Sabbatical Leave Request 1998
APPLICATION FOR SABBATICAL LEAVE - September 16,1997
(For the Fall semester, 1998)
Kurt von Meier Professor of Art
ATTACHMENTS
1. Outline: Plan of Study, Research, Travel, Service.
This project intends to promote professional competence in the academic field of cultural studies and art history, within the changing context occasioned by the global electronic revolution, through a program of campus web-site publication.
The general goal is to foster teaching effectiveness, and through electronic means to transform the substance of scholarly discourse. Specifically, I propose to render more widely accessible (for students and colleagues through web publication) an array of topical reference material, including text, illustrations, charts, etc., together with commentary, notes, and bibliographic information. I do serve computer-qualified students in all current classes, via my faculty individual web page. As a "web site under construction," it may be seen at:
http://www.csus.edufindiv/v/vonmeierk/noise.html
The larger purpose of this project is to promote a formal, coordinated program for electronic publication by our CSUS campus, within the purview of the CSU system: contributing to the development of an "electronic academic press." Toward this end, I propose generating a number of substantive examples to explore the possibilities and determine the needs of such an endeavor.
My primary example is the text developed from research conducted during my last (1991-1992) difference-in-pay leave, now titled:
A Ball of Twine: Marcel Duchamp's "With Hidden Noise" This text (with its working reference net) is currently being corrected, revised and developed internally, as it is expanded through hyperlinks on the web to related graphics, music and sound, and text material.
While on sabbatical leave during the Fall 1998 semester, I plan to develop a second worked example focusing on the Tarot tradition in the history of the graphic arts. Of particular interest for art history is the theoretical relationship between esoteric teaching traditions (such as the Sufi Order of Naqshbandis) and the introduction of paper technology into Europe in the centuries prior to Gutenberg's use of moveable type.
During almost three decades of teaching at CSUS, empirical feedback from lectures and exercises performed in the classroom or as homework assignments has generated a wealth of topical data appropriate for translation into electronic form and dissemination in the network world.
2. Summary of tasks.
The principal tasks include review and coordination of extensive research notes, references, and illustrative material (currently in both print and electronic form), with subsequent preparation of an illustrated and annotated text in fully electronic form. In its initial stages, this project intends to augment some material already posted on the above cited web page. Continued research, extension of the reference net, and planned travel during the sabbatical period will enable expansion of these efforts and, hopefully, qualitative improvement .
In addition, lecture material such as currently presented in Art 113C (Occidental Art and Mythology) -- including data from student interaction and feedback -may be edited and included to document case studies in the empirical use of electronic means to enhance teaching and learning. This may be correlated with records from classes taught in earlier years addressing the same topics, but limited to the use of conventional (non-electronic) means, such as printed books and other graphic media, including photographic slides and film.
This focused study of the Tarot tradition may be oriented within a larger context comprehending the multicultural history of writing and recording systems, and the profound, global ways in which extant practices of teaching and learning are changing as a consequence of the digital / electronic revolution (with computers and TV, modems and satellites.) The tradition of such symbolic systems may well have begun with red ochre body paint in remote archaic times; and we have physical evidence from Paleolithic engraved bones and the cave paintings (including Chauvet and Cosquer, the two very old caves recently discovered), through the clay cuneiform tablets of Sumer, Chinese oracle bones and Egyptian papyrus, down through the Greek alphabet, Roman codex and medieval manuscript, to the appearance of paper in the West and thence to Gutenberg. Now, once again, as in the Europe of circa 1450-1500 -- although it is the entire world this time -- we are experiencing a radical transformation in the principal modes of transmitting information at the "leading edge" of culture.
Having been trained (in part) as a printer and as an art historian, I am keenly aware of the significant aesthetic limitations that digital graphics display in their present stage of technical development. Nevertheless, as the Berkeley cultural historian Manuel Castells notes, "A new world is taking shape in this end of millennium....Particularly important is [the information technology revolution's] role in allowing the development of networking as a dynamic, self-expanding form of organization of human activity [including scholarship and the arts]. This prevailing, networking logic transforms all domains of social and economic life." (See, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture (Blackwells). Volume 3, End of Millennium, "Conclusion: Making Sense of Our World," p. 553, 554.)
Travel:
Addressing this larger theme may well have to wait for my anticipated years of scholarly leisure following retirement. But for the Fall semester of 1998 as an integral part of my sabbatical study, I am planning a two- to four-week schedule of travel. My first priority is to visit the New York City Public Library, there to inspect Tarot related material. (See, Gertrude Moakley's study, The Tarot Cards Painted by Pietro Bembo...which cards are in their collection). Also, The Morgan Library, The MOMA Prints collection, and other NYC visits are high probablilties.
If my budget proves adequate, I would like to extend this travel to England (for a second week) to view the Jessel collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the British Museum's playing cards in the collection of Lady Charlotte Guest. While in London, I hope to renew my friendship with Lama Chime, Rinpoche, Keeper of the Tibetan Collection, and one of my former teachers. Eventually, I hope to integrate the Tibetan material on archetypal symbolism -- such as that included in the syllabus for Art 113B (Oriental Art and Mythology) -- by way of developing another specific worked example. The Tibetan teaching tradition -the essence of which they were able to bring out of their homeland escaping the Chinese Communists -- has sought to translate its venerable texts into electronic form, by way of an enthusiastic global program, which may provide illuminating lessons for those following the wakes of Finnegan and Gutenberg.
If it is possible to schedule two further weeks of travel, I would extend the itinerary to Italy and Morocco. This sabbatical would enable me to visit archives, libraries and collections containing works of art and other materials associated with the Tarot cards, particularly in the Renaissance and pre-Renaissance periods, but continuing (as in folk festivals and other popular art forms) down to the present. Of particular interest are the cities of Bergamo (crucial in the early history of the Italian theater), and Padua (one of the first university cities, and a center or early typography). Should my budget and other variables allow, Fez, Morocco, may be one of the last best places to find extant specimens of very early printing on paper, perhaps including material related to the Tarot tradition.
An alternate plan, should European / North African travel not prove practical, addresses the next order of tasks: the integration of material already in hand, which has been developed over the years for Art 7 (Art Appreciation), and for the series of Art 113 (Art and Mythology) course presentations.
3. Overview: Background and academic significance.
While my eventual goal is to see a comprehensive study of the Tarot and related traditions in print form (as would seem particularly appropriate!), my priority for this sabbatical proposal is to prepare basic art historical, critical, analytical and comparative information, with an accompanying reference net, for electronic, on-line publication. Technically, this reference net -- in addition to its electronic hyperlinks -- embraces printed books and other reference material in my personal library. I feel that these resources for research deserve to be articulated in some more cogent and accessible order, perhaps by preparation of an electronic inventory. The heart of such a topically-oriented "microlibrary" would contain a set of printed materials suitable for presentation as a bequest.
I expect this proposed plan of combined research and travel to produce new evidence, the better with which to test and evaluate theories about the Tarot tradition as a revolutionary precursor of paper technology in Western Europe.
This project also aims to rectify our understanding of the Tarot as an important graphic tradition in its own right, which not only preceded print technology with moveable type by many decades, and perhaps by more than a century, but also may have provided a vehicle for the transmission of a coherent teaching system and educational philosophy based on a profound comprehension of human consciousness at the archetypal order of complexity.
Historians are beset by vexing problems about any roles Alchemy may have played in prompting the goldsmith Johann Gutenberg's metallurgical innovation of casting moveable type. Yet, conventional art history is virtually silent about this, as about the nature of the ink used by early Western printers. To be sure, closely-guarded craft secrets protected the proprietary interests of the capitalist entrepreneurs who funded the enterprise of the incunabula; so the history of ink is...what shall we say... spotty? sketchy? perhaps disappearing? or already disappeared. One of its delineations may extend from the dye-makers of eastern Europe, back through the Byzantine guilds that were respected and preserved by the mid-15th century Turkish conquerors of Constantinople (and that apparently survived down to the 19th century.) These guilds, in turn, probably have roots in Roman technologies, imported originally from Egypt.
Aspects of the history of technology in the present proposed study concentrate particular attention on paper, surprisingly also passed over lightly, if not wholly ignored in the standard art histories. While the 'manufacture of true paper (as distinct from papyrus, vellum, or parchment ) appears to have originated in China, it spread to the West via Samarkand in Central Asia, to Damascus, to Cairo (where it became the principal medium for copying the Qur'an by around 1000 CE), and to Fez in North Africa. Around 1200 CE, Fez became a major manufacturing site for paper, at the same time that various Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandi -- in one hypothesis -- there assembled to construct the Tarot system as an important synthesis of their teachings, as addressed, for example, in classroom lectures and presentations for Art 117 (Muslim Art). Through a precise, yet subtle set of archetypal symbols, printed on loose-leaf cards made of paper, both the material stuff and the teachings made their way to Europe in the form of a popular "card game." The implications of this thesis, if true, may illuminate our understanding both of early print history and of the stimuli derived from conventionally under-appreciated contacts with Islamic culture.
Apparently little original, tangible evidence remains by which to document these interpretations of early technology. But owing to the strong continuity of the graphic arts, important subsequent influences from the Tarot have long been noted in the products of early modern printing, and more explicitly in the creative works produced by some very great Renaissance artists. Among these are Albrecht Durer, Andrea Mantegna, and Piero della Francesca, all of whom produced significant works featuring designs in the Tarot tradition.
On a more personal note, I feel that my background and training have prepared me in unique ways to conduct research on the widely misunderstood topic of the Tarot. In addition to my academic qualifications in art history while serving in the U.S.Navy I received extensive training in a variety of print technologies, including letterpress composition, press operation, and binding and finishing processes. This work experience has helped to sustain a long and deepening interest in the early history of printing in the West, with the widespread and dramatic consequences detailed by such scholars as Elizabeth L. Eisenstein in her brilliant study, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. There is an extensive bibliography on this subject, which must include standard texts as Carter Goodrich, The Invention of Printing in China and its Spread Westward; the relevant sections in Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China, especially Volume 5 (Chemistry and Chemical Technology), Part I: Paper and Printing, and such studies as Johannes Pedersen, The Arabic Book.
Although my capacity for understanding the Arabic language may be primitive, having at least approached its study, and having at least once previously visited Fez (as well as Oxford, London, and northern Italy), I feel this proposal will provide me with the opportunity to create a unique culminating expression of scholarly interests that have long stimulated my teaching, writing and research. In addition to these academic issues, I have also enjoyed the great privilege of studying with and exchanging energy with several traditional masters. My acquaintance with the Tarot -- most importantly through the agency of Oscar Ichazo, founder of the Arica Institute -- has provided richly expressive material that, over the years, I have tried to incorporate into my teaching as into my life, in a dedicated attempt to devise practical ways by which a bridge of effective communication between the esoteric and exoteric traditions might be made. Accordingly, with a view to my plans for retirement before the end of the present millennium, I view this project optimistically as an extraordinary opportunity to make a substantive contribution in service to our global academic community.
4. Anticipated benefits.
Beyond those personal satisfactions to be derived from creating a novel, potentially significant elucidation of an important topic in cross-cultural history, this project, I feel, will provide clarity and focus for what I anticipate may be my last semester or so of teaching. The Tarot is, of course, but one of many meta-cultural systems that various intellectual and spiritual traditions have used to organize and to transmit their teachings. As such, it presents an exquisite set of formal patterns and relationships illustrated with practical, widely-shared symbols (numerals, letters of the alphabet, colors) and archetypal imagery.
Such historical traditions provide valuable models for contemporary abstract and theoretical work in systems analysis and design. There may also be some incidental benefits for people interested in esoterica, since this project intends to address and to rectify many details of misdirection, marking for elimination intentionally corrupted data, such as that of some 19th-century superstitious, obscurantist interpolations. However, my principal thesis proposes to explore the underlying mathematical models associated with aleatory phenomena such as dice games, which historically may long predate the appearance of Tarot cards. This sort of explanatory material about the Tarot tradition, while occurring in various parts of the text, "A Ball of Twine," can be found directly addressed, - for example in the discussion of dice in the historical context of Greek mythology and archaeology, subsequently related to the structure of the Tarot pack: Chapter 2: Sixes , Section 5 "Delphic Dice" (Appendix 1).
While further developing similar topics, I shall assemble a small but efficient collection of related research materials, to provide documentation for elegant worked examples appropriate for extending our present teaching and learning methods into the electronic domain. Thus I hope to bridge our present Western exoteric methods with surviving practices from esoteric traditions of the past.
In sum, the proposed course of study to be conducted during this requested sabbatical leave period will sustain and articulate on-going scholarly interests directly related to lectures and classroom presentations, and provide for a demonstrable continuity of academic activity. The substance of this proposal seeks to connect with and to extend my research, teaching, and publication activities, especially those performed since my most recent academic leave.
5. Last leave.
I last received a difference-in-pay leave for the academic year 1991-1992. A copy of the report I submitted after returning to my full-time teaching duties is attached (Appendix 2), as required by the August 18, 1997 Memorandum from the Office of Faculty and Staff Affairs. The substance of my report may be recapitulated briefly here to document, in part, the subsequent academic benefits of that research. My primary interest was directed toward the 20th-century French-American artist Marcel Duchamp. The project involved writing about one particular little piece of sculpture Duchamp made in 1916, called "With Hidden Noise." The focus of my art historical attention -- this small piece of sculpture in the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Art collection -- might seem rather narrow, yet the analytical method and critical approach applied (involving a close reading of the art object, and a rich exploration of context and association) produced a study resembling methodologies perhaps more commonly associated with the literary theories and practices of Deconstruction or Postmodernism. This methodology permitted the exploration of many historical secrets, and indeed scrutiny of the notion of "secrecy" itself.
I have retained a full copy of the spiral-bound, printed text which I keep on my desk, in my CSUS office, Art 191. I am delighted to report that in the years following the 1991-1992 difference-in-pay leave, I have had recourse to consult this text on many occasions, incorporating passages, quotations, or citations and other reference information into lecture presentations, and utilizing this material in the preparation of other academic work. In addition, I have made the text freely available for use by students. For example, it has served as a useful working reference for graduate seminars listed as Art 208 (addressing the work of Duchamp, or Dada and Surrealism), and for Art 109, 20th-Century Art.
Despite its flaws -- occasioning the tedium of preparing errata and corrigenda -in practice, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of that work...enough. in fact, that I have been encouraged by colleagues to revise and render current the original text. It seemed like a good time to do this over the recent summer months, when the web-site construction began to be realized. I am further encouraged by the flurry of recent publishing interest in Marcel Duchamp and his influence on modern art. In addition to Cambridge University and the University of Minnesota, both the University of California and the MIT presses each have issued several volumes on Duchamp in the last few years, although most of these follow very conventional approaches. The time seems right for application of new methods.
As all of our colleagues involved with similar projects might appreciate, this can become a complex and sophisticated procedure; and as the scope of this work is of moderate dimension, some features -- such as providing graphics, illustrations, moving imagery, or sound -- require technical help and support. In this respect, planning sessions with staff members of the Computer and MultiMedia Centers, meeting in conjunction with my own consultants, have been very encouraging. As noted above, this "web site under construction" may be seen at:
http://www.csus.edufindiv/v/vonmeierk/noise.html
However, for the convenience of some readers, I have provided a print-out of the introduction in its revised form, titled "Pretext" (Appendix 3). This may further help to illustrate the approach and method in my efforts "to integrate knowledge across courses and disciplines," while working to realize the principles of "enhanced teaching and learning" as articulated in the CSUS Strategic Plan.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kurt von Meier, Ph.D. Professor of Art