Integrated Learning

Fall 2009-Spring 2010 ILML 400 courses for the Liberal Arts & Sciences Department :

Go to Integrated Learning for more information

Designing the Political
Site partner: Center for the Study of the Political Graphics

Can design stop a war? Can it topple political structures? Can design conquer social injustice? This course investigates the role of artists and designers as powerful agents of protest and progress. Emphasis will be placed on a historical contextualization of political graphics to learn more about the role of propaganda, the face of the enemy, and the power of the visual text to shape the perception of the “other” for better or worse.

Contact Instructor Kerri Steinberg for more information at ksteinberg@otis.edu.
 

Festival
Site partner: Loyola/LA planning group and Bill Rosendahl’s office

Through readings and presentations by community organizers, business and fundraising professionals, students will learn what goes into building and promoting a successful community festival. They will create a business plan, a marketing plan, and a fundraising/development plan that can be used by the college and the local community in creating an annual festival that celebrates this area of the city in a partnership between Otis College and local government agencies and businesses.

Contact Instructor Andy Davis for more information at adavis@otis.edu.
 

“Homeboy” Histories and Culture
Site partner: Homeboy Industries

This course explores personal experience narratives and how they are expressed in the visual arts by their narrators. In addition, this course focuses on identity and the way in which it is expressed: political, ethnic, and social identities serve as markers for social mobility and control.

Student Projects from Fall 2007 - Spring 2008

Contact Instructor Ysamur Flores-Pena for more information at ypena@otis.edu.
 

LA Past Lives: A Virtual Architecture
Site partner: Richard Riordan Central Library

This course will challenge students to reconstruct past physical and social nexuses of neighborhoods/communities in LA combining both architectural and design components with art, cinema and private histories of present and past community members. Students will generate an online archival display of LA’s past communities as part of this course.

Contact Instructor Adam Berg for more information at aberg@otis.edu.
 

Modern Mysticism and the Afterlife
Site partner: Hollywood Forever Cemetary

This class explores the concept of the soul/spirit as viewed through modern mysticism, mystic individuals and social movements. Students will look into cross-cultural perspectives regarding death, life after death, and the eternal search by individuals and cultures for meaning within these concepts. They will also explore rites of intensification that allow people to bring death into the life cycle. Students will read about and discuss various forms of analysis regarding these ideas and attend field trips designed to give students first-hand experience into these concepts so that they may formulate their own analytical perspective. Students will also experiment with and attempt to use or perform some of these practices and concepts in class and hear from guest speakers such as ghost hunters and mediums.

Hollywood Forever Cemetery is the site partner and students will participate in their annual Dia de los Muertos Festival on October 24th and create a festival altar and research the function of the festival for the participants.

Contact Instructor Heather Joseph-Witham for more information at hwitham@otis.edu.
 

Movies That Matter
Mentor: Judy Arthur
Site partner: FilmAid International

As artists and designers, students need to understand that movies can inspire and educate as well as entertain. In this class students will gain a historical perspective to understand the past and present in order to visualize the future. Through compelling and entertaining stories, the selected films depict social, political, cultural and gender, racial and ethnic issues.  More detailed description (PDF)

Contact Instructor Perri Chasin for more information at pchasin@otis.edu.
 

Museums: Public Engagment
Site Partner: Getty Museum

The question of visitor engagement in the work of museums is especially heightened in Los Angeles, one of the world’s epicenters for the arts. How can the rich content of museums function as a useful resource for the way we live our lives? Can museums ignite the muse or inspiration in all of us? How do museums manage the paradox of the dual pressures: be a popcorn machine of cultural activity and be a place for solitude and contemplation? Can museums be a resource for the complex concerns of our time?

This is an opportunity for the next generation of professionals from the disciplines of art and design to address these questions to the benefit of all involved.

Contact Instructor Robert Sain for more Information at rsain@otis.edu.
 

Nurturing Identity and Community
Site Partner: Proyecto Jardín Community Garden

A microcosm of our globalized society, Proyecto Jardin community garden is unlike other community gardens in its emphasis on health education, but also in the fact that its design and maintenance depend on collaboration among interested parties. The presence of multiple constituents, all of whom represent voluntary and involuntary global mobility, reveals specific ways in which people identify as well as the ways they seek to address emerging issues associated with the globalized food economy. In this course students will learn and employ ethnographic theories and methods to conduct interviews with garden patrons to discover their experiences in order to ascertain the specific and creative ways in which each person constructs an identity and to discern how the garden facilitates that performance.

Contact Instructor Claudia Hernandez for more information at chernandez@otis.edu.
 

The Otis Legacy Project
Mentor: Sue Maberry
Site partner: Office of Otis Alumni Relations

This course focuses on preserving and showcasing the rich oral, written, and visual history of Otis alumni. Students will research selected alumni, place their work in an art historical context, learn interviewing techniques, interview Otis alumni, and write biographies. Students meet alumni who have shaped art and design history and lived their dreams.

YouTube video of distinguished alumnus Milford Zornes and others, produced in this course Fall 2007-spring 2008.

Contact Instructor Joan Takayama-Ogawa for more information at takayama@otis.edu.
 

Walking Freedom's Road: Examining the Civil Rights Struggle

The Civil Rights movement made far reaching strides during 1956–1968. Using the upcoming exhibit “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement 1956-1968” at the Skirball Cultural Center as a focal point, students will discuss how this era reshaped American history, society, and culture from a multi-disciplinary perspective. This course will also examine the events, figures, and issues central to the Civil Rights movement.

Contact Instructor Carol Branch for more information at ananse@otis.edu.