About the Liberal and Fine Arts

"Particular bits of knowledge are nothing, because they are made up of what Dr. Robert Hutchins once called rapidly aging facts. Principles and method are everything." --James Webb YoungIf Linda Brodkey is correct in her contention that "The academic community is literally a community of readers who write and writers who read" then the Liberal Arts and Fine Arts would seem to be strange bedfellows indeed. It's hard to imagine many Fine Arts people being excited about entering a culture that promised only more reading and writing. But what if we imagine that reading includes the reading of images, plays, films, dances, songs, advertisements, television programs, websites, IMs, and cityscapes (among other things) as well as texts? What if we simply say that reading = interpreting or decoding? Then, what if writing includes making films, dances, plays, sets, and music? What if our goal is to get good at reading the world --and talking, thinking, and writing about it in a variety of media, including but not limited to text?This would perhaps elevate reading to a principle, which would make it a piece of James Webb Young's "everything" mentioned in the above quote. It's possible that in the digital era the Liberal and Fine Arts will truly come together (for reasons that we will get more deeply into later) and UNCSA and places like it could truly lead the way.A BFA degree such as the one offered at UNCSA is sometimes referred to as a terminal degree, but this doesn't mean it will kill you :) Instead terminal in this context means that the BFA degree certifies that you are fully-prepared to begin professional practice in an art field. The challenge of the BFA degree for students and instructors alike is that it in effect signifies that the recipient attains terminal-level mastery in both the Liberal Arts and the Fine Arts. In order to achieve this it is necessary to work hard, but more importantly it is necessary to work smart.

Working smart in this context means focusing on principles and methods --as James Webb Young mentions in the above quotation. If too much emphasis is placed on mastering what he calls the particular bits of knowledge or the rapidly aging facts associated with specific disciplines in the Liberal Arts, the possibility of attaining any meaningful form of mastery in both the Liberal Arts and Fine Arts is lost. Detailed knowledge in the BFA degree attaches to the Fine Arts side of things. There is no time for everything in the Liberal Arts unless everything is defined as knowing principles and methods, as Young does.

It is relatively easy to identify the expert-level skills of your Fine Arts. In a fairly straightforward way, these folks really know how to dance, design, compose, choreograph, act, direct, build, play music, make films, and so forth. It's more difficult to identify the expert-level skills of your Liberal Arts instructors. Liberal Arts instructors are often identified as people that have a lot of knowledge --people who gather and keep a lot rapidly aging facts about a particular subject in their heads-- rather than as people who are highly skilled at something. This is an unfortunate and misleading perception, though. Liberal Artists are highly skilled experts at thinking, talking, reading, and writing (and, yes, writing can be redefined as well to include writing in a variety of media, not just text, if we want to imagine a synthesis of the Liberal and Fine Arts). Interestingly, mastering the arts of thinking, talking, reading, and writing require individuals to work creatively as well as intellectually, so at the level of shared processes the Liberal and Fine Arts may be joined at the hip anyway. I've mentioned already that Dr. Macomber was creative and intellectual in more or less equal measures, and in being open about this he was well ahead of his time, but many other intellectuals are closeted creatives.

But what is thinking, for example? This is where the argument, the thinking if you will, gets interesting. Thinking is tantamount to having a conversation --with oneself, with others, with a book, with a work of art, with nature (Prigogine and Stengers insist that science itself is "a conversation with nature"). So in fact the true method of the Liberal Artists, even in the sciences, is conversation.

When my beloved Professor Macomber walked around on the big stage of Campbell Hall at UCSB, making connections between Plato, education, sexuality, society, human development --and seemingly all points in between and beyond-- he was in effect having a conversation with himself (thinking) and sharing it with us (talking). He was also in reporting on extensive conversations he was then having with Plato's Symposium (reading). And he of course was engaged in his own scholarly production (writing).

So, the key skills to learn in the Liberal Arts are how to think, talk, read, and write. From this, we can see that Media Studies (and Digital Media for the Artist) are merely topics of conversation. It is good to gather information about these them, but what really matters in terms of your work is that you become an expertly skilled thinker, talker, reader, and writer. But there is another quick twist here. In the case of Media Studies and Digital Media for the Artist one needs to learn how to think, talk, read, and write in a variety of media, including but not limited to text.

But what did Macomber ask of us, his students? He asked us to listen in --eavesdrop almost-- on his conversation with himself, take quizzes to help us master the art of listening (which is an important part of learning to be an expert conversationalist). He also asked us to continue the conversations he began, by talking with our study partners. What an elegant instructional design! Macomber captured the Liberal Arts in a nutshell and then cracked it wide open on stage for us. Then he asked us to continue the conversation with each other. Brilliant.

From recent cognitive science, we have a pretty good idea about how experts think, and what we know is quite in line with what Mr. Young says about focusing on methods and principles. It seems that experts in any field reference their thinking to principles derived from their field. In short they apply principles selectively to situations. Novices, again in any field, typically try to put forth a kind of mechanical mastery of procedural and/or informational details. Find immediately below a quote from John Bransford et al's free (available entirely online), superb, groundbreaking book How People Learn.

"In an example from physics, experts and competent beginners (college students) were asked to describe verbally the approach they would use to solve physics problems. Experts usually mentioned the major principle(s) or law(s) that were applicable to the problem, together with a rationale for why those laws applied to the problem and how one could apply them (Chi et al., 1981). In contrast, competent beginners rarely referred to major principles and laws in physics; instead, they typically described which equations they would use and how those equations would be manipulated (Larkin, 1981, 1983). perceive problem solving in physics as memorizing, recalling, and manipulating equations to get answers. When solving problems, experts in physics often pause to draw a simple qualitative diagram—they do not simply attempt to plug numbers into a formula. The diagram is often elaborated as the expert seeks to find a workable solution path (e.g., see Larkin et al., 1980; Larkin and Simon, 1987; Simon and Simon, 1978). Experts' thinking seems to be organized around big ideas in physics, such as Newton's second law and how it would apply, while novices tend to perceive problem solving in physics as memorizing, recalling, and manipulating equations to get answers. When solving problems, experts in physics often pause to draw a simple qualitative diagram—they do not simply attempt to plug numbers into a formula. The diagram is often elaborated as the expert seeks to find a workable solution path (e.g., see Larkin et al., 1980; Larkin and Simon, 1987; Simon and Simon, 1978)."

Okay, so our task is to help you master the principles of expert thinking, talking, reading, and writing. These skills are our real subject or topic. We already know the method: experts think, talk, read, and write conversationally. So, if we can learn the principles of expert thinking, talking, reading, and writing we should be well on our way to meeting our goal of helping you become expertly skilled in the Liberal Arts. And --interestingly enough-- we know from the above quote that experts may like to draw (diagrams, but drawings nonetheless).

Suffice it to say that the above is not a typical approach to the Liberal Arts --but then UNCSA is not a typical college, nor am I a particularly typical college professor (if I was, would someone like W.B. Macomber have been one of my heroes and mentors?) A typical introduction to the Liberal Arts might highlight and differentiate among the many knowledge-bins or disciplines of the Liberal Arts, and perhaps group them according to whether they fall into the Humanities, Sciences, or Social Sciences. A typical introduction might also say something about the long history of the Liberal Arts, and how it has changed over time. Typical introductions are easy to find online or elsewhere, and are indeed worth taking a look at, even though they often say way too little about the skills involved in actually being a Liberal Artist. Much like Macomber was a philosopher rather than a teacher of philosophy, our goal is to help you be Liberal Artists, not to know a bunch of stuff within Liberal Arts disciplines.

My view is that the above approach, while somewhat unusual, is well-suited to the UNCSA context and also very complementary to the the emphasis that our school maintains. on the learning of complex, nuanced how-to skills (in the Fine Arts and, so my approach goes, in the Liberal Arts as well. Again Media Studies is just a field, and Digital Media for the Artist is just a course. It's the how-to skills of the Liberal Artist that need to be learned. It's the knowledge of how to be a Liberal Artist that needs to be mastered.