Art, Politics, and the Screen

From news streamed on laptops to grassroots organizing on smart phones, screens have become a primary site for the experience of politics in our contemporary world. This course explores the historical genealogy of the political primacy of the screen by investigating how artists have used screens as a means to document, visualize, and enact political processes over the past century. Looking to a range of media such as film, video, and slide projection, the course is divided into thematic units that address issues of oppression, colonialism, and revolution; sexuality and gender; race and its representation; and native peoples' struggles.