Semester:
Spring
Offered:
2016
How do artists and creators engage the debates of the present moment? How do we as scholars and critics help make history? This small course takes these questions as its foundation: we will look at the culture, context, and criticism of 2016 as it unfolds. In this lab-style class, students will think critically about how to define and historicize the contemporary by engaging directly with its products. We will examine a wide variety of materials--drawn from students' interests--and put them into dialogue with current events, debates, and movements. Students will also have the opportunity to think about their own work in dialogue with a wider audience, as the course will give students the opportunity to pitch and produce cultural criticism of their own.