HAA 270K - Repairing America

Jennifer Roberts, Horace Ballard

Taking an approach that is simultaneously material and theoretical, focusing on American art from the colonial period onward, this course will explore the breakdown and repair of objects, the cultures they sustain, and the critical approaches they demand. We will cover theories of making, repair, and maintenance. We will take a deep dive into conservation science and practice. We will think about the possibilities and precarities of reparative approaches to scholarship.