Study Guide for Exam #2

The format for this exam will follow that of Exam #1.

Short-answer items:

High culture versus low culture

Discuss Cowen’s view of cultural pessimism

Who is John Myatt?

Baumol and Bowen and public funding of the arts

The Thor Power Tools Case and its relationship to publishing

What is meant by the gold rush of intellectual property rights?

Significance of Florence to arts development

WPA

Federal theatre

HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist

Why was the CIA funding art during the Cold War?

According to the Cultural Cold War reading, what was particularly ironic about the views of the artists funded by the CIA?

What does the NEA fund?

Briefly describe the three “models” of American arts funding.

What was the Federal Writers’ Project and what did it do?

Nancy Hanks

Essay questions:

  Some people argue that copyright laws are outdated and outmoded. Explain the debate over copyright and intellectual property and why it is currently a controversial topic.

  Tyler Cowen argues the arts can, for the most part, sustain themselves in a market economy without government funding. Citing examples from text and lectures, explain why you agree or disagree with this assessment of the arts. 

STUDY GUIDE FOR MIDTERM #1, ART & THE STATE

You will be given two pieces of paper, with space for six identifications, of which you may choose five. You will also write a one page essay, to be drawn from one of two topics below (instructor’s choice, not yours). Bear in mind, however, that everyone has access to the questions in advance. Thus merely writing a succinct and minimally correct answer will probably not earn a very high grade. Instead, you need to seize the occasion to demonstrate how well you understand the course materials. This does not require slavishly emulating the instructor’s opinions, but it does demand thoughtful, well-documented responses.

Short Answer Questions

  Anthony Comstock

Communications Decency Act

Roth v. United States (1958)

v-chip

Meese Commission

Why did pornography only become a political issue after the invention of technologies for inexpensive reproduction of images and print?

What does it mean to speak of the "aura" of work of art?

How does Thomas Frank (The Conquest of Cool) believe corporate America responded to the "counterculture" of the 1960s-1970?

Jack Valenti

The problem with Ulysses

The problem with George Carlin

Hays Office

"The art world is a lot more macho than the post office." What do the Guerrilla Girls mean by this?

What was Justice Potter Stewart’s comment about pornography, and why was it alarming?

The culture industry

Budapest Statue Park Museum

Briefly explain what Marjorie Heins means by “Catharsis”?

Briefly explain what Marjorie Heins mean by “Imitation”?

Why did many New Yorkers object to Richard Serra’s statue, Tilted Arc?

What does it mean to speak of the "aura" of work of art?

How does Berger suggest property is related to oil painting?

Essay Top ics

After shifts in the political climate of a country (collapse of the Soviet Union, end of the American civil war, etc) the victors sometimes remove or destroy public artistic symbols of the previous regime.  Using an example, explain a) Why they might do this?  b) What effects it has? And c) What reasons there may be for keeping the artistic symbol in place and intact?   

You are the newly appointed culture minister (a new cabinet-level position) for the United States.  Explain your views on the tension between obscenity laws and the Constitution’s First Amendment, citing cases we have studied. How might you reconcile competing claims of constitutional loyalty with political demands for action to protect children?

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