ARH 1045 The Body in Art and Visual Culture
The human body is a powerful signifier of lived experience and has been used throughout the history of art as a means of spiritual, scientific, sensorial, and aesthetic inquiry. In other words, as far back as we can go in human history, we find representations of the human body, and those representations provide us with evidence of lived experience: of birth and mortality, of passion and desire, of faith and enmity, of ideals and difference, of power and vulnerability. This course introduces students to the creative ways that artists have shown bodies of all types to express these complex emotions and ideas. The course is designed thematically, and explores the production, reception, and interpretation of the body in visual culture across cultures and throughout history. Themes may include Divine and Idealized Bodies, Potent and Afflicted Bodies, Racialized Bodies, Empowered Bodies (ethnic, racial, sexual, and political), and Bodies in Motion.
LA