UC San Diego: It Depends On What The Definition Of “Nude” Is
[guest post by Dana]
Visual Arts 104A: Performing the Self :
Using autobiography, dream, confession, fantasy, or other means to invent one’s self in a new way, or to evoke the variety of selves in our imagination, the course experiments with and explores the rich possibilities available to the contemporary artist in his or her own persona
After a parent complained that her daughter was forced to take her class final in the nude or risk not passing, UC San Diego Associate Professor Ricardo Dominguez confirmed that students in his Visual Arts 104A: Performing the Self class are indeed required to take the final in the nude in order to receive a passing grade.
In describing the class, Dominguez said, “The class focuses on the history of body art and performance art in relation to the question of the self or subjectivity.”
Explaining the lead-up to the final:
“At the very end of the class, we’ve done several gestures, they have to nude gesture. The prompt is to speak about or do a gesture or create an installation that says, ‘what is more you than you are.'”
He said that 20 students strip down, including him. He calls it a performance of self, in a dark room lit only by candlelight.
“It’s a standard canvas for performance art and body art,” Dominguez said.
Additionally, Dominguez offers this reassurance:
“It is very all [sic] controlled.”
Well, thank God for that, right?
Dominguez gives students who are uncomfortable stripping down the option to be either figuratively or emotionally naked.
And in 11 years of teaching the class, he claims to have never had a complaint and that students know what to expect when they sign up for the class.
In response to media attention, Chair of the Visual Arts Department, Dr. Jordan Crandall released the following statement to media:
“The concerns of our students are our department’s first priority, and I’d like to offer some contextual information that will help answer questions regarding the pedagogy of VIS 104A.
“Removing your clothes is not required in this class. The course is not required for graduation.
“VIS 104A is an upper division class that Professor Dominguez has taught for 11 years. It has a number of prompts for short performances called “gestures.” These include “Your Life: With 3 Objects and 3 Sounds” and “Confessional Self,” among others. Students are graded on the “Nude/Naked Self” gesture just like all the other gestures. Students are aware from the start of the class that it is a requirement, and that they can do the gesture in any number of ways without actually having to remove their clothes. Dominguez explains this – as does our advising team if concerns are raised with them. There are many ways to perform nudity or nakedness, summoning art history conventions of the nude or laying bare of one’s “traumatic” or most fragile and vulnerable self. One can “be” nude while being covered.
“There are many comments from former students that are visible online. These comments clarify the matter quite directly. It is important to listen to students who have actually taken the class. Again, the concerns of our students are our department’s first priority.”
UCSD yearly tuition: $31,000. That’s a heck of a lot of money for parents to pay to give some pervy professor the opportunity to see their young daughters (and sons) in the nude.
–Dana
Hello.
Dana (86e864) — 5/12/2015 @ 10:09 pmSo basically this is some phony baloney art class run by an old pervert who wants an excuse to check out naked young stuff.
Death to the Jihad (2b0c22) — 5/12/2015 @ 10:29 pmYou would think there is enough nudity available for free on the interwebs.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/12/2015 @ 11:38 pmHow is it that you conclude that when:
Gil (27c98f) — 5/12/2015 @ 11:49 pm1. This course is not required to graduate
2. 31,000 dollars is not the cost of just this class, but rather an average yearly tuition
Off-topic: USA Today beclowns itself:
“USA about to get Cuba’s lung cancer vaccine”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/05/12/lung-cancer-vaccine-cimavax-cuba/27168559
Kevin M (25bbee) — 5/13/2015 @ 12:05 amGil – why must you be an arse?
JD (3b5483) — 5/13/2015 @ 3:29 amIt’s a smart-assed comment Gil. For Gods sake grow a sense of humor.
Hoagie (58a3ec) — 5/13/2015 @ 3:53 amThe Big One cannot come soon enough.
DNF (208255) — 5/13/2015 @ 3:54 amIf my contention is that modern public schooling is systemic child abuse, why shouldn’t it end in a final exam that must be performed in the nude?
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:46 amTake a breath, Gil.
Depending on teh student body, class may call for trigger warnings.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:50 amI find the “trigger warning” concept funny. Because it isn’t applied uniformly, is it?
Just another silly Progressive tool, in order for the people who wield it to feel all cool and hip and better than other people.
This does remind me of San Diego’s Black’s Beach. There you discover that nude beaches often are peopled by folks who truly should think twice about being nude in public.
Lookism, I know. Sorry for triggering.
Simon Jester (46f0fb) — 5/13/2015 @ 4:57 amGil – you should type the words TRIGGER WARNING before every comment. Your microaggressions are unacceptable.
JD (ef7925) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:22 amThis is a “Motte and Bailey” con.
JWB (6cba10) — 5/13/2015 @ 5:59 amisn’t art class about drawing the nude, not being the nude,
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:20 amIt sounds kind of rapey
JD (3b5483) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:41 amI just can’t get excited about some goofy class that students have the option to take or not.
I am much more concerned about things like this.
This excerpt from a video of a student describing the night he was sexually assaulted is from an online sexual assault prevention program that is new to Ohio University this year. All incoming freshman students must complete the course by Oct. 15. Students are unable to register for spring classes until they do so.
Bill Arnold, graduate assistant for bystander intervention and prevention education with the OU Survivor Advocacy Program (OUSAP), said Thursday the Not Anymore program is akin to the mandatory Alcohol EDU course all freshmen must take. The online course takes about two hours to complete, and features video lessons on topics including consent, alcohol, sexual assault, bystander intervention and rape culture.
At least Ohio U is a private college but this is absolute bullshit. And mandatory.
USC Medical School now has a Diversity Coordinator. I met her last fall. Now we know what “Gender Studies” graduates do
Mike K (90dfdc) — 5/13/2015 @ 6:58 amNarcisco, JD
They layers of approval for this to even occur is mind boggling
EPWJ (db4127) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:08 amI have little to no sympathy for the student in this case as it’s hard to believe she had no idea that this class required a nude final either via the course syllabus or from her fellow art students (gossip about professors and classes is rampant on any campus). If the discussion is about the validity of using the nude human form as a part of artistic expression then have at it, but this is much ado about nothing.
Sean (69ccc8) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:25 amAt least she is not carrying a mattress around the campus.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:30 amschizophrenia, is quite nearly at the sybil level, they didn’t anticipate with the whole ‘rape culture’ narrative, this wouldn’t happen?
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:32 amThis gives new, richer meaning to the term “navel gazing.”
carlitos (c24ed5) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:32 amMaybe Mattress Girl would find solace in this class. It will make a great drawing, sort of like Atlas carrying the globe, but different.,
Pat (c9dfd7) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:00 pm@Dana:That’s a heck of a lot of money for parents to pay to give some pervy professor the opportunity to see their young daughters (and sons) in the nude.
The “children” who attend college today are adult enough to marry, command armies, and rule nations in earlier times. The Black Prince was 16 when his father refused to reinforce him at the Battle of Crecy, saying “say to them, that they suffer hym this day to wynne his spurres, for if god be pleased, I woll this journey be his, and the honoure thereof.”
Almost all of these “children” are old enough to enlist (or be conscripted) and stop a bullet for their country, without the consent of their parents, and many of them are old enough to be Congressmen.
Furthermore, their college education is at most partially paid for by their parents, with the taxpayers directly and indirectly subsidizing most of it and with most students working part- or full-time jobs during the school year.
They can handle the decision whether or not a class that requires nudity is worth taking.
Gabriel Hanna (41a92c) — 5/13/2015 @ 7:53 pmRobert Stacy McCain is not my cup of tea, but he has many things worth saying, and this is one, regarding the “children” who populate our colleges and universities:
In an earlier age — say, 1800 or 1700 — the young Ms. Stokes would have lived on a farm, and at 15 or 16 would have married the 18- or 19-year-old son of a neighboring farmer and, by the time the actual 21st-century Ms. Stokes was getting weird high school crushes, she would have been heavily pregnant with her first child. And then they all would have died of smallpox or a potato famine or some such misery.
Once Upon a Time, you see, people had things to worry about that were more serious than their feelings. If my ancestors had any interior dialogues, these have been lost to posterity because (a) there were no blogs back then, and (b) most of my ancestors prior to the 20th century were illiterate, or nearly so. In the National Archives is a document pertaining to my great-grandfather, Winston Wood Bolt, a young farm boy who fought as a private in the 13th Alabama Infantry Regiment. The document is a receipt for an amount paid to Private Bolt, signed by his regiment’s colonel, Birkett Davenport Fry.
Private Bolt’s signature? “X.”
My illiterate great-grandfather had more serious things to worry about than his feelings. Not long after he signed his X to that receipt, Private Bolt was captured at Gettysburg, when the Iron Brigade outflanked Archer’s Brigade east of Willoughby’s Run, and Private Bolt spent the next two years imprisoned at Fort Delaware, where the prisoners caught, cooked and ate rats to augment their rations.
Hard times make hard people, and sensitivity is a luxury not afforded to those whose lives are a matter of toil and hardship.
Psychological toughness — a determination not easily daunted by difficult circumstances — is what young people really need, but how shall they acquire this if we are afraid to wound their self-esteem?
Our ancestors were all survivors. We forget this, or rather we never learn it and, with no knowledge of the struggles of our forebears, we suffer from not having their example to inspire us.
By treating them as children we encourage them to remain children. Any college student caught in anything, from plagiarized homework to a felony, immediately proclaims themselves to be “just a kid”. They may even believe it, but the effect is the same as if they consciously were trying to evade responsibility.
Gabriel Hanna (41a92c) — 5/13/2015 @ 9:35 pmYou have to suspect a person who would sign up for ‘selfie’ class in the first place.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 5/14/2015 @ 8:28 amIt’s like signing up for music appreciation or womyn’s studies.
Mr. Professor
Judy Eaton (29f139) — 5/14/2015 @ 8:59 amhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B6NJy9d7Vo
wow. The professor is an off the chart nutcase. Maybe Obamacare can transpatent him up some nanofabricated communistic mental healthcare.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 5/14/2015 @ 9:39 ami that’s some kind of tedious ineffective attempt at satire
which is not to say he’s not a nutcase
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 9:52 amCollege is a hotbed of rape. It needs rules about affirmative consent. And all nude final exams.
Seriously. The last bit sounds like something only drunk frat boys would come up with.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 9:55 amnuttier than a fruitbat:
http://visarts.ucsd.edu/faculty/ricardo-dominguez
narciso (ee1f88) — 5/14/2015 @ 9:57 ami *think* that’s some kind of tedious ineffective attempt at satire i mean
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 10:09 amThere is another way.
http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/maintenance_hf/library/documents/media/human_factors_maintenance/evaluation_of_us_military_amt_training_and_experience.pdf
Or trade school.
Instead of going into $31k/year of debt on leering “visual arts” perfessers so you can later Occupy! when you find out your worthless degree in nonsense only qualifies you for the same job you could have gotten if you dropped out of high school.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 10:16 amTedious ineffective attempts at satire?
For only $31k a year?
Sign me up! Where do I get my student loan?
Because tedious ineffective attempts at satire are marketable skillzz.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 10:20 amit’s depressing
i wish i had some of those little capsules of shelf-stable coffee creamer
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:05 amSteve, my neighbor teaches an aviation maintenance course at a local community college that leads to FAA accreditation. A year ago, nine out of ten of his students were Chinese kids here on visas. He’s a Democrat and I haven’t talked to him recently. The son of another neighbor is taking the aviation program at a different community college located within the City of Seattle. So the programs do exist, and they are affordable. And they aren’t hopelessly PC as far as I could tell.
My point is that opportunities are there if someone has the gumption to take advantage of them. But with $15/hour now guaranteed for illiterate, innumerate and undisciplined affirmative action candidates, it is probably not the road to advancement that many would choose.
bobathome (4dc6e9) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:27 amMy point is that I look at the kid drinking bottled water as he Occupy!s Wall Street demanding to known who’s going to pay for his Ivy league cinema degree and I would dearly love to be 2000 miles closer so I could slug him in his smug face.
I tossed better men them him.
And, if I have you calibrated correctly, so have you.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:44 amFor any and all NSA and FBI, I would never take an action that would lead to any violence against another human being unless it was absolutely necessary in the course of my naval duties or for the defense of a life.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:47 amthat’s very disappointing
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:54 amI think FAA certified technicians make several times that.
Not that I don’t get your basic point. I do believe for the rare few there is still an incentive. The $15/hour illiterate will be able, maybe, as prices for everything will go up, to vacation in Hawaii.
Which means the guy wrenching on the engines at $25/hour will still be in the fat.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:58 amWhat? That I’ve lasted over half a century and resisted the urge?
I recommend you start with these.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=49&v=BrXfqjJWGXo
Although the pushup thingy @1:40 works better if you start not with the arm straight in the air. b But folded down, and then you thrust it up into the air as you push yourself up.
I mention this as I’ve recently commented on the fact that no woman has passed the USMC Infantry Officer’s Course or Army Ranger school. I have all kinds of respect for women. It’s the system of human sacrifice I dislike.
If I had my way, Kara Hultgren would still be alive. She just wouldn’t be a pilot.
Also, indian clubs are superior to kettlebells. But kettlebells will work.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 12:20 pmi think it’s adorable the way australians say “excellent”
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 12:32 pmWhich is why I left my heart in Perth, Mr. feets.
And my liver in a hotel room in Bangkok. Draped over the back of a chair.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 12:46 pmi need one of them passport thingies Mr. 57
as it stands I’m quite provincial
happyfeet (a037ad) — 5/14/2015 @ 1:08 pmWhen I make a comment over at Instapundit I live in anticipation of getting enough up votes to appear in the featured comment box. That’s the big time. The blog comment promised land. It’ll never happen. Best I’ll get is one or two people who agree with me.
But one thing I’d never do, even though that’s the goal, is to up vote my own comment. It’s just not done. Crass. Poor form. Petty.
Sort of like if Professor Dominguez were to post a rating for himself on Rate My Professors.
papertiger (c2d6da) — 5/14/2015 @ 10:22 pmWhich he did.
It’s OK mr. feets not everyone can be all sophisticated like me.
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 10:50 pmR.I.P. B B King
Icy (a9d9c1) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:04 pmAww, jeez. B.B. King?
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:08 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiBOJT38Cvg
Steve57 (e468ba) — 5/14/2015 @ 11:24 pmthanks Steve57
mg (31009b) — 5/15/2015 @ 1:44 amB.B. has giving me a good time.
God Bless B.B.