Fascist Aesthetics: Women & Photography between the World Wars

Using the 1920s as its starting point, this course explores how women photographers have variously responded to the political upheavals of their times. How have female practitioners challenged and/or contributed to the rise of fascist regimes in their respective contexts? What can examining and reevaluating their work teach us about the aesthetic force of complacency, complicity, and resistance? Alongside key texts on race, gender, colonialism, and exile we will consider a diverse range of work by women and attempt to think critically about the unique roles they played in crafting and critiquing fascist visual culture in Europe and abroad.