360°: Mirroring the Self
Participants will study the history and theories of self-portraiture, self-representation, and self-fashioning in cultures around the globe from antiquity to the present.
Participants will study the history and theories of self-portraiture, self-representation, and self-fashioning in cultures around the globe from antiquity to the present.
Mirroring the Self, Exhibiting the Self is a two-semester cluster, building toward a student-curated exhibition of art and artifacts from the College’s collections. In the fall, participants will study the history and theories of self-portraiture, self-representation, and self-fashioning in cultures around the globe from antiquity to the present. They will research and write catalogue entries on the objects they have selected for exhibition. In the spring, students will explore museums and discuss theories of exhibition-making, learning to identify different curatorial approaches. They will determine a curatorial agenda, produce didactic materials, develop public programming, and install an exhibition.
Courses
This course, taught by Steven Z. Levine in Fall 2016, will focus on objects in the college collections from ancient, medieval, and African mirrors to M. Carey Thomas's own dressing mirror as well as prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs of self-fashioning and self-reflection from the Italian Renaissance and 19th-century Japan to portraits and self-portraits made in Philadelphia today.
Taught by Carrie Robbins in Spring 2017. Students will gain practical experience in the production of an exhibition: conceiving a curatorial approach, articulating themes, writing didactics, researching a checklist, designing gallery layout, producing print and web materials, developing programs, and marketing the exhibit.