MCST 162 - Visual Grammars, Black Lives

Cross-Listed as AMST 162

This course is a survey of cultural production of and about Blackness. Looking at the work of artists, filmmakers, and theoreticians, we will analyze the ways that Blackness is performed as a visual language and genre, how it appears or disappears as a racialized, gendendered, and (dis)abled set of embodied practices looking from late 19th century to today. We will read works by Tina Campt, Legacy Russel, and Teju Cole. While the course is focused primarily on the US, we will also talk about racial formations beyond the US, including the Caribbean, UK, West and Southern Africa. We will look at how cultural workers outside the US have engaged the idea of Blackness as a way of seeing, a way of listening, and a process of being. Every year. (4 Credits)