Queer Art and Visual Culture explores sexual desires, representations, and gender identities that do not conform to socially constructed norms. Over 8 weeks, this hybrid 2000/3000 seminar queries simple binaries of straight and gay, linear and circular time, positive and negative images, visibility and invisibility in order to engage with the complexity and fluidity of sexuality and gender as it intersects with notions of race, place and histories. What does a queer decolonial aesthetic look and feel like (IRL as well as on mainstream and social media)? How can we reimagine queer futures; What is a queer art of failure? This course considers queer art and visual culture in light of queer theory, popular representations of queer identity as well as an array of visual works by LGBTIA+ artists, writers, activists and organizers. Topics for discussion include: gender performativity, transgender identity, disidentification, affect, utopia, failure, spiritualities/ ethics and desire. Course reading include texts by Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, Richard Fung, J. Jack Halberstam, Jonathan D. Katz, Catherine Lord, Kobena Mercer, Richard Meyer, José Esteban Muñoz, Juana María Rodríguez, among others. Students will attend various virtual queer art lectures and art events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. This course focuses on cultural diversity, critical analysis, and visual literacy. Students will also sharpen their critical reading, verbal communication, writing skills as well as create a creative project.HAAVC 2000 courses develop students' visual analysis skills while providing the opportunity for in-depth study of the visual/structural artifacts associated with a particular topic, region, or movement. Students will also engage with the relevant primary/secondary literature for the topic at hand. Courses will pay particular attention to the larger cultural, historical, and theoretical/ideological contexts in which the visual artifacts and structures under consideration were created.

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