Formalist Aesthetics of Modernism and Postmodernism in Music, Dance, and Painting - DANCE 4089 - Spring 2009 Syllabus
Cornell University

Revised December 28, 2008

Instructor: Allen Fogelsanger
Department of Theatre, Film & Dance

• Beardsley, Monroe C., The Aesthetic Point of View: Selected Essays, edited by Michael J. Wreen and Donald M. Callen. BH39 .B36
• $ Bertens, Hans, The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. B831.2 .B47x 1994
• $ Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-garde, translated by Michael Shaw. BH301.A94 B92 1984
• Cohen, Marshall, and Copeland, Roger, eds., What Is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism. GV1599 .W55
• $ Copeland, Roger, Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance. GV1785.C97 C78 2004
• $ Garafola, Lynn, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. GV1786.B19 G21
• Johnson, Steven, ed., The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts: John Cage, Morton Feldman, Edgard Varèse, Willem De Kooning, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg. ML3849 .N49x 2002
• Schapiro, Meyer, Mondrian: On the Humanity of Abstract Painting. ND196.A2 S33 1995
• Shapiro, David, and Shapiro, Cecile, eds., Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record. N6512.5.A25 A16
• Silverman, Hugh J., ed., Postmodernism: Philosophy and the Arts. B831.2 .P85
• Sontag, Susan, Against Interpretation, and Other Essays. PN771 .S69
• $ Watkins, Glenn, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists. ML197.W33 P9

Items marked with an asterisk are on reserve at the Sidney Cox Library of Music and Dance, 220 Lincoln Hall.

• Tuesday, January 20: none


• Thursday, January 22:
  • Carroll, Noël, Art and Form, ch. 3 in Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction (1999): 107-154.


• Tuesday, January 27:
  • *Watkins, Glenn, Pyramids at the Louvre: Music, Culture, and Collage from Stravinsky to the Postmodernists (1994): 1-73.
  • *Garafola, Lynn, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1989): 3-75.
  • In-class Cox CDs: 7373m 3408, 7369, 7370, 4880, 9270, 3587, 7834, 4317.
  • In-class Cox DVD: 62: Fokine: Firebird.


• Thursday, January 29:
  • *Watkins: 80-111.
  • *Garafola: 177-200.
  • In-class Cox videos: 182 & 165: Nijinsky: L'après-midi d'un faune.


• Tuesday, February 3:
  • *Garafola: 76-97.
  • Mayer, Charles S., The Influence of Leon Bakst on Choreography, Dance Chronicle 1/2 (1977-1978): 127-142.
  • Hodson, Millicent, Ritual Design in the New Dance: Nijinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, Dance Research 3/2 (Summer 1985): 35-45.
  • In-class Cox DVD 215.
  • Hodson, Millicent, Ritual Design in the New Dance: Nijinsky's Choreographic Method, Dance Research 4/1 (Spring 1986): 63-77.
  • Merwin, Ted, Loie Fuller's Influence on F. T. Marinetti's Futurist Dance, Dance Chronicle 21/1 (1998): 73-92.
  • Zornitzer, Amy, Revolutionaries of the Theatrical Experience: Fuller and the Futurists, Dance Chronicle 21/1 (1998): 93-105.


• Thursday, February 5:
  • *Watkins: 229-274.


• Tuesday, February 10:
  • *Watkins: 277-309.
  • *Garafola: 98-146, 211-236.


• Thursday, February 12:
  • *Garafola: 237-272.


• Tuesday, February 17:
  • Zangwill, Nick, Feasible Aesthetic Formalism, Noûs 33/4 (1999): 610-629.
  • Parsons, Glenn, Moderate Formalism as a Theory of the Aesthetic, Journal of Aesthetic Education 38/3 (Fall 2004): 19-35.
  • *Watkins: 310-341.


• Thursday, February 19:
  • *Watkins: 342-374.


• Tuesday, February 24:
  • DUE: Paper #1.
  • Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936).


• Thursday, February 26:
  • Satin, Leslie, Valentine de Saint-Point, Dance Research Journal 22/1 (1990): 1-12.
  • Daly, Ann, Isadora Duncan's Dance Theory, Dance Research Journal 26/2 (Autumn 1994): 24-31.
  • Preston, Carrie J., The Motor in the Soul: Isadora Duncan and Modernist Performance, Modernism/modernity 12/2 (April 2005): 273-289.


• Tuesday, March 3:
  • *Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984/1974): xlviii-lv, 3-99.


• Thursday, March 5:
  • Reynolds, Dee, Dancing as a Woman: Mary Wigman and 'Absolute Dance', Forum for Modern Language Studies 35/3 (1999): 297-310.
  • Lahusen, Susanne, Oskar Schlemmer: Mechanical Ballets?, Dance Research 4/2 (Autumn 1986): 65-77.


• Tuesday, March 10:
  • Greenberg, Clement, Avant-Garde and Kitsch, Partisan Review 6 (Fall 1939): 34-49.
  • *Greenberg, Clement, Towards a Newer Laocoon, Partisan Review 7 (July-August 1940): 296-310. Reprinted in Abstract Expressionism: A Critical Record edited by David Shapiro and Cecile Shapiro, Cambridge University Press (1990): 61-74.
  • Greenberg, Clement, Modernist Painting, (1960).
  • Clark, T. J., Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art, Critical Inquiry 9/1 (September 1982): 139-156.
  • *Copeland, Roger, Merce Cunningham: The Modernizing of Modern Dance (2004): 1-51.


• Thursday, March 12:
  • *Copeland: 53-95.
  • Search for and watch Jackson Pollock 51 on youtube.com.
  • Gann, Kyle: If Jackson Pollock Wrote Music.
  • In-class watch some of Sibley Video 87: Painters Painting.


• Saturday, March 14-Sunday, March 22: Spring Break


• Tuesday, March 24:
  • Sontag, Susan, Against Interpretation (1964).
  • *Sontag, Susan, One Culture and the New Sensibility (1965). Reprinted in Against Interpretation, and Other Essays, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (1966): 293-304.
  • Greenberg, Clement, Avant Garde Attitudes (1968).
  • Sontag, Susan, Fascinating Fascism (1975).


• Thursday, March 26:
  • Schapiro, Meyer, The Nature of Abstract Art (1937).
  • *Schapiro, Meyer, Mondrian: On the Humanity of Abstract Painting (1995/1960&1978): 9-72.
  • In-class Cox DVD 498: Picasso and Dance.


• Tuesday, March 31:
  • *Copeland: 97-203.
  • In-class Sibley Video 185 Vols. 7-8: American Visions.


• Thursday, April 2:
  • *Copeland: 205-245.


• Tuesday, April 7:
  • *Copeland: 247-286.


• Thursday, April 9:
  • DUE: Paper #2.


• Tuesday, April 14:
  • *Johnson, Steven, ed., The New York Schools of Music and Visual Arts (2002): 1-16 (Introduction: A Junction at Eighth Street), 113-134 (Bernstein, David W., John Cage and the 'Aesthetic of Indifference'), 217-248 (Jasper Johns and Morton Feldman: What Patterns?).
  • Greenberg, Clement, Modern and Postmodern (1979).
  • *Bertens, Hans, The Idea of the Postmodern: A History (1995): 3-36.


• Thursday, April 16:
  • *Bertens: 37-108.


• Tuesday, April 21:
  • *Bertens: 111-248.


• Thursday, April 23:
  • Discussion.


• Tuesday, April 28:
  • *Levin, David Michael, Balanchine's Formalism, in What Is Dance?, eds. Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen (1983): 122-145.
  • Manning, Susan, Modernist Dogma and Post-Modern Rhetoric: A Response to Sally Banes' 'Terpsichore in Sneakers', TDR 32/4 (Winter 1988): 32-39.
  • Banes, Sally, and Manning, Susan, Terpsichore in Combat Boots, TDR 33/1 (Spring 1989): 13-16.
  • *Levin, David Michael, Postmodernism in Dance: Dance, Discourse, Democracy, in Postmodernism: Philosophy and the Arts, ed. Hugh J. Silverman (1990): 207-233.


• Thursday, April 30:
  • Carroll, Noël, Theatre, Dance, and Theory: A Philosophical Narrative, Dance Chronicle 15/3 (1992): 317-331.
  • Carroll, Noël, Periodizing Postmodernism? Clio 26/2 (Winter 1997): 143-165.
  • Banes, Sally, and Carroll, Noël, Cunningham, Balanchine, and Postmodern Dance, Dance Chronicle 29/1 (2006): 49-68.
  • *Beardsley, Monroe C., Art and Its Cultural Context, ch. 20 in The Aesthetic Point of View: Selected Essays, ed. Michael J. Wreen and Donald M. Callen (1982): 352-370.


• Friday, May 8, 12 Noon
  • DUE: Paper #3.