ART 217W - Art & Anthropology

3 credit(s) Writing Intensive
This course examines the Anthropology of Art by drawing on visual and performance arts, social science, and art history to contextualize the expression of artforms around the world. Cultural relativism is the central mode of understanding as we survey ritual, social organization, and artforms relegated to categories of tribal or “primitive”, as well as those associated with the academy. Representation, power relations, and the commodification of Indigeneity will be explored, especially where cultures have been colonized. Using an anthropological lens, we’ll examine why some artforms are labeled artifact, ethnic art, craft, or commodity, and who gets to decide these labels. We explore the role of colonialism, racism, ethnocentrism, and “Othering” in assigning these labels. Our focus will be primarily on non-Western cultures and their artforms.

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