Descriptions
FYS 177. Sex and Sexualities. This course studies the representation of sex and sexualities, both "queer" and "straight," in a variety of cultural products ranging from advertising and novels to music videos and movies. Topics may include connections between sex and gender queerness suggested by the increasingly common acronym LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer); the advantages and inadequacies of using such labels; definitions and debates concerning pornography, sex education, public sex, and stigmatized sexual practices such as sadomasochism; the interrelations between constructions of sexuality and those of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and class; and the necessities and complexities of ensuring consent. Enrollment limited to 15. E. Rand.
INDS 250. Interdisciplinary Studies: Methods and Modes of Inquiry. Interdisciplinarity involves more than a meeting of disciplines. Practitioners stretch methodological norms and reach across disciplinary boundaries. Through examination of a single topic, this course introduces students to interdisciplinary methods of analysis. Students examine what practitioners actually do and work to become practitioners themselves. Prerequisite(s): African American Studies 140A or Women and Gender Studies 100, and one other course in African American studies, American cultural studies, or women and gender studies. Cross-listed in African American studies, American cultural studies, and women and gender studies. Enrollment limited to 40. Not open to students who have received credit for African American Studies 250, American Cultural Studies 250, or Women's Studies 250. Normally offered every year
AV/WS 287. Women, Gender, Visual Culture. This course concerns women as makers, objects, and viewers of visual culture, with emphasis on the later twentieth century, and the roles of visual culture in the construction of "woman" and other gendered identities. Topics include the use of the visual in artistic, political, and historical representations of gendered and transgendered subjects; the visualization of gender in relation to race, ethnicity, nationality, class, age, sex, and sexuality; and matters of censorship, circulation, and resources that affect the cultural production of people oppressed and/or marginalized by sex and/or gender. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30 per section. Normally offered every other year. E. Rand.
AVC 288. Visualizing Race. This course considers visual constructions of race in art and popular culture, with a focus on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. General topics to be discussed include the role of visual culture in creating and sustaining racial stereotypes, racism, and white-skin privilege; the effects upon cultural producers of their own perceived race in terms of both their opportunities and their products; and the relations of constructions of race to those of gender, class, ethnicity, and sexuality. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30 per section. Not open to students who have received credit for Art 288. Normally offered every other year. E. Rand.
AVC 374. Methods in the Study of Art and Visual Culture. This course considers the history and methodology of art history and visual culture studies, with an emphasis on recent theoretical strategies for understanding visual culture. Topics discussed include stylistic, iconographic, psychoanalytic, feminist, historicist, queer, anti-racist, and postmodern approaches to the study of visual material. Prerequisite(s): two 200- or 300-level courses in the history of art and visual culture. Enrollment limited to 15. Not open to students who have received credit for Art 374. Normally offered every year. E. Rand.
AVC 375. Issues of Sexuality and the Study of Visual Culture. This course considers issues of sexuality as they affect the study of visual culture, with a focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other queer sexualities. Topics include the value and politics of identifying artists and other cultural producers by sexuality; the articulation of sexuality in relation to race, ethnicity, class, and gender; and the implications of work in sexuality studies for the study of art and other forms of visual culture in general. Enrollment limited to 15. Instructor permission is required. Not open to students who have received credit for Art 375. Offered with varying frequency. E. Rand.
AVC s17. Consuming Consumer Culture. While cultural commentators, professional and otherwise, often describe U.S. consumer culture as a monolithic or homogenizing force, the complexity of consumption and variations among consumers are receiving increasing attention. This course considers consumers in consumer culture, with a focus on the United States. Questions may include: How does participation in consumer culture vary according to shared factors such as gender, race, sexuality, economic status, age, and location, or conversely, the individual idiosyncrasy? What is involved in consuming such contested products as pornography or video games? How does consumption vary across products? How, for instance, is buying art different than buying shoes? Enrollment limited to 25. Not open to students who have received credit for Art s17. Offered with varying frequency. E. Rand.
AVC s24. What Are You Wearing? This unit considers clothing in terms of the production of goods, markets, and meanings. Topics may include the Nike boycott, outsourcing, and the Clean Clothes Campaign; the function of clothes in the construction of cultural, social, and personal identities; the regulation of clothes to enforce behavioral standards, such as gender normativity; selling, advertising, shopping, and acquisition, with attention to issues of class, race, gender, nationality, sex, and sexuality in the making of markets for particular products; and "ethnic" dress, queer fashion, and other clothes that may raise issues of appropriation, allegiance, and cultural theft. Enrollment limited to 25. Instructor permission is required. Not open to students who have received credit for Art s24. Offered with varying frequency. E. Rand.