COMM 29903 - Postcolonial/Decolonial Visual Culture

Course Credit: 1
COMM-29903 Postcolonial/Decolonial Visual Culture The imperialist project of European colonialism radically transformed the world, with political, social, economic and cultural implications for the societies that were dominated in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The colonial project devoted a significant amount of psychic energy to the construction and representation of non-European peoples and places. In this course, we will examine the production and deployment of these visual discourses not only as way to understand colonial history but as a frame to examine the current global power relations modelled after colonial structures of domination. Drawing on theoretical and methodological insights from critical/cultural studies and postcolonial/decolonial studies, this course will introduce the core tenets of colonial discourse and explore the representation of race, gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity in order to identify and connect patterns of racialized discourse from the past to present, allowing us understand how these operate today. [AH, C, D, GE]