About
This course surveys the role gender and sexuality have played in the development of art from Manet's Olympia (1863) to the present; and the role that art has played in both reinforcing and challenging dominant theories of gender identity. Through the material we survey, we will also mount a challenge to the persistent cultural tendency to conflate 'gender' with 'women.' This course does not offer a chronological survey of the history of feminist art or women's art, but rather examines a selection of modern and contemporary artworks from a variety of cultures as a means of approaching complex theoretical questions about gender and sexuality. Together we will learn to use and understand gender and sexuality as tools of interpretation and cultural meaning. Students gain knowledge not only about the development of art from the late 19th century to the present, but about various strategies for research informed by gender and sexuality; models for reading bodies, gestures, texts, and works of art.
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