| Introduction to African Diaspora Art History |
Art History, Theory, and Criticism |
2015 (001) |
Fall 2026 |
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Description
This class will begin with considerations of African Diaspora identity formations and how such formations and histories relate to the broad subject of the class - African Diaspora art history. We will consider the work of a number of leading artists of the African Diaspora, located throughout the world in geographic regions such as the Americas, Europe and artists emerging out of the continent of Africa itself. With African Diaspora art history being such a relatively recent addition to the canon of art history, pretty much all of the artists we look at in this class will be reflective of the modern and contemporary art history periods.
The class will use a variety of texts, most frequently catalogue essays relating to artists of the African Diaspora, many of whom are now established figures in exhibitions and biennales. Artists such as Keith Piper, Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien and others whose work can be seen as emerging from a confluence of factors including migration, diaspora, history and identity. Our readings will also include texts by art historians and curators who have worked with, or written about, such artists. The texts will demonstrate the extent to which African Diaspora identity formations are often central to nuanced readings of these artists' practices.
Students are required to submit one short 'reaction' paper each week, plus a 4-6 page research paper at the end of the semester. The main emphasis of the seminar will be on active class participation and discussion of the artists and their work.
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Class Number
2118
Credits
3
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| Art, Identity, Race |
Art History, Theory, and Criticism |
4046 (001) |
Spring 2027 |
|
Description
How have or how do artists engage with the complexities of visualizing racial difference, racial experience and racial identities? These are the questions to be considered in this class. As much as `race¿ can be understood as a fiction, it also manifests its presence in the visual arts. From the hundreds of European portrait painters who have painted their white patrons in the subservient company of enslaved Black people, through to the many modern and contemporary artists whose work touches on or is grounded in ideas of racial experience and representation. The class asks, what happens when race, art, and identity collide or overlap?
The class will use a variety of texts, most frequently catalogue essays relating to artists such as Barbara Walker, Chris Ofili, Yinka Shonibare, Renee Cox, and Mickalene Thomas, and others whose work can be seen as representing a confluence of art, identity and race-related considerations. Our readings will also include texts by art historians and curators who have worked with, or written about, such artists. The texts will demonstrate the extent to which art, identity and race-related considerations are seemingly easily applied to certain artists, but presumed to be absent from certain other artists.
Students are required to submit one short `reaction¿ paper each week, plus a longer 10-12 page research paper at the end of the semester. The main emphasis of the seminar will be on active class participation and discussion of the artists and their work.
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Class Number
1078
Credits
3
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| Visualizing Slavery |
Art History, Theory, and Criticism |
5031 (001) |
Spring 2027 |
|
Description
Beginning in the late 18th century and continuing into the 21st century, artists have attempted to create images that represent enslavement and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. This seminar begins with a consideration of the infamous 'plan of a slave ship' by an uncredited British artist and continues through a history of frequently compelling, troubling and engaging images, right up to the present-day. The seminar considers engravings, paintings, sculptures made in different parts of the world and also references images in popular culture, and representations of enslavement in postage stamps, on book covers and so on, with a focus on the work of modern and contemporary artists.
The seminar will use a variety of texts, most frequently catalogue essays relating to artists such as Kara Walker, Godfried Donkor, Keith Piper and others who have taken various aspects of enslavement as subject matter for their work. We will watch extracts of representations of enslavement on television, and film works such as Steve McQueen's '12 Years a Slave' and Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained'. Our readings will also include texts by art historians such as Marcus Wood and academics such as Catherine Hall. The texts will demonstrate the extent to which enslavement has always been, and remains, a gripping though uncomfortable subject.
Students are required to submit one short 'reaction' paper each week, plus a longer 12-15 page research paper at the end of the semester. The main emphasis of the seminar will be on active class participation.
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Class Number
2097
Credits
3
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| Visualizing the Black Female |
Art History, Theory, and Criticism |
5032 (001) |
Fall 2026 |
|
Description
Since slavery, the Black (African/African origin) female has found herself caricatured, stereotyped and depicted in a variety of often-problematic forms. The class will begin with considerations of the late 18th/early 19th century persona of Sarah/Sara Baartman, the most well-known of at least two women from southern Africa who, on account of their supposedly enlarged buttocks, were exhibited as freak show attractions in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus, ¿Hottentot¿ being at the time a dominant (though offensive) generic name for indigenous people of southern Africa). The framing of Baartman as deformed, yet over-sexualized, primitive, yet appealing to European voyeurs seemed to set a number of the terms of reference within which Black women would be located thereafter. This class will discuss the ways in which Black women have been visualized by the dominant culture, with regards to movements such as Orientalism, and with reference to images of Black women in the media, film and television.
The class will look closely at the work of Black women artists themselves and the ways in which these artists have pushed back against dominant framings of Black women, within their work. Self-portraiture will figure significantly. The class will look at artists as varied as Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Renée Cox, and Mickalene Thomas. It will use texts such as Muse: Mickalene Thomas; Kimberly Wallace-Sanders (ed) Skin Deep, Spirit Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture; Janell Hobson Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture; Deborah Willis and Carla Williams, The Black Female Body: A Photographic History.
Reading Assignments, Research presentations, one research essay (approx. 15 pages).
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Class Number
2130
Credits
3
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