Journal Entries 5

In this journal, you will be reflecting on the readings for  Week 7   March  16    Constructing and Deconstructing the Visual Culture of "Race"  AND  Week 9   March 30   Public Arts  

I would like you to think about some of the issues involved in public arts projects such as Maya Lin's Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, Kara Walker's A Subtlety and Dustin Klein's BLM public projections from 2020.

Using at least three of the required readings from week 7 as your historical baseline (on race and visual culture), and referring to these (Lin, Walker, Klein) and at least two other projects from the week 9 list, reflect on the agency and power that public art projects have to open up conversations, create communities, to overcome or  heal collective trauma-- especially that related to racist violence. 

As in the past, you should structure this as a short essay that is well constructed with paragraphs and correct citation.  Your essay should be between 500 and 1500 words in length. If it is on the short side, it still must demonstrate careful reading of the 2 weeks' material listed.  

 Your essay should be carefully considered and fully cited.

Required Readings fro week 7 are 

There is no journal due this week, but your reading for Tuesday asks you to acquaint yourself with significant writings on issues of race, racism and anti-racism in Visual  Culture Studies.  Discussion questions for class are below.

You will be writing about these readings in yourjournal for March 30, combined with that week's readings.

Sturken & Cartwright, "Evidence, Classification and Identification"  349-357.

Nicholas Mirzoeff “Slavery, Modernity and Visual Culture”  from Mirzoeff, Nicholas. An Introduction to Visual Culture. (London: Routledge, 2009).

Anne McClintock “Soft-Soaping Empire: Commodity Racism and Imperial Advertising” from Ed. N. Mirzoeff, The Visual Culture Reader, (London: Routledge, 2003)  506-517.

bell hooks “Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination” (1992) in ed. Grossberg, Lawrence, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler. Cultural Studies. (London : Routledge, 2016)

Watch:  Kara Walker (Links to an external site.) in "Stories"  Art 21, 2002. Most of this interview is also here:   Kara Walker (Links to an external site.) 'The Melodrama of “Gone with the Wind”' Art21.