throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Along the way, we will spend time hanging out with individuals who are anything but normal and by the end of the semester we may well decide that “normal” is the last thing we want when we are looking at fiction, at storytelling. The various naked minds, bodies, and psyches we encounter this term will teach us to rethink what it is we think of when we imagine the dimensions of the human mind--in the process we will learn just how instrumental literature can be in exposing the riches and excesses of this mind. We will not limit ourself to the written word in this seminar, as we will explore also naked eyes/I’s from the visual arts and cinema. If we do things right, odds are your eyes and “I” will be moved by these encounters.  This course is open to all undergraduates without regard to your selected major and assumes no expertise in literature, film or fine art. If you are curious about naked artists, naked souls and naked eyes, then you are in for one hell of a ride. With your dynamic participation, our adventure promises to be a spectacle and then some!  The working list of authors/works include:
Appignanesi & Zarate's Freud for Beginners; Ballard's Crash, Garcia's Photography as Fiction;
Benjamin's Art in the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction; Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men;
Daitch's LC,
Allmer's This is
Magritte; Emmerling's Basquiat; Mayer's The Hurt Business;
Yuknavitch's Chronology
of Water; Hernandez's Human Diastrophism, Powell's Peeping Tom,
Hartley's Flirt,
and Ware's Acme Novelty
Library. |
| click to expand... BOOKS
A note
about purchasing books in our special,
outrageous, and experimental introduction to literature
class... You might be asking yourself, "should
I go ebook or old school paper-book?"
For the purposes of this section of English 301, you MUST 'go old school,' 'old gangster,'
and buy or rent the real thing: paper, ink,
glue, and all. And, though i don't care WHERE
you purchase/rent this medieval prehistoric
paper artifact, make sure it is the
edition they carry in the Aztec campus
bookstore! Why? So that
we will all be on the same page during
discussions, in-class writing assignments,
quizzes, etc. Another thing: I
negotiated some cheaper prices on books and
these sale prices may only be available at our
campus bookstore (so if you go and shop online
for all your books, you may lose out on a
deal). You may
have heard we are living through the age of
the 'Death of the Book.' Don't buy the hype.
Just as a Biology 101 professor might scoff at
you if you walked into an anatomy lab wanting
to use your 'scalpel app', or an archeology
prof on a dig would faint if you wanted to use
your 'shovel app,' it's the same thing here.
Literature is about books--paper, black ink,
paste, etc. As to whether you should
rent or buy--keep in mind that literature
books are NOT textbooks. They actually
look good on your shelves and tell the world a
lot about yourself--basically, they are an
intellectual mirror of your tastes, range, and
depth. That
said, it is YOUR
call. Please note that on some of the titles below I have made special
arrangements with the campus store to secure you special reduced
prices--so don't just buy online because the clicking is easy!!! #nakedpsychedelicmirrors Books via Powells! #nakedpsychedelicmirrors Books via Amazon! Hit the book images below!           More to come! Click to enlarge!  |
   his is a university-level course in
literature, film, art, and the internet--as it is
thematically focused on issues of representation,
subjectivity, psychology, and sexuality, it should not
come as a shock that students in the class may, from time
to time, encounter characters, ideas, situations, images,
and scenarios that they find makes them uneasy.  WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY! The antithesis of
a place of worship, the flipside of a space dedicated to
faith and belief, the university is a site of questioning,
a sacred space of critical thinking, skepticism, cynicism
and irony. So open your eyes, jumpstart your mind, and
prepare to enter the choppy corridors of the always
already evolving and morphing dimensions of the human
psyche! |
#nakedpsychedelicmirrors is an Arts Alive SDSU project! Mission: Arts Alive SDSU provides opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to engage in transformational arts interactions as part of an arts-rich, robust educational community on the campus of San Diego State University. Goals: · To broaden awareness of arts events and opportunities at SDSU · To increase attendance at SDSUevents · To expand academically informed making opportunities at SDSU · To integrate arts events and arts practices into curriculum at SDSU Overview: SDSU hosts more than 350 arts events annually. The project promotes the best and the brightest of existing arts offerings to students, faculty and staff. Called “signature events” these are the highest quality events from the arts schools. They are promoted through traditional marketing, appealing to students via social media, and most significantly, through Pop Up events. |
| ETYMOLOGY NAKED (adj.) Old English nacod "nude, bare; empty," also "not fully clothed," from Proto-Germanic *nakwadaz (source also of Old Frisian nakad, Middle Dutch naket, Dutch naakt, Old High German nackot, German nackt, Old Norse nökkviðr, Old Swedish nakuþer, Gothic naqaþs "naked"), from PIE root *nogw- "naked" (source also of Sanskrit nagna, Hittite nekumant-, Old Persian *nagna-, Greek gymnos, Latin nudus, Lithuanian nuogas, Old Church Slavonic nagu-, Russian nagoi, Old Irish nocht, Welsh noeth "bare, naked"). Related: Nakedly; nakedness. Naked eye dates to the 1660s, unnecessary in a world before telescopes and microscopes. |
| NOTE: this class is
part of SDSU's Arts Alive initiative--we will meet four times during the semester with Music Professor Eric Smigel's Psychedelic Rock class and students in the Don Powell Theater. |
