XX Congreso Internacional sobre Nuevas Tendencias en Humanidades

Abstract

The team-taught course. “Geography of art/Art of geography,” at Endicott College in spring 2016 explored the nexus of social studies in the humanities (and vice versa) and offers a template of interdisciplinary theory and practice. Art and Geography are distinct yet complementary ways of imagining, mapping, and exploring the world we live in. Both are primarily visual disciplines grounded in material reality but encompassing all aspects of the human experience and imagination. The course, comprising both social science and arts majors literally and figuratively traversed the campus, operating across disciplines and space. Considering both technical and creative aspects of each field, we interrogated physical and psychological spaces and their complex interdependence. We used a variety of texts (written, visual, and multimedia), guest lectures, site visits, activities, interventions, and fieldwork, to explore territories real and imagined and consider the interaction of place and human culture. Students experienced an immersive orientation and reorientation in these disciplines and learned to represent, interrogate, and meaningfully engage with the physical and social environment. The course concluded with a residency by public artist Ed Woodham, founder of the annual New York festival Art in Odd Places, and legendary feminist performance artist Linda Mary Montano, who gave workshops and curated an AiOP festival on the campus, with students creating site specific work and artist statements that connected the themes of the course. This case study addresses the themes of interdisciplinarity and the pedagogy of civic, political and community engagement through the interdisciplinary potential of humanistic education.