Arts and Literature:
1. In Capital, Volume I (1887) Karl Marx asserted that “’For all its stinginess, capitalist production is thoroughly wasteful with human material.’” (qtd. in de Botton, p. 72) Where might we find evidence of this “waste” in the literature and films we’ve discussed in this course?
2. Use the Six Keys to analyse an advertising campaign, discussing at least one image in detail. Submit reproductions of the images you use with your answer.
3. Make a detailed formal analysis of a painting by Cezanne that we have not discussed in class. Submit a reproduction of the painting with your answer.
4. Discuss the use of symbolism, context and narrativity in The Hudsucker Proxy and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.
5. Select a mixed media artwork. Offer a formal analysis of the piece which tells me how the different media work together to deliver the artist’s message.
6. Use the Six Keys to identify, assess and evaluate the presence of status anxiety in London’s Overthrow and The Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock?
The Six Keys:
Medium: the means of communication between maker and interpreter
Form: the physical and linguistic features of the text Genre: the system of expectations governing interpretation
Context: social, economic, political, and biographical surroundings of the text
Absence: what isn’t said or shown or understood (but is somehow part of the text)
Style: particularising features of the text