AFAM 1399b / BLST 1399 / HSAR 3209b, Black Modernisms  Nana Adusei-Poku

Artists and Thinkers thus created their articulations and complications of Modernity. Because the discourse on ways Western Modernism was influenced by African Art is well-established; the main focus of this lecture course lies on the ways Black Artists and Thinkers participated in cultural, formal, and creative innovations. This demands a transdisciplinary approach that is informed by theoretical tools provided by Black Studies and Queer of Color Feminisms as well as a constant reading of texts and artworks against their grain. Particularly in example when we look at the close entanglement of early 20th-century Black Aesthetics and the History of Primitivism. We look with a trans-chronological lens at paintings, sculptures, photography as well as film/installation to explore the aesthetics and queries that Black Modernisms pose to us today and retroactively to their histories.   HU  0 Course cr
MW 9:25am-10:15am

* AFAM 3165b / BLST 3165a / HIST 3169a or b, What is Racial Capitalism?  Destin Jenkins

This seminar starts from the position that the historical movement, settlement, and hierarchical arrangements of the racial subaltern and even those deemed ‘white’ are inseparable from regimes of capital accumulation. But is that all there is to racial capitalism? What more can be said about these regimes? And what of the varied responses to racial capitalism, from accommodation to the Black Radical Tradition to other forms of subterfuge? Major topics and themes include: war, money, ecology, crime and punishment. The course also exposes students to the various sources, archives, methods, theoretical frameworks, and narrative strategies employed by scholars in the field.  WR, HU
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

* AFAM 3372b / BLST 3372 / HSAR 4372b, Post Black Art and Beyond  Nana Adusei-Poku

In 2001, “Freestyle”, a survey exhibition curated by Thelma Golden at the Studio Museum in Harlem, introduced a young generation of artists of African descent and the ambitious yet knowingly opaque term post-black to a pre-9-11 pre-Obama world. This seminar utilizes the term post-black as a starting point to investigate the different ways Black Artists identified themselves through the lens of their historical contexts, writings, and politics while engaging with key debates around Black Aesthetics in exhibitions and theory. Consequently, we discuss changes in artistic styles and Black identity discourses from the beginning of the 20th century into the present. Post-black stirred much controversy 22 years ago because it was used by a generation of artists who seemed to distance themselves from previous generations, who utilized the term Black to define their practices as a form of political resistance. However, the claims that the post-black generation made, and the influence of their work is part of an ongoing debate in African Diasporic Art, which has refreshed and posed new questions for art-historical research as well as curation. Topics include Representation, Black Exhibition Histories, Black Aesthetics, Afrotropes, Afro-politanism, Abstraction vs. Figuration, Curation as an Art-Historical tool, The Black Radical Tradition and Racial Uplift, post-race vs. post-black and historical consistencies. Knowledge in the fields of History of Art and African American Studies is desirable.  HU
M 1:30pm-3:25pm