Universität Wien
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240524 SE Art and materiality in the Global South (P4) (2022S)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Participation at first session is obligatory!

The lecturer can invite students to a grade-relevant discussion about partial achievements. Partial achievements that are obtained by fraud or plagiarized result in the non-evaluation of the course (entry 'X' in certificate). The plagiarism software 'Turnitin' will be used for courses with continuous assessment.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 20 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

Update 11.02.2022: changed dates.

If possible, the course is to be conducted in presence. Due to the respective applicable distance regulations and other measures, adjustments may be made.

  • Friday 01.04. 13:15 - 16:30 Hörsaal A, NIG 4.Stock
  • Wednesday 11.05. 13:15 - 16:30 Seminarraum A, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 18.05. 13:15 - 16:30 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 25.05. 13:15 - 16:30 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 01.06. 13:15 - 16:30 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 08.06. 15:00 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Wednesday 15.06. 13:15 - 16:30 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course aims to introduce students to art and materiality as a standpoint from where to think of and with the global south (and its interconnections with the north) in novel and productive ways. As colonial and imperial legacies continue to exude their influence over the present, the course places attention on contemporary phenomena to reflect on cultural producers’ imaginaries, politics and practices. The course will explore the following questions: what is the traffic between past and present in such cultural production? What kind of institutions are in place that may administer such traffic? What are the novel formations that emerge? What kind of objects, landscapes, styles are presented to different audiences? What is their materiality all about? These questions will be addressed during the following sessions:

1) Art, materiality, postcolonial subjects and objects
2) Positionalities, collecting, and collections
3) (Im)permanence of museums
4) Heritage matters
5) The importance of indigenous art in the art and anthropology nexus
6) Art re-mixing pasts and presents
7) Art and materiality into the future

Assessment and permitted materials

1) Regular attendance (up to 1 session may be missed)
2) Active and critical engagement with the assigned readings as well as participation in the course discussions
3) Presentation of a reading (the presentation will last for 10-15 minutes during which the student will introduce the selected reading’s author as well as her methods, theories and arguments); preparation of questions emerging from the presentation; and chairing of the discussion
4) Submission of a term exam paper (8-10 pages)

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

For a positive grade, 51 % is required

90-100 %= 1
77-89 %= 2
64-76 %= 3
51-63 %= 4
0-50 % = 5

Written exams will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
-language and style (spelling and grammar)
-thorough understanding of the readings discussed in class
-use of the literature (choice of relevant readings, accuracy of the citations and arguments)
-clarity of arguments
-reflexivity
-critical thinking and originality

Active participation in the course discussions will be assessed both in terms of the quantity and the quality of the students’ contributions

Examination topics

Presentations, written papers, and active participation in discussions

Reading list

Miller D 2005. Materiality: An introduction. In D. Miller (ed) Materiality. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1-50

Myers F. 2001 Introduction: The empire of things In F. Myers (ed) The empire of things: Regimes of value and material culture. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 3-61

Fowles S 2016. The perfect subject (postcolonial object studies). Journal of Material Culture 21(1): 9–27

Bell JA 2017. A bundle of relations: Collections, collecting, and communities. Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 241–59

Thomas N 2021. Materiality, gifts, histories, and collections: Reflections on Entangled Objects. West 86th 28(1): 3-18

Harris C and O’Hanlon N 2013. The future of the ethnographic museum. Anthropology Today 29(1): 8–12.

Rankin E and Schmidt L 2009. The Apartheid Museum: Performing a spatial dialectics. Journal of Visual Culture 8(1): 76–102

da Costa Oliveira TL 2020. Lost objects, hidden stories: On the ethnographic collections burned in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro. Latin American Antiquity 31(2): 256–272

Geismar H 2015. Anthropology and heritage regimes. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 44:71–85

De Cesari C 2010. Creative heritage: Palestinian heritage NGOs and defiant arts of government. American Anthropologist 112(4): 625–637

Coombes AE 2003. History after apartheid: Visual culture and public memory in a democratic South Africa. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1-17 & 20-53

Kisin E and Myers FR 2019. The anthropology of art, after the end of art: Contesting the art-culture system. Annual review of anthropology 48 (1): 317-334

Phillips RB 2021. The issue is moot: Decolonizing art/artifact. Journal of Material Culture 1-23

Finley C 2011. Schematics of memory. Small Axe 15(2) No. 35: 96-116

Harris C 2006. The buddha goes global: some thoughts towards a transnational art history. Art history 29 (4): 698-720

Ciotti M 2012. Post-colonial renaissance: ‘Indianness’, contemporary art and the market in the age of neoliberal capital. Third World Quarterly 33(4): 633-651.

Taylor NA 2021. Hunter-gatherer or the other ethnographer? The artist in the age of historical reproduction. Journal of Material Culture 1–20

Jain K 2017. Gods in the time of automobility. Current Anthropology 58: 13-26

Wofford T 2017. Afrofutures. Third Text 31(5-6): 633-649

Eshun K 2003. Further considerations of afrofuturism. The New Centennial Review 3 (2): 287-302

Parikka J 2018. Middle East and other futurisms: Imaginary temporalities in contemporary art and visual culture. Culture, Theory and Critique 59(1): 40-58

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Mo 30.05.2022 10:09