SAM-5010 Sense of Community I: Art and Morality
This course examines art and morality through the unique perspective that "reading" artifacts can give to a true understanding of the development of communities in time. The course explores how art gives us access to commune with those here before us as well as those who exist with us, thus enhancing our senses of community and communications. Through this phenomenological approach, the course raises questions about the nature of what we create as both an expression of who we are and an influence that transforms us as new values (including morals and ethics) and realms of experience are created. The course defines "culture" as the interactive growth that brings out and develops uniquely human possibilities and develops sensitivity to the development of ideas and institutions as creative projects. Students will explore selected cultures that coexist with us in time as well as those that may have existed before us and are no more. The course emphasizes how this approach allows us to nurture our own possibilities out of the limitless depths of imagination and expressions as well as the magic power of art to produce understanding. Students will be prepared to incorporate their own imaginative abilities in the creation of individualized projects.