Art of Revolution

Catalog description

Can aesthetic forms promote and not just respond to revolutionary social and political change? This Core Colloquium confronts global challenges of peace, justice, and equality by examining the role of music and other art forms in advancing social movements, using the recent history of the Middle East and North Africa as a principal case study. Placing these events in a longer historical context, course materials will explore what role the arts have played in social movements, including 20th-century revolutions in Egypt, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Palestinian Intifadas, and the Arab Uprisings. Students will ask how artistic practices not only reflect social changes in these case studies, but also promote them. Drawing on theoretical readings on aesthetics, social movements, and revolution from disciplines including anthropology, musicology, and Middle East Studies, students will develop a critical understanding for the role of art in social change, an analytical grasp of theories of social mobilization, and deeper knowledge of recent historical moments in the Middle East and North Africa region.