ARTH 389 Ethnocultural Art Histories: Race, Citizenship, and Art in Canada

• Tuesdays, 11:45 am-14:15 pm
• Course delivery: Online
• Instructor: Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim

Significant legislation and dates for the projects of nation building and identity formation in Canada and Quebec, such as immigration policies and citizenship acts provide the historical framework for this course which explores Canadian art's engagement with issues of race and citizenship through the lens of racialized visible minority artists. From critical perspectives on the Group of Seven to the recent Black Lives Matter artivist movement, classes will examine the politics of representation, redress, and recognition in Canadian art, focusing primarily on contemporary praxis by Black Canadian and Asian Canadian artists. Topics include: Emily Carr's approach to Chinese immigrants and First Nations peoples, migration histories and colonial stereotypes, Canada's role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and as part of the Pacific Rim, hyphenated identities and "diasporart," nationhood and Quebec nationalism, the paradoxes of multiculturalism and cultural diversity, national ethnic categories, systemic racism, and "reasonable accommodation," Afro-Asian-Indigenous futures, and the relationship between community, art, and activism.