Encouraging Integrative Learning through Current Events and Learning Portfolios

In this essay, an Art History professor frustrated by student indifference to ancient art develops a new course goal and class activity. The professor hoped to foster students’ appreciation of ancient cultures while they worked toward achieving deep, lasting learning. In the first version of the activity, students were asked to read current events and connect them to the course material as well as to their other classes and own lives. Although some students met some of the goal, the professor was not satisfied. The activity was revised, with students including their article responses in learning portfolios and reflecting upon them in a final portfolio essay. The portfolio reflection essays indicate that many students succeed in achieving integrative learning, while the essays themselves facilitate integrative scholarship and student appreciation of the subject matter

A New Approach to Teaching Roman Art History

This article describes an approach to teaching ancient Roman art using historical empathy and current world events to foster students’ engagement with, and learning about, both ancient Roman art and, more broadly, the power of art. This pedagogical approach can inspire richer understanding and increased motivation to learn, while offering possibilities for civic engagement. The suggestions may be helpful for secondary or college-level teachers of Roman art, and for classics teachers who incorporate ancient visual culture

Fishtail Braids and the Caryatid Hairstyling Project: Fashion Today and in Ancient Athens

The fishtail braid, newly popular in the past five years on adult women on New York streets and the runway, also conspicuously adorns the famed Caryatids, or maidens, 430 BCE, from the Erechtheion on the Athenian Acropolis. The Caryatids have been carefully studied for their pose and clothing, but their unique hairstyles have been overlooked. Previous scholars described these ancient hairstyles simply as braided without defining the specific braids used or whether or not the hairstyle could be recreated. No one had identified the fishtail braid as the main braid down the back and as the style of some of the side braids wrapped around the heads of the Caryatids. The authors worked with a professional hairstylist and six Fairfield University student models to demonstrate that these ancient Greek arrangements of braids were not merely the creations of sculptors but could have been worn. Our project recreating the braids and their arrangements is a research method known as experimental archaeology, a way to test hypotheses related to antiquity by using methods as archaeologically accurate as possible, and striving for historically accurate results. The project’s genesis began in 2007 with the exhibition The Creative Photograph in Archaeology at Fairfield University, in which detailed photographs of the Caryatids provided uncommon views of their hair. In 2009, Professor of Art History Katherine A. Schwab made an internationally-screened short film which provides the basis for further inquiry on technique and meaning. Coincidentally, at the same time, the fishtail braid began to be featured prominently on runways and in the fashion press. This article examines the techniques and meanings of the fishtail braid, which connect girls and women today to their counterparts in antiquity. Students who wore the braids thought about hairstyles in an entirely new way and as a compelling portal to another time and place. Ancient Athenians were no longer a vague concept but real people whose lives were played out in the surviving art

Designing Courses for Significant Learning: Voices of Experience: New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 119

Marice Rose and Roben Torosyan are contributing authors, Integrating Big Questions with Real World Applications: Models from Art History and Philosophy , p. 61-71. Book Description: Leading researchers and practitioners explore the frontiers of education from an Integral perspective.The educational challenges faced today are driving us toward a new step in the evolution of educational theory and practice. Educators are called to go beyond simply presenting alternatives, to integrating the best of mainstream and alternative approaches and taking them to the next level. Integral Education accomplishes this by bringing together leading researchers and practitioners from higher education who are actively exploring the frontiers of education from an integral perspective. It presents an overview of the emerging landscape of integral education from a variety of theoretical and applied perspectives. Key characteristics of integral education include exploring multiple perspectives, employing different pedagogical techniques (e.g., reflective, dialogical, empirical), combining conceptual rigor with embodied experience, drawing on developmental psychology, and cultivating a reflective and transformative space for students and teachers alike. Integral Education provides the most comprehensive synopsis of this exciting new approach and serves as a valuable resource for any integral effort within education. - Publisher descriptionhttps://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/visualandperformingarts-books/1000/thumbnail.jp

Roman Sculpture in Context: Selected Papers in Ancient Art and Architecture, Volume 6

Marice Rose is a contributing author, Body/Culture: Display and Reception of the Farnese Hercules, Chapter 10, pp 177-197. This volume tackles a pressing issue in Roman art history: that many sculptures conventionally used in our scholarship and teaching lack adequate information about their find locations. Questions of context are complex, and any theoretical and methodological reframing of Roman sculpture demands academic transparency. This volume is dedicated to privileging content and context over traditions of style and aesthetics. Through case studies, the chapters illustrate multivariate ways to contextualize ancient objects. The authors encourage Roman art historians to look beyond conventional interpretations; to reclaim from the study of Greek sculpture the Roman originals that are too often relegated to discussions of copies and models ; to consider the multiple, dynamic, and shifting contexts that one sculpture could experience over the centuries of its display; and to recognize that postantique receptions can also offer insight into interpretations of ancient viewers. The collected topics were originally presented in three conference sessions: Grounding Roman Sculpture (Archaeological Institute of America, 2019); Ancient Sculpture in Context (College Art Association, 2017); and Ancient Sculpture in Context II: Reception (College Art Association, 2019).https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/visualandperformingarts-books/1022/thumbnail.jp

A Cultural History of Hair, Volume 1: A Cultural History of Hair in Antiquity

Katherine Schwab and Marice Rose are contributing authors, Self and Society. Book description: How have our attitudes to hair changed over time? In what ways have new technologies influenced hair-related practices and beliefs? Is hair just about fashion or does it express social, spiritual, and cultural meanings? In a work that spans nearly 3,000 years these ambitious questions are addressed by 60 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. With the help of a broad range of case material they illustrate trends and nuances of the culture of hair in Western societies from ancient times to the present. Volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make the set as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the reader the choice to gain an overview of a period by reading one volume, or to follow a theme through history by reading the relevant chapter in each volume.https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/visualandperformingarts-books/1021/thumbnail.jp