Contemporary Art Since 1980
ARHA 252
Spring 2025
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01
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Crosslisting:
AMST 287 |
This historically-rooted introduction to contemporary art sets an anchor around 1980 and moves through the major debates of the last 35 years. This period gave rise to a bracing range of historical transformations: a post-communist Europe; an economically prominent China; queer and antiracist activism; increasingly molecular degrees of technological mediation in everyday life; assymetrical consolidations of a globalized network of travel, communication, and capital; climate and refugee crises; and a state of seemingly perpetual war, to name only a few. This course attends to the changing vocabulary of approaches by which artists intervened in these conditions and positioned their work in relation to a longer view of the history of art. Far from a comprehensive survey, the course acknowledges the inherently recursive and unstable condition of contemporary art history, a field of research and inquiry defined as a work in progress. The course is nonetheless structured in a loosely chronological fashion, sequenced according to formal techniques that emerged as timely responses to specific historical moments (photographic appropriation, moving image projection, social practice, painting, institutional critique, web-based art, etc.). Our work throughout will attend to theoretical frameworks that have remained influential in recent practice (postcolonial, feminist, poststructural, etc.). |
Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA ART |
Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Graded |
Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(ARHA-MN)(ARHA)(ARST) |
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Past Enrollment Probability: 75% - 89% |
SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
Primary sources and recent criticism posted on e-reserves.
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Examinations and Assignments:
Two timed essay-based tests (take-home, open-note), two papers (3 pages and 6-8 pages respectively), and a series of posts to an online interpretive analysis forum. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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Instructor(s): Grace,Claire Times: ..T.R.. 08:50AM-10:10AM; Location: TBA |
Total Enrollment Limit: 35 | | SR major: 9 | JR major: 8 |   |   |
Seats Available: 35 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 3 | JR non-major: 4 | SO: 6 | FR: 5 |
Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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