Fall 2016

Art & Politics: From Tatlin's Tower to Occupy

ART 344
T TH 7:30pm - 8:50pm

Irene V. Small (Art & Archaeology)

What is the political capacity of art? What is the aesthetic capacity of politics? This course examines key episodes, strategies, and formulations pertaining to the complex relationship between art and politics across the 20th century. Topics include experiments in radical abstraction and mass performance undertaken by the Russian avant-garde, the institutional politics of Mexican Muralism, painting and propaganda during the Cold War, guerilla interventions and military dictatorships, the AIDS crisis and artist activism, and recent social movements.

 

Urban Studies Research Seminar

URB 300 / HUM 300 / ARC 300 / WWS 392
W 1:30pm - 4:20pm

Bruno M. Carvalho (Spanish & Portuguese)

Aaron P. Shkuda (Princeton-Mellon Initiative)

This interdisciplinary seminar introduces research methods in urban studies. We will focus on some of the ways in which researchers make sense of cities, including various aspects of urban experience, culture, history, theory, form, and policy. Students will use the analytical frameworks covered in the course to develop their own research projects with the goal of developing more dynamic junior papers and senior theses.

 

Documentary Film and the City

URB 202 / HIS 202 / HUM 202 / VIS 200
T 1:30pm - 4:20pm


Purcell Carson (School of Public and International Affairs)
Alison E. Isenberg (History)


This urban studies seminar in history and documentary film-making focuses on Trenton's unrest of April 1968, when a black college student, Harlan Joseph, was shot and killed by a white police officer. The course works outward from these events to examine the 1960s, race, region, economy, memory, and media representation. Students collect archival sources and help produce video interviews, culminating in their own research papers and short documentary films.

 

Latino Urban History

HIS 465 / LAO 465
T 1:30pm - 4:20pm


Rosina A. Lozano (History)

Using the cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and Miami as case studies, this course seeks to understand the history of Latinos in urban places. Casting a geographically broad net and focusing largely on the 20th century, this course will comparatively analyze Latinos of different national origins (e.g. Mexican Americans, Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, Dominican Americans). In addition, the course will look at a broad cross-section of the Latino community to get at changing understandings of gender, class, race, and immigration status.

 

The Arts of Urban Transition

DAN 310 / ARC 380 / THR 323 / URB 310
F 1:30pm - 4:20pm


Judith Hamera (Lewis Center for the Arts)
Aaron Landsman (Lewis Center for the Arts)
Aaron P. Shkuda (Princeton-Mellon Initiative)


This course uses texts and methods from history, theatre, performance studies, and dance to examine artists and works of art as agents of change in New York (1960-present) and contemporary Detroit. Issues addressed include relationships between artists, changing urban economies, and the built environment; the role of the artist in gentrification and creative placemaking; the importance of local history in art interventions; and assessing impacts of arts initiatives.