Methods and Historiography of Art History (401-1-1)

Topic

Proseminar

Instructors

Thadeus Jay Dare Dowad

Meeting Info

Kresge 4354 Art Hist. Sem. Rm.: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

The historical juncture at which we currently find ourselves—wracked by the compounding catastrophes of the global pandemic, ecological disaster, and postcolonial neoliberalism—demands a radical rethinking of art history as an academic discipline. The urgency of redressing art history's lingering complicities with white supremacy, coloniality, and the profit motive propels us to reconsider foundational questions: What is art? What is history? What is an object? What is scholarship? What is a method? What is an archive? This seminar addresses these and other questions from perspectives both within and beyond art history, including Black Studies, Indigenous Studies, feminist and queer theory, postcolonial theory, new materialisms, among others. Rather than assimilating subaltern voices into a hegemonic "global art history," the seminar begins with the premise that art history needs rebuilding from the ground up. The goal is to work proactively and collectively towards new horizons of art historical scholarship by attending to a diverse body of methodologies that offer dynamic ways of reconceptualizing art historical narration, (inter)disciplinarity, canonization, and research. While theory and historiography will be the abiding focus of the course, students will also be asked to bring in specific examples of art, architecture, and visual and material culture to ground our discussions in practices of object analysis.

Class Materials (Required)

All readings available on Canvas