ART 240
Current Topics in Critical Theory
AFTER ART
AFTER THEORY
WHAT DO PICTURES WANT?
Suderburg Spring UCR 2014
Wednesday Arts 213
10:15-1PM
REQUIRED/FOCUS TEXTS 2014:
Jane Bennet Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things *
Gilles Deleuze Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. *
Michel Foucault The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences *
David Joselit After Art *
Lucretius De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe) *
W. J. T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images
Martha Rosler Culture Clash: Art, Creativity, Urbanism (pdf only)*
* exist under course materials as pdfs.. Often awkward to read this way.
Actual books are also on reserve in the library for you.
Course Description
A seminar on selected theoretical systems as applied to modern, postmodern,
and post-post modern art. Topics examined will include Aesthetics, Marxism,
Psychoanalysis, Structuralism, Post-Structuralism, Feminist Theory, Cultural
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Studies, Semiotics, Queer Studies, Post-Colonial Theory, and Gender Theory.
The course will focus on selected close readings of primary sources including the
work of Adorno, Barthes, Benjamin, Bhaba, Bourdieu, Cixous, Derrida, Fanon,
Foucault, Freud, Guattari, Hall, Haraway, Irigaray, Kristeva, Lacan, Lyotard,
Marcuse, Marx, Said, Saussure, Spivak, Theweleit, Williams, and Vaneigem.
The objective of this seminar is to offer the graduate student a concentrated
examination of some of the most important names, ideas and movements in
continental philosophy, art theory, cultural studies, visual studies and literary
criticism indispensable to the analyses and discussion of the work of art. The
course is designed to be responsive to current trends in critical theory and as
such specific topics are subject to adaptation depending on the interests of the
instructor and the students in each seminar.
Definition of Critical Theory:
The term “critical theory” has come to designate a type of inquiry that cuts across
existing disciplines and that demands examination of the premises, concepts,
and categories that structure academic discourse in areas such as literary
studies, philosophy, art history, media studies, history, and political theory.
Critical theory cannot therefore be limited to a particular field or even to a specific
content. Critical theory is involved wherever the methods, presuppositions, and
basic concepts of a discipline, mode of thought, or form of life are no longer
taken for granted but are, instead, subjected to critical reflection in a rigorous
and, when appropriate, a systematic manner.
THEORY Resource Pages: http://erikasuderburg.com/id70.html
+ Glossary
Requirements:
Students will have been asked to satisfactorily complete Art/MCS 6 (Art Theory
1) and Art Theory 160 (Intermediate Art Theory). (Exceptions are possible) Art
theory equivalents in another institution and/or within other UCR departments
including: English, Comparative Literature, Women’s Studies, MCS, Ethnic
Studies, Anthro, Sociology, or Philosophy may also satisfy basic requirements for
admission. Consent of Instructor required.
Writing assignment: One major writing assignment (10-15 pages min): a close
engagement with the assigned theoretical text(s) which should be comparative,
historicist, polemic, or synthetic and which will deals with a specific aspect of the
text(s) of interest. You can choose to incorporate preliminary work on this paper
as part of your class presentation. This paper may be a continuation of written
projects you are currently engaged in.
Presentation on a section of the texts of your choice. You will define and lead
the discussion and be responsible for presenting features of interest and posing
questions.
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Grading Assessment will be based on informed participation in class
discussions, topic presentations and on one written paper. Attendance in all
classes is required. If you miss two classes you will be failed out of the course.
Grades will be based on 40% final paper, 30% presentation of class topic and
30% class discussion and attendance.
Week 1 APRIL 2 INTRO
Discussion-whither theory?
Seminar participant's intros
Week 2 APRIL 9
Michel Foucault The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences: Forward, Preface and Las Meninas+ Suggested: The Prose
of the World, Representing.
Week 3 APRIL 16
Mitchell, W. J. T. What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images
Part One: Images
1. Vital Signs /Cloning Terror
2. What Do Pictures Want?
3. Drawing Desire
4. The Surplus Value of Images
Week 4 APRIL 23
Mitchell, W. J. T. What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images
Part Two: Objects
5. Founding Objects
6. Offending Images
7. Empire and Objecthood
8. Romanticism and the Life of Things
9. Totemism, Fetishism, Idolatry
Week 5 APRIL 30
Mitchell, W. J. T. What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images
Part Three: Media
10. Addressing Media
11. Abstraction and Intimacy
12. What Sculpture Wants: Placing Antony Gormley
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13. The Ends of American Photography: Robert Frank as National
Medium
15. The Work of Art in the Age of Biocybernetic Reproduction
16. Showing Seeing: A Critique of Visual Culture
Week 6 MAY 7
Jane Bennet Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things :
Preface, The Force of Things, A Life of Metal Plus suggested Neither
Vitalism Nor Mechanism.
Lucretius De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of the Universe):
Introduction, Matter and Void. Penguin best translation in a pinch:
http://classics.mit.edu/Carus/nature_things.html
Week 7 MAY 14
Gilles Deleuze Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation:
Preface and Chapters 1-9 (University of Minnesota Press 1981, 2003)
John Rajchman “Sensation” in The Deleuze Connections. (MIT, 2000)
pdf.
Posted extracts from Deleuze Dictionary pdf.
Week 8 MAY 21
Gilles Deleuze Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation:
Chapters 10-17 plus
Tom Conley “Afterwards.”
+ Additional optional foraging…
Gilles Deleuze “The Movement Image” in Cinema 1
Suely Rolnik “Deleuze Schizoanalyst” e-Flux Journal #23 March 2011
Terry Eagleton “Couples Therapy: Francois Dosse’s Deleuze +
Guattari” Artforum April 2011 pdf.
Week 9 MAY 28
Martha Rosler Culture Clash: Art, Creativity, Urbanism:
Parts 1-3 pdf.
David Joselit After Art:
Preface and Image Explosion. 1-24
Week 10 JUNE 4
David Joselit After Art:
Populations, Formats, Power. 24-115
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Closure or not…
Finals Week Final paper due Saturday May 14th. No late work and no
incompletes given except in case of DIRE emergencies.
PRIMARY SOURCES BIBLIOGRAPHY: ART THEORY (Selected)
Please see: http://erikasuderburg.com/id70.html
+ Paper Bibliography available on our course site
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