Well, I never quite got back to elaborating on my classes this quarter as promised. If there be any doubt, I’ve been quite busy this quarter, between three classes, freelance work, training employees at my “new” job, and commuting back-and-forth to greenville, I haven’t had a whole lot of recreational blogging time to keep things up-to-date.

Following that lengthy proviso, I will provide updates to two of my classes, the third is stilll wrapping up. I posted a preliminary paper for Pre-Columbian Art in Mesoamerica a while back, and over the past several weeks, I expanded the material culture method (read: no research) into a real, live, 15-page research paper complete with cool footnotes, figures, and everything. Who said academia is dead? Suprisingly, I already received the paper back from the professor, and aside from minor notes and elaboration on minutia I would have no way of knowing anything about, the paper was well received (for all those keeping track, that was a B+). So, for that class, I just get to present my research on Wednesday for all of the adoring mesoamerican students.

In semiotics, things have also been grand. Lectures have been stimulating, and I’ve had a number of chances to talk about Christianity within the theoretical and philosophical realms as it relates to our diverse and broad discussions (including evaluation of truth, beauty, behavior, creativity, the sacred and profane, color theory, et al). Suffice it to say, semiotics has been a whirlwind of thought and a dramatically affective construct to write within. The paper that I posted below has gone through some changes, hopefully positive, establishing a better overall conception of semiotics, and the essence of style, both in a universal and specific sense. This discussion of style allowed me to synthesize with art history, which is what I really love anyway. Fortunately, only a rewrite (or edit) of this paper was required for final submission (which, incidentally, is today), which becomes even more positive when considering the aforementioned mesoamerican paper, and a large digital studio project that is coming due this week as well.

[Just an editor’s note: if you don’t know what semiotics is (and I sure didn’t before I started my graduate degree), it’s OK. I provide a reasonably concise explanation of the semiotic model in my paper, attached below.]

I’ll just briefly note the digital studio project, since it is still in the final developmental stages. All quarter, my group (consisting of four members) has been developing a web site from the ground up for the Savannah Civil Rights Museum, aka the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum. I was fortunately able to sign on as the technical lead, primarily building out the site in code, while others dealt with the visual design and content. I say “fortunately” with my tongue-in-cheek since one of my group members decided to not do the aforementioned visual design. This resulted in me doing the entire visual design, in addition to all of the other responsibilities I already had. This has especially been evident this past weekend, where I spent three days of my holiday weekend working at this project. My only solace is the fact that the project is due on Wednesday.

Attached Files:

Political and Religious Symbology at Río Bec B: Power as Symbol in Temple B(yes, it’s the same title)

A Semiotic Analysis of Post-World War One Graphic Design: An Associational Study of Signs in De Stijl(same here)

Things have been quite busy this quarter thus far, and I’m finally able to come up for a bit of a breather. I had a major test in Mesoamerican and a paper due in Semiotics this week, so I’m finally able to post a bit of work from the topics I’ve been studying. In the context of Mesoamerican art, I am working on a paper exploring a the concepts of power and religious authority within the scope of a minor Maya site in the Yucatan called Río Bec. I wrote a five page introductory paper using a material culture method of exploration (the [Jules] Prown material culture method). The resulting pre-paper allows exploration into the object itself, and associated cultural connotations without significant research. I have since developed an extensive bibliography, and am now working on a final fifteen-page version due later this quarter.

In the realm of semiotics, lecture has been fascinating, and the paper that I recently completed ties many of the concepts we have discussed into an analytic framework that allows a semiotic analysis of a specific object or movement. I have chosen to work within the graphic design and traditional art movement of the De Stijl in the Netherlands (1917-1928), analyzing the sign functioning of complex gestalts and anti-naturalist features within the style. Further, I briefly explored the movement from introduced complex gestalts to the eventual recognition or comprehension of these complex gestalts as simple, or natural gestalts. This transformation of sign denotatum in the universal context allowed the perpetuation of universal signs, primary as logos and graphic symbols, later in the twentieth century. I’ll be writing a revision and expansion of this paper later in the quarter, hopefully using a more significant portion of my extensive bibliography in my citations.

Political and Religious Symbology at Río Bec B: Power as Symbol in Temple A

A Semiotic Analysis of Post-World War One Graphic Design: An Associational Study of Signs in the De Stijl