Department of English

Within this course, students will have the opportunity to make work in a variety of mediums that address desire, love, lust, romance, friendship, kinship, heartbreak and loss. We will look at work from visual artists, writers of all genres, film and performance that question and center matters of the heart and the libidinal. While placing sexual and relational dynamics at the core of our artistic endeavors we will address through readings of queer, feminist and left scholarship the social and political implications of acts of love and art. Students can make work in all artistic genres: video, writing, sculpture, performance, painting, photography, collage, drawing and mixed media. In class we will do a variety of writing and some drawing exercises; look at film, video and visual art; and discuss work read and viewed outside of class. Artists, writers, and filmmakers we will study will include Jean Genet, Juan Goytisolo, tatiana de la tierra, Zadie Smith, Miranda July, Honey Lee Cottrell, Mel Odom, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lorraine O’Grady, Ai, Eileen Myles, Ana Maria Simo and many others. Work developed can be based in autobiography or history and as much about the desire for social justice as they are about the erotic. While work developed can be about the parent-child bond, lifelong friendships or sibling rivalry/solidarity, students should have ease in viewing, reading, discussing and critiquing art works that are sexually explicit.