![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogWith the 11th pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, the Buffalo Bills select....Aaron Maybin, defensive end, Penn State University.
This selection was made on Saturday, as anyone not under a media rock (in this country, at least) likely already knows. It took until yesterday, though, for some of Mr. Maybin's academic background from Happy Valley to leak out.
Opposing linemen won't be facing some cheesy phys ed major, or basket weaver, or specialist in Rocks for Jocks. No, the new anchor of our defensive line majored in Integrative Arts.
Let's flip open the course catalog, shall we?
INART 010 POP MEDIA ARTS
01/12/2009-05/01/2009 Credits: 3.0
Satisfies General Education - Arts (GA)
The Popular Arts in America: Mass Media Arts (3) An introduction to the arts of the mass media with emphasis on how film, radio, television, and the print media influence and reflect society....Class meetings consist of lectures and in-class discussions that illustrate modern critical approaches to popular culture and the terminology used in presenting critical arguments and ideological viewpoints on these art forms. Reading assignments will support classroom work by presenting students with a diversity of opinion on popular culture and significant examples of that culture in print media. Further, examples of historically significant popular mass media arts will be shown in class and then discussed in relation to the concepts and critical viewpoints covered in lectures. In addition to regular scheduled classes, students will participate in an on-line Media Journal that requires watching, listening to, and reading examples of contemporary mass media art (television programs, motion pictures, comics, graphic novels, etc.). Every two weeks, students will be required to see, read, or hear an assigned contemporary work of popular mass media art and record their critical responses on the online Media Journal that will be accessible to all other members of the class.
In other words, watch television. The sports talk guys were having quite a bit of fun with the concept of last-minute cramming for this course: "Damn! I forgot to watch Lost! Now I'm gonna have to do my paper on a 3 a.m. infomercial for Shamwow!"
INART 055 HISTORY OF ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC
01/12/2009-05/01/2009 Credits: 3.0
Satisfies General Education - Arts (GA)
A history of electroacoustic music as a consequence of developments in culture and technology from 1880 to present.
This course focuses on the interrelationship and parallel development of technology, art and music from the earliest electronic devices to the current ubiquitous computer audio workstation and electronics dance music.
Electronica is a multi-faceted genre that borrows from a number of past innovators. Its artists routinely acknowledge the influence, for example, of musique concrete, Karlheinz Stockhausen and the theremin, yet their audiences are often unaware of the roots of the music that occupies much of their recreational time and social energy.... The course asks students to be aware of vital technological developments in audio (the evolution from the Edison phonograph to the CD player), electronics (the evolution from the spark gap oscillator to the vacuum tube to the transistor to the microprocessor), cultural movements (from Impressionism and Romanticism to modernism to postmodernism), and to become sensitized to the chief innovators in the field (the differences in the music of Schaffer, Stockhausen, Carlos, Chowning, and others). They are made aware not only of names and terms, but also taught to recognize differences in the different sounds of different composers and styles. The course has been offered two semesters as a 297 offering. It is designed so that it may eventually be offered completely online. The text is online, and the listening assignments are also posted at the PSU Digital Music Library.
Right. You really wouldn't want a 400-pound hunk of quarterback-chasing meat getting his groove on in an actual classroom where innocent students might get hurt.
Grading will be based on weekly quizzes that ask for definitions and short answers, four tests that require essays and identification of listening examples, and two papers focused on different compositions/composers.
Students are responsible for bringing their own mp3 players and crayons to the exams.
----
Ah, but let's be fair. These are intro courses, what we used to call the 100-levels. Let's see what the InArts faculty have cooking up in their 200-levels for majors:
INART 200 ELVIS PRESLEY
01/12/2009-05/01/2009 Credits: 3.0
Satisfies General Education - Arts (GA)
INART 200 is composed of eight chronologically arranged units of study that trace Elvis Presley's life; accomplishments; the significance of his art; his influence as a performer, recording artist, and motion picture star; and , perhaps most important, his place as a force and symbol of social/cultural change in the second half of the 20th century. Elvis was the principal symbol of change in a time when change was all-important. He was the first of the great rock and roll superstars, a herald of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, and the central figure in the musical revolution that brought rock and roll into the popular mainstream. He was - and is - the King of Rock and Roll and his place and importance in the cultural history of the twentieth century can never be overstated or exaggerated. The thrust of the course is sociological and cultural rather than musicological and the intent of the course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of Elvis as an artist, his significance in the development of rock and roll, and his importance in our social and cultural history.
Each unit of study will be accomplished by key examples of recorded music and video records of important performances from television and motion pictures. The course includes approximately 100 important recordings and 15 video performances for required study.
An interdisciplinary section of the curriculum, presented with the Phys Ed department, will analyze and invite conclusions on the body mass indices (BMI) of "Young Elvis" and "Fat Elvis" with appropriate diet and exercise regimens developed for future kinglike performers facing such sociological traumas in their careers. Future NFL draftees, for instance.
Okay, I made that last part up. But how can you be sure I didn't make up the whole damn thing?
----
It should also be mentioned that Penn State offers a graduate-level seminar discussing the philosophical implications of "Being and Nothingness," but I would imagine Maybin only took that to prepare himself for the Bills' 2009 schedule.