Visual Culture in Black America: The Art and Politics of Seeing and Being Seen

This courses fulfills the Race, Blackness, and Language requirement for English majors.In this course, we will examine the significance of visual culture for Black America, thinking critically about the art and politics of seeing and being seen. Well keep in mind the following questions: what does it mean to see blackness? How do images function as tools of empowerment and disempowerment, or representation and misrepresentation? What role does visual media play in Black life and imagination? Photography will be central to the study of visibility, but well also consider what role other media play in the production of blackness as a visual phenomenon: literature, performance, and music videos. Authors and artists may include Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois, Josephine Baker, Gordon Parks, Spike Lee, Hype Williams, Melina Matsoukas, Claudia Rankine, and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Assignments will include weekly discussion posts on readings and images featured in the course, and one creative project that may take the form of a photo-essay, critical paper, or video related to Black visual culture.