ARTH 379 Postcolonial Theory in Art History

• Tuesdays, 2:45pm-5:15pm
• EV-1.605
• Instructor: Dr. Marco Deyasi

This course is an introduction to the field of postcolonial theory, including some of the postmodern (i.e. poststructuralist) theories upon which it is based. We will use historical and contemporary art, aesthetics, and artistic practices as means to explore (“ways into”) these otherwise difficult and abstract ideas. Rather than use art merely as examples that illuminate postcolonial theory, we will explore the ways that artists and their art have engaged with, adapted, and otherwise sought to transform the ideas and theories that have inspired them. Because contemporary artistic practice is both intellectually and socially engaged, we might even say that we will explore art practice as a kind of theorizing, one that dovetails with written work. We will look at art from many historical periods and cultures, but the focus will be on modern and contemporary art and artists from around the world, including artists from colonized regions, diasporic artists, and indigenous artists. Readings will include texts by theorists, artists, writers, and scholars.

No previous experience or study of art, art history, or postcolonial theory is required. Early in the course we will spend time covering the intellectual foundations of postcolonial theory, thereby introducing every student to the key concepts, issues, and dynamics necessary for an engagement with the course material. These foundational concepts include: Marxism and social constructionism, Saussure and semiotics, Freud and psychoanalysis, Lacan and post-Freudian psychoanalysis, Foucault and power relations, Derrida and deconstruction, Butler and the performance of identity. Among the postcolonial theorists we will examine will be: Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Frantz Fanon, Ashis Nandy, Frederick Cooper, Nicholas Thomas, and Ann Laura Stoler.