Aesthetics, Fall 2012, Jeffrey Wattles, instructor
The projects for the course engage the student, first, in the discovery of beauty and, second, in the active response to beauty (potential and actual), artistic living. The first project focuses primarily on environmental aesthetics. Use the article, “John Muir as a guide to education in environmental aesthetics” for its exposition of the various dimensions involved in a full experience of beauty in nature.
A unit of experience of a particular natural scene or phenomenon is at least fifteen minutes. You are expected to record your experience in a journal in enough fullness that it will be easy to write the paper when the time comes to do that. Engage the various levels noted in Muir’s experience. However, there is no pressure to agree with or to seek Muir’s highest level, his spiritual and religious experience of divine beauty. The student is nevertheless encouraged to allow some time of receptivity to allow a peak experience to dawn.
Your paper (typed and proofread, with 12 point font and one inch margins, due at the beginning of class, Tuesday, October 9) will include the following.
Begin with a one page overview of the development of your appreciation of the beauties of nature during the project period, beginning in week 1. The experiences you describe should come from the project period. Note that you are asked to pay special attention to new frontiers in your aesthetic experience of nature and not merely to repeat the exercise of skills already developed before this semester. In particular, you are expected to emphasize the harmony (A page should have about 250 words. A little bit over is not a problem, but 200 words is not enough. And do not hand in separate documents for each part of the assignment.)
Then give a five-page account of your explorations of the various layers discussed in the article:
wholehearted engagement (under this or the next heading, you are encouraged to include observations about your experience of the body);
keen perception (don't give a long description here: aesthetics students tend to be good at this already, though you may develop);
scientific understanding (you do not need to do research, but you do need to bring to mind what science you know about the scene or phenomena on which you choose to focus);
artistically cultivated imagination (a little--aesthetics students tend to excel in this)
the expressive qualities of nature (you are free to differ with Muir on this, free to regard expressive qualities as projected by the mind);
intellectual discovery of the harmony of contrasts (this is a major emphasis);
philosophical aesthetic reflection;
and any gentle or dramatic peak experience(s) of beauty (whether or not you would interpret them as spiritual or religious).
Be sure to refer to different scenes or phenomena in this part of your paper.
Finally, give three one-page commentaries on your experience report: one from the perspective of Muir, one from the perspective of Plato, and one from the perspective of Kant. In each case, include two brief quotations from the author and then comment on their meaning and relevance to your experience report.
Here is a rubric describing levels of achievement that the instructor will consider in evaluating the project report.
Part I.
A. The experience report shows that the student has been active throughout the project period in exploring beauty in the several domains indicated and has been able to articulate genuine discoveries in each area.
B. The report indicates some sincere effort in the direction of the project, but the report indicates an experience less sustained and wholehearted.
C. The project experience seems to have been more scanty and shows little life in discovery of the various layers of aesthetic experience. Just enough exploring was done to have something minimal to answer the requirements of the assignment. Some of the required layers of experience are neglected. The descriptions lack the freshness of personal engagement.
D. The report indicates a severe misunderstanding of, or cooperation with, the assignment.
F. The report gives little or no evidence of effort along the lines of the assignment.
Part II.
A. A full three pages deals intelligently with brief quotations from Muir, Plato, and Kant. The discussion goes beyond notes from class and show a thoughtful study of the assigned readings. Each quote is interpreted, and its relevance to the project experience is clearly indicated.
B. The discussion is accurate but largely a restatement of what was said in class. There is some attention to showing the relevance of the quotes to the experience report.
C. The commentary is too brief, and it does not draw on the text except to cite information already given out by the instructor—it gives no evidence that the student read the text. Passages are cited from the text with very little commentary explaining their relation to the experience report..
D. The commentary shows severe misunderstandings of the text..
F. The paper gives little or no evidence of effort along the lines of the assignment.
Weighting: Part I, 60%; Part II, 30%; English: 10%—unless the English is very poor (see the syllabus: a D+ may be given in extreme cases). See the link on the home page of the website: http://sites.google.com/a/kent.edu/jwattles. These proportions are customary; in some cases the instructor may give additional weight to an outstanding section.