Critical Studies: Queer Power in Art Theory

Catalog description

Queer power is a form of (anti-)knowledge that demystifies phallogocentrism and neuters heteronormativity. This class examines how queer theories empower - and can originate in - art making and its history. Over the course of the semester, students discuss recent publications in the field such as Rogers Brubaker's trans: Gender and Race in an Age of Unsettled Identities (2016) and Paul B. Preciado's Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Parmacopornographic Era (2013). Students also investigate recent exhibitions exemplifying oppositional epistemology such as Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon (The New Museum, 2017-18) and Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture (National Portrait Gallery, 2011). Interweaving the canons of queer thoughts with newer voices such as Lee Edelman, Tim Dean, and Maggie Nelson, this class contextualizes Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Tschabalala Self, Wu Tsang, and other artists who embody queer power today.