First-Year Seminar 2017: Making Color: labor, culture, meaning

IDPT 10100-15

Instructor: Sarah Mirza, smirza@wooster.edu, 330-287-1939, Kauke 005, office hours MWF 12-1, or by appointment

TAs: Emma Folkenroth efolkenroth19@wooster.edu office Sundays 1-2 Lowry Pit (at a table closer to the back)

Emily Huxtable emoentmann18@wooster.edu office Wednesdays 1-2 Gault 2 carrell (to your right at the top of the stairs)

Course summary:

Why do most people in the Western world say that their favorite color is blue? Why did medieval European painters depict the sky as gold? What was so important about the color red that 17th century global trade relied on the blood of a female insect, now better known as Red 4 or E120 and found in your lipstick or candy? How does meaning and our responses to color change over time as the process and economy of making color changes? What does religion and culture have to do with it? We will study medieval European, Middle Eastern, and Asian recipes for pigments, read about the human cost and history of producing color, and discuss how this background impacts how we understand the visual and material meanings of things. This seminar will include hands-on instruction and assignments.