Arts of Africa, Oceania and Native America

Catalog description

This course is a survey of the visual and performed arts of Africa, Oceania and Native America. These regions and their arts, often relegated to the constructed category of “non-Western,” will be considered from their religious, political, historical and cultural contexts. The course also explores the Western bias inherent in the study of “non-Western” art, providing students with a broader understanding to the ways in which cultures from around the world produce, employ and conceptualize what the West has conventionally label as “art.” In examining sculpture, multi-media installation, festivals, masquerade, textiles, dress, ritual spaces, international artists and many more, students are exposed to alternative ways of looking at and understanding visual and performed expression. IIA, IIIB. PA-3A, PA-4C.