Courses of Study 2017-2018 
    
    Mar 29, 2024  
Courses of Study 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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ARTH 3850 - The Arts of Southeast Asia

(crosslisted) ASIAN 3350 , VISST 3696  
(GHB) (CA-AS)      


Spring. 4 credits. Student option grading.

K. McGowan.

The arts of Southeast Asia are studied in their social context, since in traditional societies creative processes are often mapped on the sequence of events that compose human lives. We will be looking particularly at the gendered ways in which bodies are mapped on the land, and how these various framings are often reflected in the unique relationships that emerge between works of art and textual sources.

The aim of this course is to transform “landscape” from a noun into a verb, exploring the complex ways in which the relationships between texts and images reflect a continual process by which social and subjective identities are formed and reformed as artists seek to secure a sense of place. In the words of Goenawan Mohamad, in this complex mythologizing process, art and the artist “develop strategic negotiations between the necessity of form and the performative compulsion.” As fiery forms signaling through the flames, bodies and landscapes interact and form each other under different cultural, historical, geographical and geological conditions. Special emphasis will be devoted to the complex relationships which develop between texts and images as they apply to localized encounters in Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia.  



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