Critical Theory Emphasis

The "postmodern" is a category which is both empty and full.  If on the one hand, definitions of postmodern art are so multiple and contradictory that they tend to cancel one another out, on the other it has become an inescapable term of periodization within contemporary cultural history and criticism.  This seminar seeks both to chart the theoretical field of the postmodern, and to test these critical assertions by applying them to specific art practices.  The crux of the course will be to askóand perhaps to answeróthe question, "Is there a postmodern visuality?"  In other words, are there models of seeing and representing the world which are specific to the postmodern era (which for the purposes of this seminar begins in 1960 with the emergence of Pop Art).  This question has a certain urgency at the present when, on the one hand, the discipline of art history has been greatly influenced by literary theory, and on the other literary and cultural studies have imported the visual within their purview to greater and greater degrees.

To address this problem, the seminar will weave together three categories of "text":  canonical essays on postmodernism by cultural and literary theorists (Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Jean-François Lyotard, Homi Bhabha, and Judith Butler and others), postmodern art history (Craig Owens, Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster, Kobena Mercer, Amelia Jones, Rosalind Krauss and others), and works of art (Andy Warhol, Carolee Schneemann, Bruce Nauman, Mary Kelly, Jenny Holzer and others).  Issues under discussion will include the differences between textual and visual models of knowledge, the degree of "criticality" or subversion possible within postmodern art, and the relationship between the postmodern and identity politics.