Queer Frontiers

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

In this course, we will investigate two frontiers in queer histories of art. The first is the discourse about queer historicism, which asks how we should discuss sexuality and gender in art histories that pre-date the gay liberation movement and the identitarian terms often used to discuss queerness today. How, in other words, can we study queer art history before the 1970s? Second, by incorporating queer theory’s groundbreaking approaches to questions of historicism, temporality, and the archive, we will also discuss how models of queerness might transform our understanding of cultural and economic exchange, as well as postcolonial theory. Given that both of these subjects—queer historicism and queer exchange—often hinge on what is visible or invisible, they are especially urgent to the field of art history. In this course, then, we will also use queer theory to think about art historical methodologies more broadly.