February 8, 2007
Class Notes: Global Imaginations
Class Title: Tacoma Global Honors Program: Global Imaginations, taught by Sam Parker.
Description: The class explores the aesthetic side of globalization and its effect on local cultures. As the second of a three-part series for UW Tacoma’s Global Honors Program, the course surveys the interplay between Western and non-Western art traditions and where these worlds both interact and collide.
The instructor says: Last year, Parker led the class in a project to label and organize a collection of paintings owned by UWT. But it wasn’t just an exercise in cataloging; the paintings were controversial because of their subject matter. Titled “Black Gold,” they were created with the help of traditional street sign painters from the southwestern Indian state of Kerala, and depict the arrival and violent exploits of Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The title refers to pepper, the “black gold” of the era, and, according to Parker, thus served as a form of social commentary on “…the black gold of the 20th century, which is primarily oil, and the way in which global interactions have been shaped by the control over that commodity.”
And therein lies the controversy. “At the time we got it (2004), we weren’t allowed to put up everything in the collection because there was a looming presidential election,” Parker said, “and the implications that this collection had for the critique of Western interests and control in ‘black gold’ and control in oil was too politically sensitive at that time.”
The class’ project, then, was to come up with new labels and captions to help interpret the collection, so that viewers would understand the context. This they did after conducting research on the historical background of the paintings. As a result, the UW Tacoma chancellor gave permission for the class to put the entire collection on display in the atrium of the Cherry Parkes Building, with the order of the collection and presentation of the individual pieces largely under the direction of the students.
“It was something that the students really got into because they were working with something real,” he said. “It gave them a chance to [have]…some sort of connection to something that was going to make a difference and then be around for some time.”
While the class is not working on an equivalent project this year, the endeavor embodies what the course is ultimately about and what Parker said he continues to try to instill in his students.
“It’s about provoking questions and provoking dialogue and considering the relevance of the past to the present…and to consider it in light of global interactions and global exchanges,” he said.
Unexpected Experiences: Recently, Parker had the chance to talk to a former student who had returned from Thailand after finishing the Global Honors series.
“She…came very strongly from an interest in political economy…[and] was somewhat skeptical…[of] the fact that she had to take a class that had to do with art,” said Parker.
But the class proved more helpful than she had anticipated.
“She shared how her experience in Thailand had been totally transformed by the…context that she had from having taken that class,” said Parker. “She was seeing the way in which the aesthetic traditions of Thailand are being commodified and transformed by globalizing markets in which people are having to turn their culture into something that they can sell in the marketplace.”
Since the study of globalization on local marketplaces is a major focus of the class, the discussion of how art is impacted by the global economy is something the students are urged to engage in. “Lots of small-scale societies really have nothing to sell other than their culture,” Parker said.
Parker also said it was gratifying to hear the student’s comments. “That’s what it’s all about it. That’s what makes it worthwhile,” he said.
Students say: Carly Absher, a senior majoring in interdisciplinary arts and sciences in the Global Honors Program, took the class last year and went on to complete a four-week trip to India.
“It was very challenging but very rewarding for my trip to India to be able to have a grasp, however small, on my power and privilege as a citizen of the United States,” said Absher. “It was crucial to understand this before I went to India because while there, I experienced this power that I never knew I had in very tangible ways and it was extremely uncomfortable for me. This class laid a foundation for me to be able to grapple with issues like that in a developing country.
“I realize that it is difficult to understand how this power has anything to do with art, but art was used as a medium to look at the world in new and fascinating ways,” she added. “I had to ‘try on new glasses’ in this class.”
Reading list: Among other works, students read Creativity, by Matthew Fox; Non-Western Art, by Lynn MacKenzie; Art and Otherness, by Thomas McEvilley; Primitive Art in Civilized Places, by Sally Price; and Cannibal Culture, by Deborah Root.
Assignments: Students engage in group discussions and presentations on the assigned weekly readings, and write a research paper on an art object or category of objects that represent the interaction of Western and non-Western art traditions.
Class Notes is a column devoted to interesting and offbeat classes at the UW. Compiled by UWeek intern Will Mari.
