GSS353

Critical theory is about the unraveling of streams of repressive discourses and hierarchies in our contemporary world, and it has been artists who have fostered ruptures and fissures in everyday life. This seminar ponders the concept of "cultural worker" and laments the domain of theory by exploring the intersections between critical theory, art, and cultural and queer politics. Students engage in the ruptures, the fragments of knowledge, and the making sense of the residue of "social change" while not forgetting the problematization of the aesthetic. They consider U.S.-based interdisciplinary artists such as Fusco, Ana Mediata, Tania Bruguera, David Hammon, Vanessa German, Pope.L, and Dianne Smith, and Jelili Atiku with critical theorists such as Fanon, hooks, Foucault, Mbembe, Muñoz, Moten, Hartman, and Benjamin. This seminar is based on close readings of theoretical texts and connecting those texts with contemporary cultural politics.