Art and the Senses

Full Tuition: $300 — Scholarship Options in Drop-Down Menu

Instructor: Hollis | 6-weeks | Wednesdays March 15-April 19 | 7:00-9:00 PM ET | ONLINE

Can a taste be ugly? Can a smell be gentle? How do we experience our senses? And why do we choose the words we do to describe them? This course will examine how the senses are expressed artistically, looking at a variety of different aesthetic experiences. Together, we will look at visual art, listen to music and other sounds, smell smells, taste a variety of foods, and touch numerous surfaces (these latter three we will do on our own and discuss in our class meetings). We will also think about how the senses are expressed in literature, and how we sense what we read. Each week will be dedicated to a different sense, and during the final week, we will think about extra and combined senses, including senses of proximity, proprioception, and the "sixth sense."

Throughout the course, we will also think about less common experiences of the senses, such as the loss of a sense or synesthesia. The modernist writer James Joyce thought that seeing something made it inevitable. Contemporary poet and philosopher Fred Moten has argued that you can hear a photograph. This course will examine such ideas and explorations of the senses, and encourage us to understand them as historical, cultural, and most importantly, aesthetic constructions.

This course will include discussions of the following explorers of the senses and more: James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marcel Proust, Salvador Dali, Mina Loy, David Chang, M.F.K. Fisher, David Bowie, The Talking Heads, Janelle Monae, Tanaïs, Jacques Derrida, David Wong Louie, and Sianne Ngai.

Classes are recorded to allow for students to participate asynchronously. If you want to take a class but cannot make the class time, sign up for the asynchronous audit option to follow along on your own. Recordings are password protected and will only be available for the duration of the class and two weeks after it ends.

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All tuition goes to paying instructors and staff a living wage. We encourage you to pick the payment tier that corresponds with your needs, but ask that you please consider our commitment to fair labor practices when doing so. We are currently able to offer three full scholarships per class, and one full scholarship per person per term. If the scholarship tier you need is sold out or you would like to pay tuition on an installment basis, please email us directly, and we will work with you.

If at any point up to 48 hours before your first class session you realize you will be unable to take the class, please email us and we will reallocate your funds to a future class, to another student’s scholarship, or refund it. After classes begin, we are only able to make partial refunds and adjustments.