ART 250 AGU - Art of Africa, Oceania & Americas

4 Credit(s)

This course explores various forms of visual expression produced by artists of diverse cultures in Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Grounded in art history, this is an interdisciplinary course that looks at ways of thinking about art and its meanings from multiple perspectives. As we consider themes in visual expression and cultural production that are relevant across cultures, our study will focus on relationships between art, beliefs, cultural values, and social experience. Themes of this course will include colonial and postcolonial perspectives on representation, aesthetic systems, art and social structure, life passages, and continuity and change. We will also devote part of this course to a focused study of a particular region of the Americas, exploring the arts of ancient, colonial, modern, and contemporary Peru. Readings, class discussion, assignments, and student presentations will emphasize the development of reflective, creative, and critical approaches to the study of visual art. Throughout the course, students will be asked to think critically about theoretical and methodological approaches to global studies and to the study of the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, and what it means to look at the arts of formerly colonized people from our vantage point in the West.

Prerequisite(s): None.