Studies in 20th & 21st Century Art (460-0-2)

Topic

Transdisciplinary Experimentalism and the Art of B

Instructors

Krista Angelique Thompson

Meeting Info

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

Overview of class

This course engages and expands existing understandings of "Black study," scholarly orientations and methodologies that arise from Black communities. The seminar especially attends to how studies emerging from Black life might call for, and demand, transdisciplinary and multimodal forms of scholarly work. Focused on scholars, archivists, collectives who work across scholarly writing, studio arts, film, fiction, photography, and/or book arts, we examine the work of Romi Crawford, Simone Leigh, Joshua Myers, Theaster Gates, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, and Deborah Thomas, among others. We also look at the significance of sociality, art school modalities, retreats, and rest as forms of Black study. In addition, we explore experiential forms of writing related to Black study highlighting elements like the footnote, redaction, and erasure. Students are responsible for weekly response papers, co-leading two presentations of readings, and creating and presenting on a final research project.

Class Materials (Required)

Hartman, Saidiya. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-making in Nineteenth-Century America. WW Norton & Company, 2022. (Revised edition). ISBN-13 978-1324021582

Hartman, Saidiya. Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals. WW Norton & Company, 2019. ISBN-13 978-0393357622

Sharpe, Christina. Ordinary Notes. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023. ISBN-13 978-0374604486