African and African-American Studies 185x

What is Black Art? African American Cultural Production from the Early Republic to Civil Rights
Sarah Lewis
Tuesday, 1-3pm
This course surveys the history of African American Art from the colonial period to the long Civil Rights movement in the context of larger aesthetic and social movements. Taught in the Harvard Art Museums’ study center, this undergraduate seminar (also open to graduates) culminates by students curating their own online exhibition as the final project, presenting it to the class for discussion. Each week, the course will incorporate object study to examine the full range of African American cultural expression and strategies: craft, painting, printmaking, photography, film, and art political collectives. Seminar discussions will focus on works and their key thematics in artistic production—survival, retention, creolization, the politics of “black art” aesthetics and exhibitions, and the question of genre, such as the freedom and costs of abstraction, and politics of racial representation. The dual aim of this course is to give students of all backgrounds and concentrations an understanding of core topics in African American Art and a critical analysis of a work of art that can be developed into larger research projects.