Issues in Arts Politics

Catalog description

What are some of the issues that impact arts, politics, and the intersection of arts & politics? There are many! This course introduces Arts Politics MA students to methodological (systems of approach to an area of study), critical (analysis, theory), and discursive (what is being talked about/discussed at a broader level) tools to engage with the selected themes and art objects for the course. The course will focus on reading, watching, listening, participating, observing, and writing in order to engage questions such as: what is the relationship between art and politics/the political? How does geography, embodiment, time period, genre, and other factors shift what politics are and how artists, art critics, scholars, and others engage with art as a political tool and a political method? How do we deploy writing, thinking, and discussion as aesthetic, civic, and intellectual responses to global politics? Sitting with these questions, the course will engage three main themes: criticism, institutions, embodiment. The course tasks consist of reading, seeing visual art work, watching films, workshopping with small groups, and writing and final paper. Readings may include: bell hooks, Art On My Mind; John Berger, Ways of Seeing; Edouard Glissant, A New Region of the World; Theodor Adoro, Aesthetics; Sylvia Wynter, “Rethinking ‘Aesthetics’,”; nikki a greene, Grime, Glitter, & Glass; Okwui Enwezo et al. PostWar Revisited; Joseph Pierce Speculative Relations; Laura Marks, The Fold; Tina Campt, Listening to Images. There will be site visits to galleries, museums, and festivals, as well as guests to our class and invitations to attend relevant lectures, workshops, and talks. Students will write a final paper, make a presentation, and participate in a paper workshop.