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How did the standardization of nation as form in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries shape the production of art and art history? This seminar explores the impact of state formation on discourses and practices of art and culture. We will survey the United States between the 19th and 21st centuries, with a focus on re-interpreting the modern canon through the lens of law and legal theory; modern citizenship and statehood; and race, gender, and genealogy. We will be looking at a broad range of artistic forms to dissect the connection between aesthetics and state formation, including: landscape painting and indigenous removal, identity photographs and Chinese Exclusion, visual anthropology and criminology in racial classification, Hollywood cinema and immigration law, and the iconography of the map in modern art. Analysis of primary and archival materials will be complemented by secondary readings from art history and visual culture, media studies, political theory, and anthropology. In addition to the US, we will examine other national, international, and imperial formations through comparative case studies. |
