Senior Thesis: A Weekly Update

Hello, my name is Rebecca Siever and I'm a senior Art History Major/History minor. This is the first of many updates of how my progress with my thesis is going.

First let me introduce myself a little more: I'm the oldest of three kids, a bit of a caffeine addict, and constantly called a nerd by my friends for my knowledge of all trivial things. The last tidbit of information is probably why I was drawn to Art History, not that it's a trivial discipline. From a young age I was constantly reading about different histories and culture, starting with Ancient Egypt and Classical Greece and Rome and moving on to western and eastern histories. The thing that drew me the most were the large coffee-table picture books. I was enamored by the images of the objects and artifacts and wanted to learn as much as I could about them and the culture they came from.  

Now for those who don't know, unlike studio art majors, I must go through the Herculean task of a large research paper of any topic of my choice. The subject that I have chosen to explore and dissect is the endgame theory devised by American art critic and philosopher, Arthur C. Danto in his 1984 essay The End of Art. The overall goal of my paper is to explore how Danto defines the end of art and the meaning it gives contemporary art today as well as determine whether I agree with his thesis and add my own revisions to his thesis.

So far with my research I have written 2/3rds of the paper, performed a public survey to acquire the general reaction to the premise of art ending, and currently in the process of editing and preparing to make my conclusions.