The Body and Reproduction in Art

Rose-Anne Gush
Art Sciences and Art Education, Art History
2020S, scientific seminar (SEW), 4.0 ECTS, 2.0 semester hours, course number S02950

Description

This seminar explores the juncture of the ‘body’ in art and art history in relation to feminism, capitalism and its (non-)reproduction. Tracing recent debates on ‘social reproduction’ struggles and their intersection with art history (Vishmidt/Stakemeier, Dimitrakaki), and addressing the ways in which the body is taken up in contemporary art, this seminar will explore how concepts and discourses of the ‘body’ are situated alongside critical questions of gender and feminism, critical theories of race, and labour. The ‘body’ is taken to be a historically contingent concept, up for contestation. The idea of the body connotes tensions: between inside and outside; consumption and excretion; energy and depletion; life and death. At the same time, the ‘body’ is produced historically. Considering how the 'body' has been theorised within discursive frameworks including (but not limited to) Karl Marx’s description of the commodity ‘labour-power’, Silvia Federici’s historical analysis of the female ‘rebel’ body, Hortense Spillers’ emphasis on the flesh and Saidiya Hartman’s emphasis on the body/objecthood of blackness, in relation to a history of artistic practice that engages the body, the aim of this seminar is to track the social implications of artistic investigation of the ‘body’ conducted through a range of media (performance, photography, video, film, etc.), where feminism is understood as part of an ongoing struggle. Considering such theories including their tendencies and the exigent contradictions between them, as well as artistic practices, in this seminar we will pursue a materialist analysis of art’s enduring imbrication in capitalist social relations, as well as its relative autonomy from such relations.

 

Sample Bibliography:

  • Kerstin Stakemeier and Marina Vishmidt, Reproducing Autonomy: Work, Money, Crisis and Contemporary Art (London: Mute Books, 2016) (excerpts)
  • Marina Vishmidt, ‘The Two Reproductions in (Feminist) Art and Theory since the 1970s’, Third Text, 2017, 49–66
  • Leigh Claire La Berge, Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art (Duke University Press, 2019) (excerpts)
  • Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The Politics of Performance (Routledge, 1993) (excerpts)
  • Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility’, in The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, trans. by E. F. N. Jephcott and Harry Zohn (Cambridge, Mass; London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 19–55
  • Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2010). (excerpts)
  • Hortense J. Spillers, ‘Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Baby: An American Grammar Book’, Diacritics, 17.2, (1987), 64–81
  • Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (New York: Autonomedia, 2014) (excerpts)
  • Paul B. Preciado, Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era, trans. by Bruce Benderson (New York City: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2013) (excerpts)

Examination Modalities

70% Anwesenheit, Mitarbeit, kurzer Text (Essay)

Course Enrolment

From 08 January 2020, 10:59 to 04 March 2020, 13:30
Via online registration

co-registration: possible

Art Education: subject kkp (Bachelor): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject kkp (Bachelor): IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject kkp (Master): Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE

Art Education: subject kkp (Enhancements study): FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften

Art Education: subject kkp (Enhancements study): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject tex (Bachelor): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject tex (Bachelor): IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject tex (Master): Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE

Art Education: subject tex (Enhancements study): FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften

Art Education: subject tex (Enhancements study): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dae (Bachelor): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dae (Bachelor): IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dae (Master): Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE

Art Education: subject dae (Enhancements study): FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften

Art Education: subject dae (Enhancements study): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dex (Bachelor): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dex (Bachelor): IT: Bachelorseminar Wissenschaftliche Praxis

Art Education: subject dex (Master): Lehrveranstaltung nach Wahl aus wissenschaftlicher Praxis, SE

Art Education: subject dex (Enhancements study): FOR: Seminar aus dem Bereich Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften

Art Education: subject dex (Enhancements study): FOR: Lehrveranstaltungen nach Wahl aus Wissenschaftliche Praxis

TransArts - Transdisciplinary Arts (Bachelor): Theoretical foundations

Stage Design (1. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Stage Design (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Media Arts: Specialisation in Transmedia Arts (1. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Media Arts: Specialisation in Transmedia Arts (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Media Arts: Specialisation in Digital Arts (1. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Media Arts: Specialisation in Digital Arts (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Design: Specialisation in Graphic Design (2. Section): Humanities

Design: Specialisation in Graphics and Advertising (2. Section): Humanities

Industrial Design (1. Section): Art History

Design: Specialisation in Fashion Design (1. Section): Free Elective Pool Methodological and Theoretical Basics

Fine Arts: Specialisation in Photography (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte (2.0 ECTS)

subject Fine Arts / Art and Communication Practices (1. Section): Aus Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (2.5 ECTS)

subject Fine Arts / Art and Communication Practices (2. Section): Aus Kunst und Kulturwissenschaften, (davon min. 4 SSt SE) (2.5 ECTS)

subject Fine Arts / Art and Communication Practices (2. Section): Aus Kunstgeschichte, SE (3.0 ECTS)

subject Handicrafts / Design, Architecture and Environment (1. Section): Aus Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (2.0 ECTS)

subject Handicrafts / Design, Architecture and Environment (2. Section): Aus Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften, (min. 4 SSt SE) (2.5 ECTS)

subject Textile Design / Textiles - Art, Design, Styles (1. Section): Aus Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (2.0 ECTS)

subject Textile Design / Textiles - Art, Design, Styles (2. Section): Aus Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften (mind. 4 SSt SE) (2.5 ECTS)

subject Textile Design / Textiles - Art, Design, Styles (2. Section): Aus Kunstgeschichte, SE (3.0 ECTS)

Fine Arts (1. Section): Kunstgeschichte

Fine Arts (2. Section): Art Theory, Cultural Studies, Art History, Philosophy

Fine Arts (2. Section): Free Electives out of Scientific and Research Practice

Design: Specialisation in Applied Photography and Time-based Media (1. Section): Art and Design History

Design: Specialisation in Applied Photography and Time-based Media (2. Section): Humanities

Cross-Disciplinary Strategies (Bachelor): Foundation

Fine Arts: Specialisation in Painting (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte (2.0 ECTS)

Fine Arts: Specialisation in Graphics (2. Section): Kunstgeschichte (2.0 ECTS)

Individual courses: possible