Art History 355: Indigenous Aesthetics: Native North American Art and Visual Culture

This course examines art and visual culture as an expression of Indigenous people in North America. Working directly with campus collections and regional arts and culture centers, we will study the material, formal, and iconographic dimensions of specific artworks and visual objects, while considering the historical, social, and environmental conditions that have shaped and are shaped by them. The course will expose students to traditions, cosmologies, and frameworks for understanding Native North American art and visual culture, and develop research and writing skills for interpreting all forms of cultural expression. Topics may include: sovereignty, settler colonialism, “Indian-ness,” gendered and queer indigeneities, and human/nonhuman relations. Discussion-based classes with field trips, presentations, short papers, and projects. May be taken for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major, Gender Studies major, or the Art-Environmental Studies major.