Desperately Seeking the Self
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| Freshman Laura Goldberg with her self-portrait, Tainted by Love. |
Socrates’ injunction to “Know thyself” is, of course, easier said than done. Artists’ portrayals of themselves can also be fraught with elusiveness. Is there an essential inner self that remains the same or do artists “perform” themselves in ways that cast doubt on a permanent self? Some of the complication and artifice that go into representing the self in literature, art, drama, and film were explored last fall in The Self-Portrait. An offering in the Pilot Curriculum’s general requirement, the interdisciplinary course was teamtaught by Assistant Professor Tina Lu (Asian and Middle Eastern studies), Associate Professor Catriona MacLeod (Germanic languages and literature) and Dr. Victoria Coates, Gr’98, a lecturer in art history.
Besides moving back and forth across European and Chinese cultural boundaries, The Self-Portrait combined traditional analytic work—papers and discussions exploring the course’s texts, images, and themes—with an end-of-term creative project. “We wanted the students to experience what it would be like to try and do this thing they’d been analyzing all semester,” explained Professor MacLeod. Projects included traditional and not-so-conventional forms: poetry, philosophical and autobiographical essays, photography, paintings, sketches, sculpture, an ice skating performance, a song that was performed live, an Indian dance, a computer-generated collage, a board game, and others. “The results were so amazing,” MacLeod remarked. “We were blown away by the level of skill and achievement, and the energy the students put into it.”