In addition to class meetings, an extra assignment/research component will be added to the course to increase contact hours with students. Possible components include additional readings, outside-of-class research projects, and any other project which the instructor feels will add to the value of the course. Topics to be announced at the beginning of each semester.
What is race, and what is culture? How and why have these ideas been represented visually? What roles have such visual images played in colonialism, slavery, patriarchy, and other social hierarchies, and how have people of color protested these uses? Given these histories, is it possible for visual representations of race and culture to serve oppositional purposes? This course takes up questions about the politics of visual representations from the nineteenth century to the present, focusing in particular on exhibitions, film, and photography.