Humanities Homework Help

Respond to One of The Prompts:

PROMPT ONE:  How has the hopefulness and despair of AIDS art shifted over time?  1980s-1990s:  no effective treatments; death all but certain. 2000-2010: Retroviral drugs developed than enable HIV+ individuals to prolong their lives.  2010s-Present:  drug treatments don’t cure the disease but viral loads can drop to “undetectable” levels.  Pick one or more example from the 20th C and one or two from the 21st C to illustrate the points you wish to make.  (Reminder:  answers that reference assigned texts always carry greater weight…Perhaps there’s an idea in Hushka, Pollack or an optional essay that will help you express your ideas?)  

PROMPT TWO: Pick one of the following two passages from Barbara Pollack’s essay about retrospective shows assessing the impact of AIDS on art and explain why it makes sense that the person believes the statement to be true.

a)  “’I see AIDS as having produced the first language of global art because it involved artists from all over the planet—Brazil, Japan, Russia, Kenya, Mali, India, South Africa.’” –attributed to curator Dan Cameron.

b) “Now artists and curators are willing to concede that great art did come out of the anger, sorrow, and bafflement in the face of an epidemic….” –Barbara Pollack

PROMPT THREE: What do you make of Trend’s statement that the United States is an “unfinished project”?  (299).  In answering, consider drawing on material from any week in this course, not merely this week’s or this specific chapter.  

PROMPT FOUR:  Lippman wrote his book about culture and morals a good sixty years before the Culture War started and about 90 years from our present moment.  Pick a couple telling quotes from the chapter and explain why you think Lippman’s ideas about the 1920s still describe American culture of the present day. (Don’t forget the page number with those quotes!)