topics2000

Suggestions about issues and topics
for an extended paper and presentation on our topic:
In the Midst of Water: Origin and Destiny of Life

1. What are the artistic and metaphorical aspects of water? Select any pairing of what we have read and seen, perhaps with an outside reading and/or viewing and explore your discoveries.

2. What are the properties of water used by artists of various traditions? Compare or explore in depth one who fascinates you. How do artists use water as a background to create or express a mood? Consider other artistic forms besides painting, if you'd like.

3. What is there about water that inspires an aesthetic response? This is abstract, but consider the possibilities: elements are basic--what is about water that compels an artist? Why would, for example, Monet paint the pond at Giverny over and over again?

4. What was Handel’s inspiration for his water music? Debussy’s for "La Mer"? How does the theme of water "sound" in music?

5. How have cultures within the oral tradition used water and water subjects to explore the human experience and human values? This touches on issues of mythology, cultural archetypes, and religion. For example, what accounts for the development of a flood story in the Babylonian tradition and the lack of a flood story in Egyptian mythology or history? Can you trace the use of water in the story of origin in myths and religions?

6. How have architects incorporated water in the presentation of buildings and landscapes? Why do pools and ponds figure so prominently in building and landscape architecture?

7. How have various cultures and traditions incorporated water into their mythologies?

8. How have authors incorporated water into their fiction to represent regeneration or degeneration?

9. How have authors incorporated water into their fiction to represent constancy and/or stability?

10. The topic title suggests origins and destiny: a beginning and an end. Use that theme as an organizing principle for a selection of works that illustrates the theme. Perhaps read an auxiliary text and make this the focus of your theme: for example, Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

11. Why do so many literary selections use the voyage over water for thematic purposes?

Consider the following:

    Poetry:
        The Iliad
        The Odyssey
        Rime of the Ancient Mariner
        Genesis, Exodus, Jonah, the Gospels, Revelation

    Fiction:
        Any of our texts

    Film:
        Regen by Joris Ivens
        Rain based on the story by Maugham
        The River (East Indian)
        The Old Man and the Sea
        Das Boot
        A River Runs Through It
        Waterworld
        The Virgin Spring
        The Song of Bernadette
        The Perfect Storm

Some resources for such topics can be found here:

Web sites:

http://www.csn.net/~beatty

American classical composer, Stephen W. Beatty, presents Symphony Number Six, neo romantic symphonic music, recorded using a computer with symphonic.

http://www.austinmillerstudio.com

Watercolor paintings of lighthouses, Lake Superior, LaPointe, Cornucopia, Apostle Islands, and Bayfield, Wisconsin.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/T/turner.html. Here is a website of paintings by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a British artist with incredible abilities to capture water as both a source of tranquility and as a source of turmoil.

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/8762/Musica/WaterMusic.htm. This website gives information about Handel's Water Music.

Printed Material:

Bierce, Ambrose. "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," The Norton Anthology of American Literature, fifth edition, volume 2, 1998, pp. 269-276. This short story chronicles a suspenseful episode in the water.

Calado, Jorge. Waterproof: 650 Years of Water in Photography, Stemble,1999.

Croutier, Alev. Taking the Waters. Abbeville Press, Inc., 1992. Explores water in mythology, art, literature, movies, plays and other aspects of our culture.

Dana, Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast. New York: Penguin USA, 1980. This book has probably infected more young men with sea fever than any other volume ever written. In the years after its publication in 1840, however, the book had a less romantic influence: its realistic portrayal of the common sailor's dismal treatment at sea awakened contemporary social conscience and led to maritime reform.

Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, Mircea Eliade Philip Mairet (Translator). Anything by Mircea Eliade is essential for a discussion of the mythological properties of water. He has published perhaps a dozen or more books on religion and mythology--all of them thoughtful.

Living Water: Water Symbolism in the Bible, Jones, Larry Paul, Abingdon Press, August, 1998.

Ions, Veronica. Egyptian Mythology, New York, NY: Peter Bedrick Books, 1983. Primordial creation story and a description of the importance of water, especially the Nile River, in pharonic Egypt.

Reynolds, John. Windmills and Watermills, New York: Praeger, 1970. Excursions into the use of water in architecture.

Rosenblatt, Roger. "Let Rivers Run Deep: In Search of the Beauty and Mystery of Home," Time , August 2, 1999.

Russell, Vivian. Art----Monet’s Water Lillies, The Undersea World of Wyland, 1990.

Spence, Lewis. Ancient Egyptian Myths and Legends, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, NY, 1990. Creation story of the founding of Egypt out of a watery void.

Stack, James and Hamilton Paterson. Sea Change: The Seascape in Contemporary Photography. Creative Photography, 1999.

Westervelt, William. Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu, Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1963. Myth about the magical "water of life of Kane" (Hawaiian god).

Presentation format guidelines:

1. Presentation should cover at least 10 minutes but not exceed 20.

2. Presentation should not be a deliberate reading of the text of your paper.

3. Presentation will be evaluated on its:
        a. content (how intellectually robust it is)
        b. delivery (how well you engage your audience)
        c. creativity (insights and fresh ideas that you introduce)
        d. connection to the semester topic (how well your topic ties in with our theme)

4. You may use visual aids, handouts, overheads, or other supplements to your presentation (but the distribution or explanation of these should not be a part of your
10 - 20 minute presentation).

5. Introduce your topic at the very outset and explain your reasons for tackling such a topic: this will help clarify for listeners your motivations.

6. After the 10 - 20 minutes of presentation, we will allow up to 15 additional minutes for a Q&A period. If this proceeds well, this may positively impact the "delivery" category, above.

7. Above all, relax and explain. You're among friends!