By Sea and Sand: Modern Art in the Mediterranean

3 units

FOR PEP STUDENTS, ONLY. This course surveys the representation of Mediterranean spaces and cultures in the visual arts from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth century during which time transformations across economies, governance, society, and technology took place alongside the expansion and subsequent deterioration of French and British colonial rule in the Middle East and North Africa. In this course, the modern Mediterranean will be viewed from multiple vantage points along its shores and through a range of media, including popular culture, visual culture, material culture, and fine art. In addition to obtaining a strong grasp of the artistic phenomena associated with the Mediterranean during the modern era, students will come to understand the region as a place possessing a remarkably diverse and polymorphous identity, and as a place of fracture, confrontation, mutual incomprehension, innovation, and exchange.