Final project: verdict and defense
A full dossier on one painting of your choosing, defended live in the week-12 seminar against questions aimed at its weakest point.
Due: 28 May 2027 · Weight: 40%
The brief#
Choose one disputed painting — from the semester’s shortlist or your own reading — and produce a full dossier on it, then defend your verdict live against the room.
This is the semester’s actual capstone: not a new format, but the dossier’s discipline done once more, on a painting you’ve chosen rather than been assigned, under the added pressure of a verdict you have to speak and defend rather than only write. Everything from weeks 1–11 — materials, brushwork, seals, colophons, the market, computational methods, the forger’s own perspective, and week 11’s reframing of what “authentic” is even asking for — is fair material for both the dossier and the questions you’ll be asked.
A good defense names its own weakest point before someone else does. If your dossier’s verdict rests heavily on one seal reading, expect the room to go straight for it, and expect to have an answer ready that isn’t “the seal is probably fine.”
What you submit#
The written dossier (as a single document, no fixed length beyond what the argument needs) submitted by the deadline above, plus the live defense in the week-12 seminar — both are required, and neither substitutes for the other. Declare any AI or outside research assistance per the policies page.
The spec
The brief poses the problem and leaves room for a response. The spec is the fixed part: what a marker checks. Some lines can be checked mechanically; the rest call for judgement.
- a full dossier, in the dossier assessment's format, on one painting -- from the semester's shortlist or your own reading
- a stated verdict with a stated confidence level, and an explicit account of what evidence would change it
- a ten-minute live defense in the week-12 seminar, answering at least one question that named a specific weakness in the argument
How it is marked
Judged as a whole against the brief: whether the written dossier stands on its own for a reader who wasn't in the room, whether the stated verdict is proportionate to the evidence actually assembled rather than overclaimed or hedged into meaninglessness, and whether the live defense shows the verdict was actually understood rather than rehearsed. A dossier that reaches a confident, well-supported verdict and survives real questioning in the defense outperforms one that hedges everywhere to avoid ever being wrong.