This course examines how artists have portrayed space exploration, extraterrestrial life, and cosmic frontiers in ways that reflect and shape global power struggles, technological ambitions, and cultural anxieties. From nineteenth-century telescopic photography to Cold War space-race propaganda, from Afrofuturist reimaginings to the science-fiction fueled fantasies of billionaires like Elon Musk, we will explore how space imagery has been used to express and justify national ambitions, colonial fantasies, sexual politics, and utopian (and dystopian) visions of the future. Through an interdisciplinary lens, students will engage with diverse perspectives and media including photography, film, illustration, comics, animation, and literature. HAAVC 3000 seminars continue developing students' visual analysis and research skills while providing students 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 specific topic/theme. 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. This course cannot fulfill the HAAVC 2000 requirement.

Visit Workday to view this information.