ARTH 641 Issues in Visual and Material Culture: Global Radical Traditions + Abolitionist Aesthetics

• Thursdays, 11 am - 2 pm
• Instructor: Dr. Balbir K. Singh

In this seminar, we will study abolition both as a political concept and ongoing global movement, as well as one that has immense visual and material power. We will invest in the terms and theories that structure global radical traditions be they for the abolition of enslavement, borders, the police, prisons, colonial rule, and the military-industrial complex. Our course of study will be a mix of readings and visual material that traverse theories emerging out of critical ethnic studies, Black studies, Third World studies, and anti-colonial thought; we will pair that with radical archives of visual material that span forms like posters, flyers, zines, graffiti or street art, digital matter, alongside visual art and documentary films by contemporary artists and practitioners. The semester will be spent engaging movements for Black Power; for Palestinian liberation; for historic and ongoing struggles for decolonization; for unrestricted movement and a world without cages.