HUMA 5300: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Arts and Humanities

Spring 2006 W 9:30 AM-12:15 PM

Theresa M. Towner

Course Description and Requirements

Intended to introduce students to the intellectual and professional requirements of advanced study in
literature, history, and the arts, this course serves as the core course in the graduate program in the School
of Arts and Humanities at UTD. This function means that students should take it earlier rather than later in
their graduate careers, and I will assume that students in the course have not mastered the skills it seeks to
develop. Among these skills are the ability to read, understand, explain, and criticize the details of primary
documents in the three major areas of study in our graduate program: literary studies, historical studies
(including philosophy), and aesthetic studies (including creative writing and translation). Close reading of
texts and careful examination of all arts will inform each class discussion.

Course requirements include active participation in discussion, which will be stimulated by your
submission each week of two discussion questions, typed and brought with you to class and turned in to me
at its beginning. The quality of those questions will comprise 25% of your course grade. The remaining
75% will be earned by three major assignments: a book review, a scholarly presentation, and a proposal for
a research or creative project. Each of these assignments will be no less than three and no more than five
pages in length, in 10- or 12-point font, with one-inch margins and formal pagination and parenthetical
scholarly citations. Students may refer to the most recent MLA Handbook or Chicago Manual of Style for
guidance; either pattern is acceptable, as long as it is used accurately and consistently in the assignment.

The centerpiece of our interdisciplinary inquiry this semester will be the World’s Columbian Exposition,
held in Chicago in 1893 and known popularly as the Chicago World’s Fair. The weekly syllabus lists the
required readings, which I might well supplement as the semester progresses. We will also be visited from
time to time by members of the A&H faculty, working scholars in various disciplines who can serve as
interdisciplinary models as well as give us valuable context for the centerpiece of our course.

Please note that you must complete all of the required work for the course and that failure to do so will
result in failure of the course.

You cannot hope to pass the course if you do not attend it.

I do not accept late work or issue grades of Incomplete.

All cases of academic dishonesty will be referred to the Deans of Graduate Studies for adjudication and
punishment. Penalties for plagiarism, cheating, collusion, falsifying academic records, and other instances
of crimes against the scholarly community include failure of the assignment in question, failure of the
course, and expulsion from the University.

My office hours are Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30- 9:30 AM, Wednesday from 1-2 PM, and by
appointment in JO 5.104. You may telephone me at 972-883-2031 or send e-mail to
tmtowner@utdallas.edu.

Texts: Available at the UTD Book Store, Off-Campus Books, and commercially, the following editions are
REQUIRED:

Hamlin Garland, Main-Travelled Roads (Bison)

Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (Bantam)
Erik Larson, Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
(Vintage)
Richard Peck, Fair Weather (Puffin)
G.L. Dybwad, ed., White City Recollections (The Book Stops Here)
Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the World’s
Columbian Exposition (University of Illinois)
Stanley Applebaum, ed., The Chicago Worlds’ Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record (Dover)
L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Dover)
Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair (University of Chicago)
M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture (University Press of Mississippi)

A course pack containing a required essay by W. Jackson Rushing is available only at Off-Campus Books.
HUMA 5300: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Arts and Humanities
Spring 2006 W 9:30 AM-12:15 PM
Theresa M. Towner
Syllabus

Jan. 11: Introduction

Guest: Michael Wilson, Historical Studies

Jan 18: Hamlin Garland, Main-Travelled Roads (1891)

Jan. 25: Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893)

Guest: Clay Reynolds, Literary Studies

Feb. 1: Erik Larson, Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Chicago World’s Fair

Feb. 8: Larson, Devil in the White City

Feb. 15: Stanley Applebaum, ed., The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record
Guest: Marilyn Waligore, Aesthetic Studies

Feb. 22: Richard Peck, Fair Weather; G.L. Dybwad, White City Recollections (1893 diary)

Mar. 1: L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900); view The Wizard of Oz (1939) in class;
BOOK REVIEW DUE IN CLASS

Mar. 8: No class; spring break

Mar. 15 and 22: Presentations

Mar. 29: Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells, The Reason Why the Colored American is Not in the
World’s Colombian Exposition (1893); W. Jackson Rushing, “Marketing the Affinity of the Primitive and
the Modern: René d’Harnoncourt and ‘Indian Art of the United States’” (course pack)

Apr. 5: Robert W. Rydell, All the World’s a Fair

Guest: W. Jackson Rushing, Aesthetic Studies

Apr. 12: M. Thomas Inge, Comics as Culture

Guest: Charlie Leonard, Political Science, Journalism, and Communications

Apr. 19: PROPOSALS DUE IN CLASS, with accompanying explanations; no discussion questions due

Apr. 26: Proposals returned in person by appointment during regular class time; JO 5.104