Overview

Davidson hosts a variety of cultural and artistic events every semester. For this assignment, you will attend an arts or humanities-related event, take copious notes during and/or immediately after, and write a review of the event.

What is a review? A review is a piece of public criticism about an event, addressed to readers who weren’t there—and indeed, to readers who were there—and are trying to figure out what they missed.

A review is neither a report nor a reaction. A report tells people what happened. A reaction tells people how you felt. A review is a different beast altogether. It works out what the thing was trying to do, shows the reader enough of the event to see that for themselves, and then makes a judgment a reader—or another attendee—could argue with.

A good approach is to imagine that you have been dispatched by The Davidsonian to cover the event. This means you should write for an audience of your peers. And your goal is not to promote the event or summarize it, but to have gone, paid close attention, and come back with something to say that other people might have missed.

What kind of events?

An event on campus or the nearby region that engages with humanities subjects or methods is appropriate:

• An art exhibit or installation
• A performance (theatre, dance, music)
• A reading by a poet, novelist, or essayist
• A lecture or talk in a humanities discipline, or interdisciplinary work that draws on humanities methods

You’ll write and revise one review each semester. At least one of your reviews must be on an art exhibit or performance. Writing about work that doesn’t explain itself in written text is a distinct skill, one this assignment focuses on honing.

Here’s a growing list of especially recommended events. Program trips and required Humes events are not eligible for this project.

What Your Review Must Do

1. Show us the event. Use specific, sensory details. Describe a snapshot of what happened in a way that lets the reader picture it. Quote the speaker. Detail the movement. Pay attention to what happens. All these details become the evidence for what you’re making an argument about.

2. Make a claim. Somewhere in your review, take a stance. A reader should be able to point to a sentence in your review and say, “that’s what the author thinks about this.” But the claim is not simply whether the event was worth attending or not. The claim is judgment about the meaning of the event. The claim can be about whether the event achieved what it was aiming for, about what the event revealed that it may not have intended, about the artistic, literary, and performative choices made by the artist, writer, or performer, etc. You’ll know something is a claim if other attendees of the event might disagree with you.

You are allowed to use “I.” This is your perspective, and it should sound like a person wrote it. But there’s a difference between (a) I noticed the lighting alternated between harsh, bright lights, and somber, dark hues and (b) I was so moved. The first is a person paying attention, while the second is a person reporting on themselves.

Reviews Not To Write

1. The conversion narrative. I went in knowing nothing about X. I left transformed. This kind of commentary is almost never interesting, because the subject is the writer’s ignorance rather than the work. If the event genuinely changed your mind about something, say what you now think and what about the event makes the case for that line of thinking.

2. The disclaimer essay. As someone who has never seen this kind of dance before, I may not have fully appreciated it. It’s perfectly acceptable, and even welcome, to note specifically when you may not have all the information to interpret a choice. But say that when it matters, not as a blanket apology in your introduction.

3. Program notes. We don’t want a summary of what happened, in order, supplemented by effusive adjectives. If your commentary could have been written from the event description plus a decent memory, it’s not a review.

Field Notes

Field notes are required. You cannot write your review from memory alone. You will revise this commentary weeks after you draft it. By then, the event itself might be a blur. Good notes are essential.

Take notes during the event if possible (easy enough to do during a lecture, reading, or an exhibit). Record your notes immediately after if it’s impossible to take notes during the event or you need to supplement your live notes. Photos of programs, captions, or other material are also useful.

You’ll scan and submit your notes as an appendix to your draft. They can be unpolished, scattered—whatever form you took them in. Handwritten notes are good, and even preferable to digital notes. Your notes should capture at least the following:

1. Essential facts about the title, individuals involved, venue, date, and time. Get the spelling of names and places right. Note who introduced the event and how it was framed. If there were no introductions or framing, that’s worth noting too.

2. At least three exact quotes or precisely described moments. Quotation marks signal the words are exact. If you’re not sure of the wording, paraphrase, and be clear that you are paraphrasing.

3. Five things you couldn’t have predicted from the event description alone. These are specific details, as precise and focused as you can make them. This is possibly the most important part of your notes. It’s what will give your review texture, and what you can refer back to afterwards.

4. What the room or space was like. How many people were there, who they seemed to be, how they responded. The space and the people in it are part of the event.

5. A key moment of the event, where things seemed to shift. Maybe the tone of the event shifted. Maybe the speaker shifted gears. Maybe the audience shifted in its response. Maybe it was something in the Q\&A. Maybe the space itself seemed to shift.

6. Two questions you’d ask the artist, performer, or speaker if you could. These are questions you couldn’t answer from the event itself, maybe even questions the artist, performer, or speaker themselves couldn’t answer.

7. A list of names, terms, or references you didn’t recognize during the event itself. Look them up before drafting your review. Don’t rely on AI or Google’s generated summaries, which are often inaccurate or incomplete. Wikipedia is a far more reliable source

What We’ll Look For

The best reviews have four qualities:

1. Claim. The review makes a judgment about the event.

2. Evidence. The review shows enough of the event, using details only someone in the room could provide, for a reader to weigh your judgment.

3. Fair Appraisal. The review evaluates the work on its own terms. Do not fault an event for being something it never set out to be.

4. Craft. The quality of your prose, the structure of your piece, and your attention to the craft of writing.

Other Details for the Arts & Ideas Review

• The review should be 750-1,000 words. The field notes do not count toward the word count.

• The first draft and field notes are due on Friday, October 30 by the end of the day. We encourage you to attend your event early in the semester and submit your draft well in advance of this date though.