This course examines the role of women in the arts in pre-modern East Asia and the negotiation of women's concerns, by female artists, in modern and contemporary East Asian art. Did women have no sense of empowerment at all in pre-modern China, Korea, and Japan? What about Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women artists today? What are their interests and agendas? Students will engage with historical works of art and artists, while concurrently gaining an understanding of gendered female roles as determined by religious, philosophical, and societal conceptualizations of the past. Then, students will study feminist discourses originating from the West in their analysis of modern and contemporary East Asian art by and about women. Ultimately, the aim of this course is to demystify and to complicate understandings about women as the subject of art, as well as women as the producers of art, in East Asia. This course counts towards the WIM (Writing in the Major) requirement for art history majors.
| Distribution Area | Prerequisites | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities- or -Global Learning | 1 course |