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This course will trace the formation of modes of visual modernity in Shanghai from the final decades of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) through the Republican era (1911-1949). Our exploration will focus on visualities produced in architectural and public spaces such as museums, gardens, and the theater, as well as on cultural and imaginary spaces of representation such as printed books, cigarette posters, paper currency, and handscrolls. We will consider structural conditions for the emergence of distinctly Chinese modes of modern visuality, including perceptions and discourses of change and newness, the prominence of an urban public visuality of reflexive sociability and spectacle, and the role of the state in promoting certain modern modes of seeing. We will take into account the development and understanding of new technologies of vision such as lithography, photography, and film. Readings will be a blend of topical and theoretical texts.
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Can artworks command a time of viewing? How do encounters with art reveal cultural and scientific rhythms and tempos of time? Students in this course will produce thematically linked small-group curatorial projects about time in West Asian, European, Chinese, and Latin American arts, representing a diversity of cultural understandings of time and temporality, and making clear lived histories of heterochronicity against the dominant European colonial conceptualization of time dating to the Enlightenment that today marks our days.
How does a picture or other visual object shape our understanding of and feeling for time? How does visual art open us to the experience of heterochronic time (the experience of time as multiple)?
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This seminar will introduce students to innovative examples of recent art historical scholarship on two senses of the word “touch:” 1) to have the emotions tugged at – to be “touched” – by objects, and; 2) to see objects not only with the eye, but also to apprehend them sensuously, with the hand and body. It will span a broad chronological range of Chinese objects, from 11th-century handscrolls to 18th-century porcelain dishes to 21st-century performance arts. Students are not expected to have any prior experience with Chinese art and design.
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This course explores the historical and contemporary Chinese city -- as representation, model, catalyst, and socio-political construct. We will study a dynamic field of artistic and design activity that touches on central issues informing urban identity in China of the post-socialist and supermodern present (1989-the present). We will focus on the city as site for artistic performance and the development of a new design culture. Each student will conceive, workshop, research and write a theoretically-informed essay. Students are not expected to have any prior experience with Chinese art and design.
For undergraduate seminar syllabus, click here.
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This course explores Chinese cultures in Europe and European cultures in China during the early modern and modern eras (17th-early 20th centuries). It analyzes the chimeric hybrid forms of art and architecture produced through the flow of people and things across the globe with an eye to the ways these new material and artistic forms encouraged new modes of seeing and new understandings of subjectivity. Our main interest is in the slippery term "cultural hybridity," and what that means for processes of identity formation through visual arts. Students will study paintings, textiles, and prints in the Mactaggart Art Collection. Students are not expected to have any prior experience with Chinese art.
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From the 17th century, the imperial city walled within the Qing dynasty capital of Beijing was the center of a politically mandated and produced visual and material culture. This seminar will explore the architecture, the city plan, and an array of objects produced at court, from tiny carved walnuts in the shapes of boats to monumental dragons of white marble, from poetic handscroll paintings to equally poetic maps. We will interpret the city in light of classical Chinese theories of city design, theoretical discussion of Manchu ethnicity and the arts, and issues of identity surrounding the patronage and personality of the Qing emperors. The course will ask why and how the city, although forbidden, managed to become and remain the symbolic locus of power in late imperial China, and how it has been reinterpreted and re-presented by the Communist state. During the second half of the semester we will investigate current attempts at visual deconstruction of the city by 21st -century artists and architects. Lecture-seminar. Prerequisite: two previous art history classes or consent of instructor.
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This course is an introduction to art and visual culture produced in China since 1976 — the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of the "open reform" era (though we will take a short 1-week sojourn in Maoist China to give us the history we will need to understand this later body of artwork). We will study the art forms taught in art academies (painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and video) and will also look at popular mediums such as advertisements, billboards, and online videos. We will consider critical issues confronting artists across China, including globalization; urbanization and migration; pollution and the environment; the political legacy of the imperial and Maoist-era past; definitions of gender, sexuality and individual identity, and; political censorship. There is absolutely no expectation that students will have studied China's culture, history, art, or design prior to taking this course.
THEMES OF THE COURSE: globalization; urbanization and migration; pollution and the environment; the political legacy of the imperial and Maoist-era past; definitions of gender, sexuality and individual identity, and; political censorship.
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This course raises the questions: What is sustainable design in 21st-century China? Why and how does it matter to all of us across the planet? The course is structured around things that have long been forms of organizing social and cultural life in China: the "five elemental phases" (wuxing 五行) of metal, earth, fire, water, and wood. It introduces three new phases to the mix: people, garbage, silk + cotton. Students will learn about sustainable design related to each "elemental phase" (and environmental as well as social crises linked to them) through explorations into landscape design, architectural design, interactive design, graphic design, packaging design, industrial design, fashion design. Historical material will be woven into each unit. There is absolutely no expectation that students will have studied China's culture, history, and design prior to taking this course.
QUESTIONS OF THE COURSE:
What are we trying to sustain?
Who has a stake in sustainabilty?
How are historical practices of sustainable design in China being incorporated into contemporary design practices by designers in China and around the world?
Why is it urgent for our Spaceship Earth that we all learn about sustainable design practices in China (historical and contemporary)?
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This course will introduce the History of Art, Design, and Visual Culture to first-year university students and build the skills needed for classes at the 200-level and above.
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