Art, Agency, and the Arab World: From Decolonization to the War on Terror

The Arab world is a region in flux. Its borders have been drawn and redrawn multiple times since the Arab Revolt (1916-1918) which brought an end to the Ottoman Empire amidst the global conflict of World War I. Although the primary goal of the Arab rebels was to establish an independent and unified Arab state, instead, the Arab-majority Ottoman territories were carved up into a number of mandates controlled by the French and British empires. In response, multiple strains of Arab nationalism emerged across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), reaching a cogent phase following World War II. Soon after, French and British control over the region deteriorated and collapsed. The period of decolonization and the decades after were characterized by the formation of several new sovereign states accompanied by political factionalism, numerous oil crises, war, and mass migration. Since then, the formal political structures that define nation states have been precariously constituted in the MENA region. In this seminar, students will discover how artists and other cultural contributors living in the Arab world and diaspora have narrated, mediated, and shaped these pivotal moments in history and, vice-versa, how these moments influenced their work. This course encompasses a broad range of media, treating painting, sculpture, photography, installation, film, cartoons, graphic novels, street art, and social media as parts of one continuous visual landscape. In addition to the methods of art history, this course also incorporates literary, museological, archaeological, and philosophical perspectives. As a result of this interdisciplinary approach, students will come to understand that visual creation in the region has been shaped by forces that have often pulled in opposite directions: the legacy of colonialism and early nation formation; cultural and religious tradition and Modernism; cosmopolitanism and isolationism; artistic innovation and acts of iconoclasm and censors
Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM; AS LCD; FA HUM; AR HUM; AH NW; BU Hum; BU IS

Art, Agency, and the Arab World: From Decolonization to the War on Terror

ART HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY 2397

Section 01