13464

WiSe 20/21: Theory and Criticism

Eric de Bruyn

Information for students

weekly, on-line sessions; Languages: German and English

Additional information / Pre-requisites

online, Webex

Comments

The purpose of this course is to provide the MA student with a general knowledge of the main critical theories and issues that inform current writing on modern and contemporary art (e.g. gender theory, identity politics, post-colonial theory, cultural techniques, eco-criticism, semiotics, social history). The course will focus, therefore, on a close reading of texts and follow an exploratory approach, allowing the questions that emerge during the various reading sessions to co-determine our reading list. The seminar will not only help students orientate themselves within the manifold, methodological frameworks of contemporary art criticism and debate, but assist students in formulating their own analytical approach to writing on the visual arts. To prepare for this course, it is recommended that students consult Christopher Wood, A History of Art History (2020), in particular the entries on the period after 1870, as well as the methodological introductions on Psychoanalysis, Social History of Art, Formalism and Structuralism, and Post-Structuralism to Art Since 1900: Modernism, Anti-modernism, Post-Modernism (2004). close