Extinction and Visual Culture

4 credits · Undergraduate

"Extinction and Visual Culture” explores the evolutionary, planetary, and anthropogenic causes, processes, and events of biological extinction in relation to visual-material culture historically and in terms of mass extinction amid degradation of the biosphere and biodiversity loss. What does extinction look like, what is its material evidence? How do the visual arts, performance, and exhibition represent disappearance, absence, looming loss—and address the grief and fear of extinction? What are extinction’s “visualities,” its social and political contexts and systems of visual expression and reception? Can visual images empower response to human ecological violence, help mitigate extinction?