ARTHIST 474A: Uncanny Lives: Encounters with the Humanoid
From murderous dolls to evil doppelgängers, humanoid doubles haunt the Western cultural imagination. Beginning with an in-depth look at the contested concept of the "uncanny", the seminar traces the history of anxiety about non-human humans in the West. An interdisciplinary inquiry, this course draws its sources from art, film, literature, psychology, and science.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Oing, M. (PI)
ARTHIST 475: Media Cultures of the Cold War (COMM 386)
The intersection of politics, aesthetics, and new media technologies in the U.S. between the end of WW II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Topics include the aesthetics of thinking the unthinkable in the wake of the atom bomb; abstract expressionism and 'modern man' discourse; game theory, cybernetics, and new models of art making; the rise of television, intermedia, and the counterculture; and the continuing influence of the early cold war on contemporary media aesthetics. Readings from primary and secondary sources in art history, communication, and critical theory.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-5
Instructors:
Turner, F. (PI)
ARTHIST 477A: An Other Art: Creativity and Neurodiversity (TAPS 340)
From its initial institutional recognition in the first decades of the 20th century, there were repeated attempts to bring creative work of the mentally ill within the fold of art: from pioneering psychiatric work informed by psychoanalysis, to its exaltation by French Surrealists, to Art Brut, to the budding industry of Outsider Art. Still, created outside of art institutions this kind of art is an expression of an inner necessity of artists, and not of their skills and professional savvy. Regardless of the level of recognition, creations of neuro-diverse people remain on distant margins not only of art institutions, but of the society. As such, this art marks the limits of the social as conceived in western contemporary culture. In this seminar, we will explore neuro-diversity in different art forms, from visual works, to music, to performance, all the way to the works that escape categorization, such as the spatial aesthetics of the homeless. Through the seminar, we will pay special attention to the social position of this, most vulnerable of all forms of artistic production: the stigma attached to madness, neglect of neuro diverse people, and social, political, and economic challenges related to (de)institutionalization of the mentally ill in the United States.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
ARTHIST 479: The Days: On the Writing of Specific Dates in History
What is the value of writing a whole essay or dissertation or book on a specific date in history? What does such an approach reveal and obscure? What challenges does it place on the *writer* of history? Exploring a series of case histories in weekly meetings, the seminar will also ask that each student write a paper on a specific date, evoking that one day on the calendar as a moment of unforgettable importance.
Last offered: Spring 2018
ARTHIST 480B: The World of Chen Hongshou (1598-1652) (ARTHIST 280B)
Planned to coincide with a special international exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum of works by the seventeenth century figure painter and print designer Chen Hongshou (1598-1652), this seminar will explore his art and cultural environment. Along with close study of his original paintings, we will study his connections with printmaking and publishing, fiction and drama culture, and his literary, social and patronage networks.
Last offered: Autumn 2017
ARTHIST 481: Chinese Portraiture (ARTHIST 281)
Exploration of recent studies of Chinese portraiture, with a focus on modern and contemporary eras. Portrait practices in treaty port cities; photographic portraits, portraits and modernity; political portraits in public arenas, self-erasure in contemporary portraiture, women's self-portraits, and experimental video portraits will be among the potential topics of discussion.
Last offered: Spring 2020
ARTHIST 483: Chinese Buddhist Painting: Visions and Practices (ARTHIST 283)
This course explores how Chinese Buddhist art adapts to changes in the religious visions, imagination, and practices of Buddhism in China. It focuses primarily on Buddhist paintings but will occasionally include other types of artistic devices, such as space for display, architectural design, and sculpture, to reach a better understanding of the viewing and the religious experiences. Striving beyond the discussion of style and iconography, we will broaden our pursuits by incorporating various issues such as the domestication of a foreign religion, the relationship between Buddhist literature and images, fusion with popular literature, social connections among eminent monks, scholars and artists, and political use of Buddhist images.
Last offered: Spring 2019
ARTHIST 487X: Pictures of the Floating World: Images from Japanese Popular Culture (ARTHIST 287, JAPAN 287)
Printed objects produced during the Edo period (1600-1868), including the Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) and lesser-studied genres such as printed books (ehon) and popular broadsheets (kawaraban). How a society constructs itself through images. The borders of the acceptable and censorship; theatricality, spectacle, and slippage; the construction of play, set in conflict against the dominant neo-Confucian ideology of fixed social roles.
Last offered: Winter 2019
ARTHIST 491: Riot!: Visualizing Civil Unrest in the 20th and 21st Centuries (AFRICAAM 291, AFRICAAM 491, ARTHIST 291)
This course explores the visual legacy of civil unrest in the United States. Focusing on the 1965 Watts Rebellion, the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, and the 2014 Ferguson Uprising, students will closely examine photographs, television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, and film and video representations of unrest. In addition, students will visually analyze the works of artists who have responded to the instances of police brutality and/or challenged the systemic racism, xenophobia, and anti-black violence leading to and surrounding these events.nnNOTE: Instructor consent required for undergraduate students. Please contact the instructor for permission to enroll.
Last offered: Spring 2020
ARTHIST 492: Romancing the Stone: Crystal Media from Babylon to Superman (ARTHIST 292, FRENCH 292, FRENCH 392)
This seminar investigates the importance of rock crystal and its imitations as material, medium, and metaphor from antiquity until modernity. The objects examined include rings, reliquaries, lenses, and the Crystal Aesthetic in early twentieth-century architecture and even Superman's Fortress of Solitude. The texts range from Pliny to Arabic Poetry to Romance Literature to modern manifestos.
Last offered: Spring 2020
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