Merzbau

We have a crazy art history professor. Granted that most art teachers are crazy, this one is especially crazy.

With students taking her class in French as a second language, she has a habit of repeating words for clarification. Her intentions are good, but for advanced students it seems unnecessary. In addition, the words she normally repeats are simple ones. Or English cognates. Standing in front of the classroom with a whiteboard marker in hand, back slightly hunched, lecturing on some 20th-century artist, she will come to a word...pause...look at us questionably...repeat the word...look at us again...and continue talking.

"Le artiste Schwitters est le roi de recyclage...recyclage?...Il utilise des morceaux de bois..."

Sometimes she will find a synonym for a word, or better yet, she will rephrase the word.

"Je ne sais pas pourquoi, mais je suis en train de discuter le mot esclave...esclave?...esclavage!...Et je continue comme ça..."

It drives us insane, but in order to keep our interest during the 2 or 3 hours of class on Friday evenings, we have begun to keep a list of all the words she repeats.


Some of her greatest words have included:

escalier (stairway)
sourire (smile)
plage (beach)
hypocrisie (hypocrisy)
Judas (Judas)
sodomie (sodomy)
t-shirt (t-shirt)
Oscars (Oscars...the awards)
pauvre (poor)
copier (copy)
Père Noël (Santa Claus)

Or we draw pictures.

My doodle of out art teacher saying, "You must learn contemporary art for 3 HOURS! Hours? Hours?"

Although she is crazy, she is funny old lady. Especially when she plays aloud Schwitter's poem entirely composed with animal sounds, with the volume on high scaring those in the classroom next to us.