Intersections of Art History and Disability Studies: Disability in Modern Art

Spring 2020

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Course Details

This course seeks to provide a broad overview of the presence of disability and its manifestations through modern art in the 19th and 20th centuries. It provides an introduction of the historical development and fundamental intellectual and ethical issues associated with the representation of disability in the arts and humanities. We investigate the complex relations between artistic and humanistic expression within this major facet of society and culture. The class also introduces a new methodology and language to build a framework around how disability might fit into the discourse of modern art by way of a radical aesthetics of representation that challenges sociocultural norms. We will consider how disability aesthetics informs photography, performance art, outsider art and curatorial practices. Each week, we will examine readings from different periods of modern art in dialogue with writings about disability aesthetics to re-think art history as we know it.