ARTH 6610 Art History and Black Studies: Dear Science and Other Stories

• Instructor: Dr. Joana Joachim

 This course will consider some theories related to Black visual art in Canada and elsewhere. We will discuss and examine how they can be used to analyze Black visualities and aesthetics. We will consider how to engage critically and rigorously with the work of Black artists from across the globe. Centering Katherine McKittrick’s book Dear Science and Other Stories (2021) we will investigate her conception of Black creative texts and similar approaches to reading Black cultural production. Through discussions about notions such as critical fabulation, unpayable debts, Black gaze and Black livingness, for example, we will reflect on how theories pulled from larger Black studies can serve to complicate our understandings and analyses of Black visual art specifically. This course will also lead us to think critically about art history, curatorial practices and Black studies more broadly in Canada as opposed other parts of the Atlantic world.