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 1
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. 2
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 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 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 Part Three: Media 10. Addressing Media 11. Abstraction and Intimacy 12. What Sculpture Wants: Placing Antony Gormley 3
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 4
Closure or not Finals Week Final paper due Saturday May 14 th. 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 5