HUMA-1315 The Arts in Contemporary Society


Carrie Simpson

Credit Fall 2025


Section(s)

HUMA-1315-002 (22007)
LEC DIL ONL DIL

Course Requirements

Course Description

  • Credit hours: 3
  • Online classes require more than the standard classroom hours to be successful. Please be prepared to read, discuss and submit assignments on time. This can require between 6 to 10 hours a week under the best of circumstances. Please be prepared and communicate if you are having trouble keeping up with the readings and assignments.

An introductory course designed to enhance a student's understanding and appreciation of the modes of communicating ideas and emotions through the visual and performing arts.
There are no course prerequisites for The Arts in Contemporary Society. A passing score or the equivalent on the reading portion of the TSI is required.

Students interested in transferring courses to another college should speak with their Area of Study (AoS) advisor, Department Chair, and/or Program Director.”


Readings

Required Course Materials:
Freeland, Cynthia. But is it art? Oxford University Press, 2001. ISBN: 978-0-19-285367-7

All other readings are provided for you in Blackboard. Please refer to the Modules and Required Reading Folder for more information.


Course Subjects

Course Rationale

The study of the humanities from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective affords the student the opportunity not only to acquire a deeper appreciation of particular works of art but also to gain a larger perspective on the work of art as an expression of the human spirit in a particular time and place.

Topic Description

This course examines art appreciation in contemporary society with a survey style overview of art in the modern world. This course also provides students with an overview of aesthetics as it applies to the visual arts and investigates the methods in which humans create, experience, and evaluate the fine arts.

Aesthetics, for the purpose of this class, is experiencing something that makes you feel connected to something larger than yourself. There is art everywhere around us: in nature, in architecture, in the sounds we hear, the signs we see, our entertainment, our communication. This course simply asks us to look at the art around us with a more critical and aware eye. Why is that art? Why do we appreciate it? Or do we? Am I participating in modern art? Do I have a choice? What is the function of art?


Student Learning Outcomes/Learning Objectives

Departmental Course Student Learning Outcomes

After successful completion of a Humanities course a student should be able to:

    • Identify a variety of significant works of art from various genres in contemporary art (literature, theatre, music, painting, sculpture, digital design, dance, musicals, photography)
    • Analyze works of art within their cultural context.
    • Evaluate the relationship between the arts and human values.

Instructor Course Level Outcomes

After successful completion of this course a student should be able to:

    • Identify various characteristics and concerns of recent and contemporary visual arts, performance arts and digital arts.
    • Analyze contemporary art (visual, performance, and digital), its context, and how these cultural works intervene in discussions of class, race, and gender.
    • Evaluate the relationship between art and life in recent and contemporary imaginative arts.
    • Evaluate how contemporary art allows us to see cultures differently.
    • Identify traits of postmodernist philosophy as present in the contemporary arts.

 

General Education Competencies

    • Communication Skills: Develop, interpret, and express ideas and information through written, oral and visual communication that is adapted to purpose, structure, audience, and medium.
    • Critical Thinking Skills: Gather, analyze, synthesize, evaluate and apply information for the purposes of innovation, inquiry, and creative thinking.
    • Personal Responsibility: Identify and apply ethical principles and practices to decision- making by connecting choices, actions and consequences
    • Social Responsibility (Civic and Cultural Awareness): Analyze differences and commonalities among peoples, ideas, aesthetic traditions, and cultural practices to include intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and the ability to engage effectively in regional, national, and global communities.

Office Hours


Published: 05/27/2025 10:27:41