ARTH 392 - Gender Issues in Art and Art History: The Visual Cultures of Masculinity

• M - 12:15-14:45
• EV-1.605
• INSTRUCTOR: DR. JOHN POTVIN

This course will explore the representations, theories and visual traditions of masculinity from the French Revolution of 1789 - a decisive moment of rupture - to the contemporary through specific case studies taken from the visual and material culture of the male body. In this course we will examine both gender and sexuality in representation and its historiography in visual culture by exploring constructions of both preferred and marginal masculinities. Our discussions will not only focus on various objects, but will also delve into various methods, critiques and theories which have emerged over the past three decades in art history and the humanities more broadly. We will examine the ways vision and viewing, and the senses in general, are gendered and burdened by and impact sexual identity. Importantly, we will explore how the gendered and sexualized male body has been ideologically invested with much socio-cultural, economic, religious and/or political signification and importance. Readings and lectures will expose students to various approaches and leading figures in feminist interventions, queer theory and psychoanalysis amongst others.