107-401 Theories of European Modernism

Usually 37.5 points of art history or European studies at second/third year, see Prerequisites and see Prerequisites, or admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in art history.

This subject will comprise close analysis of theories of avant-garde culture that developed in Europe between 1885 and 1935. The focus will be determined by a number of issues which may include institutional structures (museums, dealers, artists' groups); nationalism (regional cultural and ideological factors); criticism and aesthetic theory; social developments (the rise of mass culture, new technologies); politics (anarchism, feminism, communism, fascism); discourse (epistemologies of modernism, identity, culture). Students should become familiar with analyses and critiques of modernism, as they are informed by theories of gender, sexuality, and postcoloniality.