Penn Arts & Sciences Logo
 

Radical Arts: Literature, Visual Arts, Theater and Cinema in the Americas

ENGL 073.401
also offered as: THAR 073, ARTH 299, COML 073, CINE 073, LALS 073
instructor(s):
TR 1:30-3:00

This course examines intersections of artistic production and radical politics in the 20th and 21st centuries. It addresses art from across a wide array of media: street art, film, theater, poetry, performance art, fiction, graphic arts, digital media, muralism, and urban interventions. We will examine artistic movements and artists from across the Americas, including revolutionary Latin American theater, film, and literature; the Chicano Movement and its queer dissidents; the Nuyorican Movement; street performance and theater produced in the context of dictatorship; and activist art from the 21st century. Through its focus on the relationship between art and politics, this
course also introduces students to foundational concepts related to the relationship between culture and power more broadly.

Students complete writing assignments in which they analyze artworks (e.g. visual art, literary works, film, etc.) they select from among those discussed in the course. Course assignments also include a creative project: working individually or in groups, students will apply strategies of political art making discussed in the course to design their own artistic project in a medium of their choice.

No prior knowledge of this topic or of the visual arts is expected.

fulfills requirements
Sector 1: Theory and Poetics of the Standard Major
Sector 2: Difference and Diaspora of the Standard Major
Sector 6: 20th Century Literature of the Standard Major
Cultural Diversity in the US of the College's General Education Curriculum