====== AD 485 Foundations: Theories and Practices ======

Course Description: Utilizing a range of analytical and practical frameworks this course includes an intensive examination of the methods, production, values, philosophies and theories surrounding art and design. 

=== Instructional Goals ===
  * Analyze and evaluate the range of theories of art and design.
  * Synthesize and evaluate methodology for the creative process.
  * Evaluate the value of art and design and examine how “value” is determined. 
  * Contextualize art and design within a cultural system.
  * Understand that interpreting art and design is interdisciplinary.
  * Critically evaluate and assess art and design.



=== Required Methods ===
  * Exposure to a survey of prevailing theories of art and design
		- aesthetics
		- representation and realism
		- expressionism, formalism
		- spiritualism
		- psychoanalysis
		- documentary/biography/autobiography
		- iconography
		- marxism
		- feminism
		- structuralism and semiotics
		- deconstruction: modernism and postmodernism
		- community and commodity
  * Examination of art and design with regards to theoretical aspects
		- art, design and identity: race, class, gender, memory & artifacts, spirituality, post colonialism
		- art, design and ethics: sustainability, authorship, social networking & collaboration, globalism
		- art, design and business: art vs. design vs. craft, entertainment, protest & persuasion, commerce & consumerism, art as cultural capital, public funding
  * Evaluate art and design from a synthesis of interpretive methods: structure; production; interpretation and reception; function, meaning, and response
  * Effectively synthesize a methodology of analysis-research-iteration and evaluate its effectiveness 


=== Course Outcomes ===
  * Analyze a range of theories as they apply to specific works, historical movements, and modes of production in Art & Design
  * Formulate a methodology for the creative process which includes analysis-research-iteration and evaluate its effectiveness
  * Critically evaluate and assess art and design via written criticism
  * Critically evaluate and assess art and design via verbal assessment