What is race and what are the pleasures of race? For whom, and under what conditions? What are the aesthetics and politics of race and pleasure, race and sexuality? How is race sexualized and sexualities racialized? We will analyze representations of race and desire within the historical frames of power and difference, while remaining attentive to the deliberate as well as unwitting production of pleasure, replete in its ability to both subvert or reinforce multiple complex meanings. This course will help students formulate varied and nuanced understandings of how cultural production in paintings, photography, film, and performance disrupt, complicate, and reconfigure racial and sexual formations. We will explore issues and debates that go beyond judging racialized sexuality and sexualized race in art as "positive" and "negative." Students are expected to analyze texts and artworks that engage the thematic area of sexual pleasures of racialization globally, even while this area remains a painful and complex topic. This course will require intensive in-class discussions, so come prepared to talk and listen; all assigned readings and assignments will be uploaded to Google Classrooms.

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