Face It
Before specializing in Applied Linguistics, I trained in brain science in and outside the language sphere. I merged this with a long-held love of the visual arts to study caricature biopsychology—i.e. why does caricature work, and what makes likeness so elusive to capture? In addition to caricature commissions, I have lectured on the topic and been invited twice to speak at the International Caricature Conference.
Upon developing full-fledged curricula, I've had the opportunity to teach (twice to date) Face It, a for-credit, full-semester course to students in the MIT/Tufts/Harvard triangle, offered through the Tufts ExCollege. This course explored the fusion of art and science in the development and application of caricature through creative, physiological, and neurological lenses. Discussions ranged from the use of caricature in bio-facial composites for forensic criminal identification to political caricature, caricature ethics, the science of attractiveness, optical illusions, and more.
Students balanced in-class psychological experiments and sketching assignments.​
My Role
My favorite teachers were those who prioritized that we acquire their passion and not simply their acumen. Beyond inspiring students to be enthusiastically curious about the topic, I sought to establish an environment in which they safely could learn from each other and from live experiments.
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In order to foster such an environment, I needed to fill seats. I produced the following trailer to increase awareness and drive enrollment. (Ultimately, we overenrolled!)
To accept your likeness is to expose yourself healthily and honestly, rather than to toil over a "perfection" that by definition will not, and cannot, be remembered.
​Instructional Design
I requested a weekly 2.5 hr. block, which I divided into lecture/experiments and studio practice. This was more cross-disciplinarily effective than distributing the material across two or three days a week, I found.
As this was a deliberate fusion of a scientific discipline and an artistic one, and one that attracted students from both schools of thought, it was unfair to gauge progress in a one-size-fits-all format. I delivered one formative assessment a third of the way through the course, a midterm paper just past halfway through the course, and a final written reflection and portfolio of three finished pieces at the end. The portfolio functioned as an ipsative assessment, with the option to do three new pieces from scratch or continue to perfect up to two of the ones done during the course, plus a third from scratch.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, I taught a virtual continued-education version of the course to adults across the country. I embraced the digital "restrictions" as an opportunity to highlight the subjectiveness of perception in conducting one final experiment (with the help of some fellow professional artists):