Course detail

Feminist (and) Queer Issues in Art, Film, and beyond (1970–1990s)

FaVU-2FQIAcad. year: 2024/2025

The material that has been chosen for the course focuses on the older period of feminism and queer visuality – 1980s and 1990s – and looks at two different sections. Within feminist (and queer feminist) art discourse, it focuses on issues of representation or the lack thereof in the curatorial strategies of dominant art institutions and curatorial narratives, on the issue of the erotic sovereignty of representation in the polemic against the critique of the objectification and sexualization of women's and queer bodies, or on the issue of activist approaches in art (and the risk of their historicization and inclusion in major art institutions and narratives). In the second section of the course, students will be introduced to some of the seminal film works made by queer artists, whether in the 1990s or at the turn of the millennium as part of the so-called New Queer Cinema movement, or older works made in the 1970s by, for example, John Waters or Ulrike Ottinger.

Language of instruction

English

Number of ECTS credits

Mode of study

Not applicable.

Guarantor

Mgr. et MgA. Barbora Lungová

Department

Department of Art History and Theory (KTDU)

Offered to foreign students

The home faculty only

Entry knowledge

None.

Rules for evaluation and completion of the course

Students will be assessed (non-letter grade) on submitting the reading and writing tasks and active participation in the seminar + attendance (by the end of the semester at the latest, all assignments must be handed in).

Some tasks will be individual, other will consist of team work. We will try to asses each other on the basis of our team work and collaboration.

Attendance is mandatory, 2 absences are allowed under normal circumstances, 3 absences are allowed should the learning be carried out in an online form due to covid restrictions.

Aims

The course introduces students to queer, and feminist topics connected to the politics of representation in visual art and film in historical perspective (1980s and 1990s). They will be able to link these perspectives to the current discourse in visual art.
Students will gain insight into topics and aesthetic modes brought by older periods of feminism and queer studies and will be able to critically reflect these texts and artworks in a wider context, both historical and contemporary. Students will be able to reflect with a clearer insight some aspects of the institutional processes of the art world(s) and they will gain insight into different approaches of identity politics.

Study aids

Not applicable.

Prerequisites and corequisites

Not applicable.

Basic literature

Gandy, Matthew. Queer Ecology. Nature, sexuality, and heterotopic alliances. (EN)
Jones, Amelia. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. (EN)
Judith Butler - The Trouble With Gender, Závažná těla/Bodies That Matter (CS)
Kimberley Pierce. Boys Don't Cry (film). (EN)
Lauren Berlant, Michael Warner. Sex in public. (EN)
McKenzie Wark. Reverse Cowgirl. (EN)
Pollock, Griselda, and Parker, Roszika. Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology. (EN)
Richard Dyer. The Culture of Queers. (EN)
Sara Ahmed. On Being Included. Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. (EN)
Saraswati, L.Ayu and Shaw, Barbara. Feminist and Queer Theory. An Intersectional and Transnational Reader. (EN)

Type of course unit

Seminar

26 hod., compulsory

Teacher / Lecturer

Mgr. et MgA. Barbora Lungová

Syllabus

What is feminism in art context? What is queerness in contemporary art context? Students' reflection of their experience.
Mapping the areas of possible interest./ Lucy Lippard – Trojan Horses: Activist Art and Power, Andrea Fraser -There is No Place Like Home
3. Autotheory, fictocriticism, etc: McKenzie Wark: Reverse Cowgirl; Laurent Fournier and the concept of autotheory
4. Jannet Halley and Andrew Parker (eds.). After Sex: On Writing Since Queer Theory
5. Griselda Pollock + Roszika Parker/Old Mistresses (Women, Art, and Ideology – Questions for Feminist Art Historians)
6. Tandem class (with Lenka Veselá and ...(to be specified later)
7. Maura Reily - Curatorial Activism
8. Gloria Andalzúa (La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciouness) and Audre Lorde (Uses of Anger)
9. Outlining the feminist/queer project students would like to carry out (in teams)
10. Avant-garde queer, camp, and film – Kenneth Anger, John Waters & Divine (Pink Flamingos, etc) + Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (Tendencies), Out Takes - Essays on Queer Film Theory; Working Like A Homosexual - Matthew Tinkcom
11. Forbidden Love – The Unshamed Stories of Lesbian Lives (1992) – Aerlin Weismann and Lynne Fernie
12. Seminar with a guest (to be specified later)
13. Final recap.