ASRC 3501 - African Art and Culture

(crosslisted) ARTH 3510
(GB) (CA-AS)

Spring. 3 credits.

S. Hassan.

This course is a survey of the visual art and material cultural traditions of sub-Saharan Africa. It aims at investigating the different forms of visual artistic traditions in relation to their historical and socio-cultural context. The symbolism and complexity of traditional African art will be explored through the analysis of myth, ritual and cosmology. In-depth analysis of particular African societies will be used to examine the relationship of the arts to indigenous concepts of time, space, color, form and socio-political order. New and contemporary art forms associated with major socio-economic changes and processes of assimilation and acculturation will also be explored. These include tourist art, popular art, and elite art.