Spring 2009

Honors 291 Sophomore Seminar

Laura Ruby

Who Owns Culture?–With a Focus on Hawaii

• What is the observer’s context?
• Can the observer’s cultural construct review the past of its own culture?
• Or the past of another culture?
• Are some reviewers/depictors  more “fit” to review than others?

The course will cover four general periods of time in the depiction of Hawaii:

• I. The late 18th–early 19th century
• II. The mid-nineteenth century
• III. The late 19th–early-mid-twentieth century
• IV. Contemporary times

Each section of the course will consider questions of cultural encounter:

1. What is the art within the cultural context;
2. What was observed and what was depicted;
3. What was collected, displayed and arranged?

Learning Outcomes for Honors 291

• students will understand disciplinary perspectives on a theoretical and/or practical problem: Who Owns Culture?–with a Focus on Hawaii

• students will understand how inquiry is conducted within the specific disciplines of the arts, architecture, literature, history, cartography, and museum studies

• students will understand the nature of these disciplines

• students will develop skills for participation in seminars

• students will learn to critically read primary source documents and scholarly publications

COURSE CONTENT:

The course will include of an investigation of a number of theoretical and methodological frameworks that shape the products of research–for example semiotic approaches, structuralist approaches, artistic formalist approaches, Hawaiian Renaissance approaches, geographical/cartographic approaches.

• 2 Great Debate--3-5 pages -- 30%
• Class presentations/discussions -- 15%
• Long paper investigating a “cultural encounter” with includes an investigation and analysis in comparison and contrast of another “cultural encounter” This also includes your discussion leader presentation -- 10-20 pages -- 40%
• Attendance and seminar participation (what the student brings to each seminar meeting) -- 15%

GUIDE FOR ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING IMAGES:

CONTENT

• What is represented?
• What kinds of relationships are shown?
• What elements seem particularly significant?
• What associations come to mind?

FORM

• How is the artwork composed?
• How do all of the above components function in relation to one another?

GUIDE FOR GREAT DEBATES

What argument is made and how is it supported (what visual, historical, and theoretical information is examined)? Include your own assessment of these arguments. Your statement should include an artwork example that supports your position. Each GREAT DEBATE should include new thoughts generated from the readings at hand. You may refer back to earlier readings or discussions and how they bear on your current thoughts. Do not merely recapitulate the readings. Each first draft of your paper should be typed double-spaced for the discussion day. Later, your revised GREAT DEBATE #1 paper and your earlier first draft GREAT DEBATE #1 paper will be turned in together. 

 

GUIDE FOR DISCUSSIONS

 The topics of each class discussion will be approached through a selection of readings. Students are expected to come fully prepared for active and informed participation in the discussions. Students will contribute to the debates from their notes and typed short answer preparations and their typed first drafts for GREAT DEBATE # 1 & #2. Be prepared to share your writing in small group discussions, and in the larger class format.

 

GUIDE FOR LONG PAPER

This paper will be 10-20 pages in length and will investigate one of the questions raised about the cultural creation or collection of art, artifacts or architecture of Hawaii. The paper will be a careful comparison and contrast of your topic and all research will be properly cited.

GUIDE FOR GROUP DISCUSSION LEADER PRESENTATION

Elaborate on the explanatory/interpretative text and any artwork examples the authors cite. Present additional artworks for comparison and contrast. Please bring Powerpoint presentations, handouts or poster-size diagrams/illustrations or prepare to arrive before class time to put your discussion aids on the blackboard.

PARTICIPATION

This includes: attendance, punctuality, class interaction in great debates, emailing and office visit. This course requires full attendance. Visual concepts are often only understood after sharing, comparing, questioning, revising and synthesizing, as well as LISTENING. A tardy or absent student diminishes the overall quality of the class. Three tardies will equal one unexcused absence. Three unexcused absences will lower the final grade.

Please respect your colleagues--plan to arrive on time and please do not talk at cross-purposes to the class discussion nor leave the classroom during the discussion time.

Please turn off all electronics including cell phones, beepers, pagers and texting devices before entering the classroom.

 

Available resources on the UH campus and in the community:

• Census schedules
• Maps (including Sanborn maps, tax maps)
• Honolulu Almanac and Directories
• UH Archives (including aerial photos)
• Waihona Aina database of Land Commission Award claims
• Alu Like translated collections
• Newspaper and journal archives
• Available resources off campus:
• Bishop Museum Archives and Library (including the photo and art collections)
• Bureau of Conveyance documents
• State Archives (including probate documents)

Targeted interviewing relative to the topic of the long paper.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1-4

Introduction

Brief outline of Hawaiian history—setting the stage

• What are our assumptions about art? –Mary Anne Staniszewski, Believing Is Seeing: Creating the Culture of Art
• What are our assumptions about culture?
• "Approaches to Hawaiian Prehistory"--Patrick Kirch
• Who Owns Native Culture?--Michael F. Brown

Take the point of view of

--an art historian

--archeologist

--cultural practicioner

--collector

--other (?)

I. The late 18th–early 19th century

A. Visual Arts:

Art and artifacts within their cultural context

Kii--Temple on the Island of Hawaii, 1816--Choris

Kii--Honaunau, 18----Ellis/Archer

Kii--Petroglyphs, Hawaii Island, n.d. Stasack and Cox

Kii--Hulu Manu (feathered image) believed to represent Kukailimoku,18c.--Forster Collection

Kii--Kaai, n.d.

Forbes Caves Artifacts

Dancers of Owhyhee, 1779--Webber

• John Webber (from the Neo-classical western tradition)
• William Ellis
• Louis Choris (from the western and Russian tradition) (Kotzebue voyage)
• Other artists

B. Cartographers:

• Cook’s 3rd voyage
• Land Commission Awards surveyors' maps
• y
• z

C. Architecture:

Hawaiian hale

Port of Honolulu, 1816--Choris

Houses of the Governor of Kaiakekua, 1819--Alphonse Pelllion

Lahina, West Maui, Sandwich Islands, 1851--James Gay Sawkins

Interior of a House of a Chief, 1816--Choris

Interior of a House, Honolulu, Oahu, 1838--Auguste Borget

Protestant missionary architecture

A View of the Mission Establishment at Woahoo, 1821--Anonymous

D. Collections—collected, arranged, displayed:

• Hawaiian kii in their spiritual context
• Hawaiian artifacts outside of their spiritual context
• Early European and American museum collections

E. Observers writing on the cultural context:

II. The mid-nineteenth century

Week 5-8

A. Visual Arts:

Volcano of "Kaluea Pele" as Seen from the Side of Mauna Loa, 1841--Titian Ramsay Peale

Night View 1880-81, Eruption from Hilo Bay, 1881--Charles Furneaux

Kilauea at Night, ca. 1887--Jules Tavernier

The art within its cultural context:

• Jules Tavernier
• Paul Emmert
• Enoch Wood Perry Jr.
• Charles Furneaux

B. Cartographers

• x

C. Architecture:

First Iolani Palace , prior to 1884

Iolani Palace , 1884

Aliiolani Hale (judiciary building) , 1874--Rowe

Bishop Museum, 1889

• Iolani Palace and Coronation Pavilion and King Kamehameha statue
• Bishop Museum

D. Collections:

• Iolani Palace waiwai
• others

Hawaiian Exhibit, ca. 1880s

E. Writers of their time:

• A Hawaiian Reader
• Romantic-laced legends
• Mark Twain

III. The late 19th–early-mid-twentieth century

Week 9-12

A. Visual Arts:

The art within its cultural context:

• Ray Jerome Baker
• Hedemann
• D. Howard Hitchcock
• John Kelly
• Huc Luquiens
• (George Stratemeyer–also a cartographer)

B. Cartographers

• Hawaii Government Survey
• S.E. Bishop
• E.D. Baldwin
• Curtis J. Lyons
• Sandborn fire insurance maps

C. Architecture:

Richards Street YWCA, 1928--Julia Morgan

Honolulu Academy of Arts, ca. 1924 --Bertram G. Goodhue

Kamehameha Schools Auditorium, 1935--Charles Dickey

Moiliili Hongwanji Mission, 1960

• Richards Street YWCA
• Honolulu Academy of Arts
• The Natatorium
• Shangri La
• Buddhist Hongwanji

D. Collections:

• Private collections
• Downtown curio shops
• Bishop Museum
• Honolulu Academy of Arts

E. Writers of the time:

IV. Contemporary times

Week 13-16

A. Visual Arts

Night Hula, 1961 -- Jean Charlot

Herb Kane

Gaye Chan et al

Sean Browne

Jan Becket and Joseph Singer

Laura Ruby

The art within its cultural context:

• Jan Becket and Joseph Singer
• Sean Browne
• Gaye Chan
• Herb Kane
• Laura Ruby

B. Cartographers:

• Atlas of Hawaii
• Computer data-base imaging of ahupuaa, etc.

C. Architecture:

• UH School of Architecture Building
• Kapolei

D. Collections--Compositors/Compilers/Curators:

• Forbes Caves Artifacts
• Bishop Museum
• Hui Malama

E. Written Accounts:

• Laura Ruby
• Department of Art and Art History, Office 348
• 2535 The Mall
• University of Hawaii
• Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
• (808) 956-5250
• lruby@hawaii.edu

January 2009 : in progress