Introduction to Early Andean Visual Culture: Interspecies Value and More-than-Human Presence

Catalog description

This course chronologically surveys the visual and material culture of the Andes region of South America from approximately 3000 BCE to 1500 CE. We will study Indigenous Andean worldviews as conveyed through primary source materials, such as fiber objects, ceramics and stonework, metallurgy, the built environment, performance, ritual. A throughline in the class is how an attention to more-than-human or other-than-human entities and animal natures converged with human socio-cultural value systems - and how this comes across in visual culture. Within this scope we will discuss early Andean notions of sacred geography, spiritual and political power, tensions between individual and collective identity, labor and class hierarchies, legacy, and cultural memory. We will approach material through visual analysis, cultural context, ethnohistorical references, contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship, and popular media.