Short Century - University of Iowa



Global Issues in Visual Culture

Spring 2003, Tuesdays 3:30-6:00 P.M., W34A Art Building

Professor Sarah Adams

Office: Art Building W137; Office Phone: (319) 335-1778

Office Hours: Tuesdays 2-3, Thursdays, 2-4, or by appointment

Email: sarah-adams@uiowa.edu

Professor Julie Hochstrasser

Office: Art Building W159; Office Phone: (319) 335-1744

Office Hours: Tuesdays Thursdays 12:00-1:30, or by appointment

e-mail: julie-hochstrasser@uiowa.edu

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES

Our objective this semester will be to investigate, through a few case studies, historical and contemporary objects that have come into being as a result of processes of interculturation, the circular flow of culture through geography and time. Given our respective specialties in seventeenth-century Dutch and contemporary Nigerian art, our focus for the planned class meetings will be upon the interactions between Europe (particularly the Dutch) and Africa (as well as the African diaspora). We will explore the historical problems of imperialism, slavery, colonialism, postcolonialism, neocolonialism and globalization, and concomitant representational issues ranging from evolving notions of the “exotic” and the “primitive” to concepts of “hybridity” and “postmodernism.” Concerns of identity and displacement seem to permeate as recurrent themes, but we encourage you to identify others as they emerge from our inquiry.

Just as we are enjoying the intellectual adventure that results from collaborating from our own different points of reference in terms of intellectual origins and specializations, we look forward to benefiting from the differing areas of expertise among the student participants as well, so we invite you to be mindful of the contrasting perspectives that arise from the diversity of our disciplinary and geographic specializations. We will begin with very basic and general orientation to art historical methodology, and will meet early on in the University Art Museum to work with some real objects. We will then move into our investigation of various global contact zones, ranging (in more cyclical than linear time!) from the early modern period forward to the contemporary, starting with Africa and Europe, but opening outward in the end, highlighting case studies of contact and crossover remembered in art and visual culture. Our own points of reference tend to bounce back and forth between the seventeenth century and the present, so inevitably points of comparison and contrast emerge along thematic as well as geographical lines. With students’ final projects at the end of the semester, we will conclude with presentation and discussion of your own research on case studies of visual imagery of your choice.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Needless to say, conscientious reading, thoughtful looking, regular seminar attendance, and active participation in discussions are crucial to your success. Your grade will be based on the following: Class participation, oral and written final project, 1/3 each. Your assigned facilitations and in-class presentation of readings will count as part of your “class participation” third.

For your semester project, we encourage each of you to identify similar case studies in the geographical areas of your own research interest—they need not be focused on Africa/ African diaspora and/or Europe. Depending upon the concentrations of our various students, we anticipate that this will broaden our scope to other parts of the world. We will be happy to assist you in identifying useful resources.

Our last few meetings of the term will be devoted to presentation and discussion of your projects. Please recommend one or two brief readings to assign in advance of your class discussion, to help orient your fellow students to the region, period or issues your paper engages. The seminar papers will be due April 15, so everyone will have the opportunity to read each others’ papers in preparation for our concluding discussions.

OTHER BUSINESS

Visual Materials Fee: $15 will be billed to your account for the resources required for this class.

Accommodations: If you have a physical or learning disability requiring modification of seating, testing, or other class requirements, please alert us so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Bring your Student Academic Accommodations Request Form from Student Disability Services.

Complaints: If you are having a problem with the course, please let us know. If this does not resolve it, the next step is to contact Dorothy Johnson, Director of the School of Art and Art History (335-1769, E100 Art Building). The College of Liberal Arts handbook lists policy details.

Plagiarism and cheating: Be sure you know what constitutes academic misconduct, because the consequences are severe: you can be flunked or even expelled. The college handbook explains definitions and penalties, but in brief, make certain you cite your sources whenever you draw upon the ideas and observations of others; when using their exact words of course always use quotation marks as well, and finally also reference your sources for facts not widely available.

READINGS

All on course reserve in Art Library.

Books on order to buy:

Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, Seventh Edition,

Longman: Boston, 2003.

Peter Mason, Infelicities: Representations of the Exotic, Johns Hopkins

University Press, Baltimore and London, 1998.

Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and

Popular Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven and London,

Irit Rogoff, Terra Inferma: Geography's Visual Culture, Routledge: London

and New York, 2000.

Olu Oguibe, Uzo Egonu: An African Artist in the West, Kala Press, London,

1995.

Mariet Westermann, A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic 1585-1718, New York: Abrams, 1996

Following book is out of print and is being copied by Upacs:

Willie Page, Dutch Triangle: The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664 (Studies in African American History and Culture), Garland Publisher, 1997.

Suggested:

Michael Harris, Transatlantic Dialogue: Contemporary Art in and Out of Africa, distributed by University of Washington Press, Published by

Ackland Art Museum, UNC Chapel Hill.

Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage Through the Worlds of the Slave

Trade, Basic Books, New York, 2002.

Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the

New World, 1570-1670, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Nicholas Mirzoeff, ed, Visual Culture Reader, Routledge: London and

New York, 1998.

SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Week One: January 21: Introductions

Week Two: January 28: Art History and Visual Culture

Will meet in the University Art Museum

• Sylvan Barnet, A Short Guide to Writing About Art, Chapters 1, 2, 7, 8.

• Nicholas Mirzoeff, “What is Visual Culture?” Chapter 1 in Visual Culture Reader

• Irit Rogoff, “Studying Visual Culture,” Chapter 2 in Visual Culture Reader

• Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, “Narrativizing Visual Culture: Towards a Polycentric Aesthetics” Chapter 3 in Visual Culture Reader, (just pp27-34)

• Ikem Okoye, “Tribe and Art History,” The Art Bulletin v 78 (December 1996) p 610-5. You can access the full text, online version of this article by going to the Art Library home page, clicking on “Art-Related Indexes,” choosing “Art Full Text,” then doing a basic search under “Ikem Okoye.”

•

Suggested for further reading:

• remainder of Mirzoeff, ed., Visual Culture Reader

• James Elkins, How to Use Your Eyes

Week Three: February 4: Representing the “Exotic”

• Peter Mason, Peter Mason, Infelicities: Representations of the Exotic (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), chapters 1,2,3,5,

• Paula Girshick Ben-Amos, The Art of Benin, “Art, History and Politics” pp 20-63

• Bassani and Fagg Africa and the Renaissance: Art in Ivory, to be divided among the class by chapter.

• Barbara Mathe: Infelicites: Representations of the Exotic (review) in Visual Resources, Vol. XVI, pp. 413-419, 2000

• Looking assignment on the web: De Bry Grand Voyages, published 1591



• Theodore De Bry, Discovering the New World (New York : Harper & Row, c1976)

Both of these articles are available full text online, with images, in the database Academic Search Elite:

• Picton, John, “Undressing Ethnicity” African Arts Autumn 2001, 34:3.

• Hynes, Nancy, “Re-Dressing History” African Arts Autumn 2001, 34

Week Four: February 11: Dutch Art and Visual Culture

• Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the 17th Century, Introduction and Chapter One, “Constantijn Huygens and The New World,” and look through plates

• Mariet Westermann, A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic 1585-1718 (New York: Abrams, 1996) skim, and look through plates; read Global Dutch Economy (112-116)

• David Freedberg, “Science, Commerce, and Art: Neglected Topics at the Junction of History and Art History,” in Art in History/History in Art, ed. David Freedberg and Jan de Vries

Looking Assignment: (look through plates):

• Willem Bontekoe, Memorable Description of the East Indian Voyage 1618-25

• Pieter de Marees,.Description and historical account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602) (Oxford [England] ; New York : Published for The British Academy by Oxford University Press, c1987)

• Olfert Dapper, (1639-1689), Description de l'Afrique (New York, Johnson Reprint, 1970)

• Jan Huygen van Linschoten (1563-1611), The voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies :from the old English translation of 1598 : the first book, containing his description of the East

(London : Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1885)

• Johannes Nieuhof (1618-1672), An embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tartar Cham, Emperor of China

(Menston : Scolar Press, [1975]).

• Johannes Nieuhof, Memorável viagem marítima e terrestre ao Brasil

(Belo Horizonte, Brasil : Editora Itatiaia, 1981)

• Film (screen in class): Judging Vermeer

Suggested for further reading:

• remainder of Alpers, The Art of Describing

• Seymour Slive, Dutch Painting1600-1800

Week Five: February 18: The Slave Trade

• The Diligent, one person per chapter, to report on in class

• Equiano’s Travels: His Autobiography, abridged and edited by Paul Edwards (London, Ibadan, Nairobi: Heinemann, 1967), one person per chapter

• Willie F. Page, The Dutch Triangle: The Netherlands and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1621-1664 Studies in African American History and Culture, ed. Graham Russell Hodges, Colgate University (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1997). skim Introduction, last two sections of Chapter 1, Chapter 2

• Skim: Adam Jones, West Africa in the Mid-Seventeenth Century: An Anonymous Dutch Manuscript, transcribed, translated and edited by Adam Jones. United States: African Studies Association Press, 1995.

• Cheryl Finley article (to be announced)

• “The Other Question…Homi K. Bhaba Reconsiders the Stereotype and Colonial Discourse” in Screen

Suggested for further reading:

• remainders of Diligent and Equiano

• Johannes Postma, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815, Cambridge University Press

• Henry A. Gemery, Jan S. Hogendorn, eds, The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Week Six: February 25: North America

• Benjamin Schmidt, Innocence Abroad: The Dutch Imagination and the New World, 1570-1670: read “Preface: Cultural Geography in an Age of Encounter” (pp. xviii-xxix); in ch.1 “The Dutch Discovery of America” pp.1-5, and section VIII (pp. 54-67); in ch.2 “Revolutionary Geography” section VI (pp. 111-122); ch. 3 “Innocence and Commerce Abroad” section I (pp. 123-138) (and pp. 157-8 on Pieter de Marees); in ch.5 “Tyranny Abroad” section IV (pp. 260-275), and Epilogue pp. (pp.311-320).

• Browse Page, Dutch Triangle, chapter 4 “New Netherland: 1609-1664” and Chapter V “Africans in New Netherland”

• Robert Young, “Colonialism” and “Imperialism” in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction

• In Michael Harris, Transatlantic Dialogue: Contemporary Art in and Out of Africa: Michael Harris, “Departures and Returns: African Artists in the West” and Moyo Okediji “Returnee Recollections: Transatlantic Transformations”

• Jeff Donaldson, “AfricaCobra and TransAtlantic Connections” in Deliss, Clementine, Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa, pp 249-251

Suggested for further looking:

• Stefan Lorant, The new world; the first pictures of America,

(New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946; 1965)

• Thomas Hariot (1560-1621), A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (New York : Dover Publications, c1972)

Suggested for further reading:

• Remainder of Schmidt, Innocence Abroad

• The Many-Headed Hydra

Week Seven: March 4: Brazil/Caribbean

• In Brazil: Body and Soul, Rebecca Parker Brienen, “Albert Eckhout and Frans Post: Two Dutch Artists in Colonial Brazil” (92-111)

• Page, Dutch Triangle, browse chapter 3, “The Dutch in Brazil, Guiana and the Caribbean”

• Looking Assignment: Zacharias Wagener, Thierbuch, and read intro pp 6-15

• Richard Price, First-Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press) skim, esp. pp. 41-182

• Richard and Sally Price, eds., Stedman’s Surinam: Life in an Eighteenth Century Slave

• Society, everyone read Introduction and look through plates; divide up chapters.

opkins University Press, 1992), Intro (i-lxxxv) and skim (1-341); especially look through plates

Suggested for further reading:

• browse Dutch Brazil, the other two volumes (besides Thierbuch): I and II

• Whitehead, Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen 1604-1679 : a humanist prince in Europe and Brazil (The Hague:Johan Maurits van Nassau Stichting,1979)

• skim Morton, The Poetics of Spice, “Blood Sugar” Chapter

Week Eight: March 11: Postcolonialism

• Robert C Young “Postcolonialism,” and “Africa” sections I, II, III, and IV, (p 217-292) in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction

• Screen Black Skin White Mask

• Isaac Julien and Mark Nash, “Fanon as Film” Nka no 11/12, 2000.

• Homi Bhaba “Post Modernism and Post Colonialism” in Nelson and Shiff, Critical Terms for Art History

• Ima Ebong “Negritude: Between Mask and Flag—Senegalese Cultural Ideology and the Ecole de Dakar,” Olu Oguibe and Okwui Enwezor, eds, Reading the Contemporary: African Art from Theory to the Marketplace, pp 129-143.

Suggested for further reading:

• Fanon, Black Skin White Mask

• Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism

• Seymour Drescher, “The Long Goodbye: Dutch Capitalism and Antislavery in Comparative Perspective in Gert Oostindie, ed, Fifty Years Later: Antislavery, Capitalism and Modernity in the Dutch Orbit

Week nine: March 18: no class: Spring Break

Week ten: March 25: South Africa

• C.R.Boxer, Dutch Seaborn Empire ch. 8 “Assimilation and Apartheid” and and ch. 9 “The Tavern of Two Seas”

• Traci Murnik, “Berni Searle: The Darker Shade of Light” Nka No 13/14, 2001.

• Annie Coombes, “Skin Deep/Bodies of Evidence: The Work of Berni Searle” in Olu Oguibe and Salah Hassan, eds, Authentic/Ex-Centric: Conceptualism in Contemporary African Art.

• Olu Oguibe, “Beyond Visual Pleasure: A Brief Reflection on the Work of Contemporary African Women Artists” in Salah Hassan, ed, Gendered Visions: The Art of Contemporary Africana Women Artists

• Okwui Enwezor, “Reframing the Black Subject: Ideology and Fantasy in Contemporary South African Representation” in Okwui Enwezor and Olu Oguibe, eds, Reading the Contemporary

• Penny Siopis, “Dissenting Detail: Another Story of Art and Politics in South Africa” in Brenda Atkinson and Candice Breitz, eds, Grey Areas: Representation, Identity, and Politics in Contemporary South African Art

• Introduction, Brenda Atkinson and Candice Breitz, eds, Grey Areas: Representation, Identity, and Politics in Contemporary South African Art

Suggested for further reading:

• in Grey Areas: Articles by Carol Becker, Emma Bedford, Colin Richards

• Look/Browse:

• Cecily Lockett, (ed.), Breaking the Silence: a Century of South African Women’s Poetry (Parklands : AD. Donker Publisher; Johannesburg: Thorold's Africana Books [distributor], 1990)

• Linda Rode & Jake Gerwel, (eds.), Crossing Over: New Writing for a New South Africa (Cape Town : Kwela Books, c1995)

• Morton, The Poetics of Spice (up to “Blood Sugar”)

Week Eleven: April 1: Exhibiting the “Exotic”

• Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination. Whole class will read Intro, Chapter 1, Conclusions and Epilogue, the rest of the chapters will be divided among the class.

• Mason Infelicities Chapters 4, 6, 7, 8

• William Pietz, “Fetish,” in Nelson and Shiff, Critical Terms for Art History

Suggested for further reading:

• William Pietz, “The problem of the fetish,” I, in Res: Anthropology and aesthetics, 9: spring 1985; “The problem of the fetish,” II, Res: Anthropology and aesthetics, 13: spring 1987; and “The problem of the fetish,” III, in Res: Anthropology and aesthetics, 16: autumn 1988

• Timothy Barringer, Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture, and the Museum

Week Twelve: April 8: Primitivism

Read:

“Primitive,” in Nelson and Shiff, Critical Terms for Art History

Olu Oguibe, Uzo Egonu: An African Artist in the West

Divide the class into two groups, divide and conquer!

Group 1) Look over exhibition catalog for MoMA’s 1984 exhibition “Primitivism” in 20th Century Art, and read reviews:

• James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern” Art in America v 73 (April 1985), p 164-77+ (also reprinted in Clifford, Predicament of Cultures, ch. 9)

• Yves Alain Bois, “Primitivism in 20th century Art” Art in America, v 73 (April 1985) p. 178-89

• Cynthia Nadelman, “Broken Premises: “Primitivism” at MoMA, Art News v 84 (Feb 1985) p 88-95.

• Kirk Varnedoe, Art in America v 73 (May 1985) p 11-13

• Thomas McEvilley, “Doctor Lawyer Indian Chief” Artforum International v 23 (Nov 1984) p 54-61

Group 2) Look over exhibition catalog for 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la Terre, and read reviews:

• Thomas McEvilley, “Marginalia: Thomas McEvilley on the Global Issue” Artforum International v 28 (March 1990) p. 19-21

• Jean Fisher, “Fictional Histories: Magiciens de la Terre” Artforum International v 28 (Sept 1989) p. 158-162

• Eleanor Heartney, “The Whole Earth Show” Art in America v 77 (July 1989) p 91-97

• Benjamin Buchloh, “The Whole Earth Show: An Interview with Jean-Hubert Martin Concerning the forthcoming exhibition, Magiciens de la Terre, in Paris” Art in America v 77 (May 1989) p 150-9.

• There are also further reviews in French if you read French.

Week Thirteen: April 15: Globalization

SEMINAR PAPERS DUE TODAY (OOPS--TAX DAY TOO! SORRY!)

• Please turn in three copies: one will be on reserve in the Art Library, and

one copy each for Profs. Adams and Hochstrasser

• Irit Rogoff, Terra infirma: geography's visual culture, (London ; New York : Routledge, 2000), Intro and Chapter One (pp. 1-35), and one other chapter of your choice from among chapters 2 “Luggage,” ,3 “Mapping,” 4 “Borders,” and 5 “Bodies.”

• Nestor Garcia Canclini “Remaking Passports: Visual Thought in the Debate on Multiculturalism,” in Preziosi, The Art of Art History

• Young, “Neocolonialism” in Postcolonialism

• Looking Assignments: Virginia Ryan, Harmen Brethouwer

Week Fourteen: April 22: Student presentations and discussion

Week Fifteen: April 29: Student presentations and discussion

Week Sixteen: May 6: Student presentations and discussion

Optional Week Seventeen: May 13 (exam week)

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