Subjectivity and Storytelling: From Decorative Arts to Digital Futures
| Module title | Subjectivity and Storytelling: From Decorative Arts to Digital Futures |
|---|---|
| Module code | AHV3020 |
| Academic year | 2024/5 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | Dr Lotte Crawford (Lecturer) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 11 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 15 |
|---|
Module description
This intersectional module interrogates identity through storytelling and subjectivity in the production and reception of British avant-garde arts and global visual cultures. A line is drawn between artistic practices shaped by imperial conditions of modernity to resistance and reparative possibilities currently emerging through queer and feminist digital design. On this module you will focus on decorative arts including sapphic needlework produced around 1900, interwar marbled papers titled ‘Empire’ made by an artist-mother in an English bathtub and mass-produced ‘popular’ patterns for wartime furniture, to decolonial digital approaches including radical empathy in UX and VR by trans and queer designers today. The storytelling properties of objects will be examined through interlinked concepts of narrativity, materiality and identity. Intertwined individuals, communities and cultures are examined sequentially through the making of artworks and objects. Theoretical approaches to Art History in relation to queer, feminist and decolonial approaches to storytelling and worldbuilding are developed through lectures, seminars and experimental writing tasks. No pre-requisite modules are necessary. This course is particularly of interest to students with interests in materiality, Gender Studies and Creative Writing.
Module aims - intentions of the module
- Introduce you to knowledge of modern British colonial history and its legacies between the nineteen century to the present day through artworks, objects and artistic practices.
- Introduce knowledge that complicates binary conceptions of gender, sexuality, race and class as well as artistic disciplinarity.
- Develop understanding of British constructions of identity including race, gender, sexuality and class through intersectional, queer and decolonial theory and through object-focused analysis.
- Provides you with an understanding of world-building of marginalised communities through visual and literary storytelling. You will examine sequence and narrative schemes in art, craft and design as producers of knowledge.
- Develop your skills in close-reading visual analysis and textual analysis through independent study and group discussion.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Establishing storytelling and identity politics as having major cultural impact through art, craft and design
- 2. Demonstrate confident analysis of narrative schemes in art, craft and design as producers of knowledge
- 3. Demonstrate an ability to develop art historical research through transdiscipline approaches
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 4. Demonstrate knowledge of modern British colonial history through artworks, objects and artistic practices between 1900 and the present day
- 5. Demonstrate knowledge of key debates and approaches to art history and visual culture through intersectional, queer and decolonial theory
- 6. Demonstrate knowledge of key debates and approaches to art history and transdisciplinary knowledge
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 7. Development of skills in close-reading visual analysis and textual analysis through independent study and group discussion
- 8. Demonstrate skills, through oral presentation, in interpretation and communication, alongside the capacity to work creatively.
- 9. Demonstrate an ability, through essay writing, to write construct coherent arguments using clear prose, supported by a proficiency in research and bibliographical skills, information retrieval, and analysis.
Syllabus plan
Topics may include:
–Storytelling, subjectivity and enchantment
–The lure of objects around 1900
–Orientalism and Occidentalism
–Feminism ‘whiteness’ and imperialism
–Nationhood, art and ‘universality’
–Artworks in translation
–Diasporic communities and ‘British’ display
–Speculative and fugitive feminisms
–Contemporary technologies: design and radical empathy
–Decolonial resistance and digital futures
Lectures will focus on networks, objects and display. Seminars will unpack underpinning theoretical materials and include short writing tasks. A workshop on an art and design focus will support and develop student understandings of intersectionality and identity in contemporary art and design. Short experimental writing workshops will encourage the exploration of student’s subjectivities through approaches to aesthetics which hybridise art history with literature, sociology and anthropology.
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | 128 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 11 | 11 x 1-hour lectures |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching | 9 | 6 x 1.5-hour seminars |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | 2 | Workshop with artist/designer |
| Guided independent study | 128 | Reading, individual research and assessment |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short essay/ experimental writing | 500 words | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Written feedback with opportunity for follow-up |
| Group presentations | 10 minutes | 1,2,3,8 | Oral (in-class) |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essay | 75 | 2500 words | 1,3,4,5,6,7,9 | Written feedback with opportunity for follow-up |
| Short experimental writing in response to an artwork/ object | 25 | 750 words | 1,2,4,7,9 | Written feedback with opportunity for follow-up |
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 | ||||
| 0 |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essay (2500 words) | Essay (2500 words) | 1,3,4,5,6,7,9 | Referral/Deferral Period |
| Short experimental writing in response to an artwork/ object (750 words) | Short experimental writing (750 words) | 1,2,4,7,9 | Referral/Deferral Period |
Re-assessment notes
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
- Eds., Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel, We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics, Nightboat Books, 2021
- Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You: Essays and Poems, Silver Press, 2017.
- Jane Bennett, The Enchantment of Modern Life, Duke University Press, 2001.
- Peter Brooks, Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative, New York Review of Books, 2022
- Kathryn Brown and Elsbeth Michell, ‘Feminist Digital Art History’ in Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities and Art History, Routledge,2020
- Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915, University of North Carolina Press, 1994
- Akwugo Emejulu, Fugitive Feminism, Silver Press, 2022
- ed. Ruth Frankenberg Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism, Duke University Press, 1997
- Dona Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto, University of Minnesota Press, 2016.
- Dan Hicks, Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. Pluto Press, 2020
- bell hooks, On Cultural Criticism and Doing Cultural Criticism, 1997 [online]
- Kimberlé Crenshaw. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (1991): 1241–99.
- Stephen Melville ed. The Lure of the Object (Clark Studies in the Visual Arts), Yale University Press, 2006
- José Esteban Muñoz, Disidentifications: Queers Of Color And The Performance Of Politics, University of Minnesota Press, 1999
- eds. Hannah Quinlan, Rosie Hastings, Feminism and the Political Right, Arcadia Missa, 2021
- Gillian Rose, The Broken Middle: Out of Our Ancient Society, Blackwell, 1992
- William J. Simmons, Queer Formalism: The Return, Floating Opera Press, 2021
- Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense, Princeton University Press, 2009
Indicative learning resources - Other resources
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 01/03/2024 |
