This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.  

Registration process:

First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.  

Major Requirement | BFA

This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.  

Registration process:

First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.  

Major Requirement | BFA

This course focuses on representations by, of, and for Latinx peoples in the United States, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War and ceded one-third of Mexican territory to the United States, until the present day. Drawing from Glorφa Anzalda's theory of the borderland as a both physical and psychological "in-between space," we will address questions of identity and belonging, assimilation and resistance, and visibility and erasure as they are encountered and debated by (and about) diasporic communities in the United States. Topics of discussion will include nineteenth-century debates of Pan-Americanism, the popularization and critique of Hollywood stereotypes during the Good Neighbor era, and Chicanx activism of the 1960s and 1970s. Issues of racial and ethnic identity will be considered alongside and in dialogue with those of gender, sexuality, class, and immigration status, and our discussions will encompass not only visual art but also music, cinema, literature, and activism. We will ask ourselves, what is the relationship of Latinx art and visual culture to that of the U.S.? What is its relationship to "Latin American" history and identity? And how might we begin to expand our definitions of U.S. art history?

Elective

A Master's Thesis is a substantive, research-based scholarly essay of at least 60 double-spaced pages that involves original research and makes an original intervention in the field. The culmination of the Master's Degree, the Master's Thesis is of publishable quality. This course supports the completion of the Master's Thesis. Students are required to work independently, in conversation with peers, and in individual consultation with their MA Thesis Committee to develop, complete, revise, and finalize the Master's Thesis. The Master's Thesis will be housed in the RISD Library in both print and electronic forms. Students are also expected to present work related to the Master's Thesis at the GAC MA Symposium. Please see the GAC MA Thesis Timeline for a clear sequence of required deadlines. Please see the GAC MA Thesis Guidelines and Policies for clarification of the goals and expectations of the GAC MA.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of GAC-798G and approval of the prospectus are required for enrollment.

Enrollment is limited to Global Arts and Cultures Students.

Major Requirement | MA Global Arts and Cultures

Since the invention of the so-called “New World” in 1492, “Latin America”—as geographic region and sociopolitical construct—has been both central and peripheral to the story of “Western” modernity. This graduate seminar examines how the political and technological revolutions of the twentieth century presented new challenges to the ideas of both Latin America and subaltern modernity more broadly, with competing visions of what exactly Latin American modernity could and should look like. Students will examine a range of movements, strategies, and theories in art, design, literature, cinema, and political theory that proliferated throughout the Americas during the turbulent period bracketed by two paradigmatic revolutions: the Mexican Revolution of c. 1910–1920, and the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Topics of discussion will include the debate between Panamerican unity versus regional autonomy, transatlantic cosmopolitanism versus Indigenism, modernism and the Black Atlantic, magical realism and Surrealist aesthetics, and decolonization in both theory and practice. Weekly discussions will be grounded in a wide range of readings, including background overviews, artist writings and manifestoes, and critical theory that sheds light on the sociopolitical, racial, ethnic, colonial, decolonial, and ecological dimensions of the Latin American modern—with broader implications for how the modern is defined, constructed, and lived.

Elective

Since the invention of the so-called “New World” in 1492, “Latin America”—as geographic region and sociopolitical construct—has been both central and peripheral to the story of “Western” modernity. This graduate seminar examines how the political and technological revolutions of the twentieth century presented new challenges to the ideas of both Latin America and subaltern modernity more broadly, with competing visions of what exactly Latin American modernity could and should look like. Students will examine a range of movements, strategies, and theories in art, design, literature, cinema, and political theory that proliferated throughout the Americas during the turbulent period bracketed by two paradigmatic revolutions: the Mexican Revolution of c. 1910–1920, and the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Topics of discussion will include the debate between Panamerican unity versus regional autonomy, transatlantic cosmopolitanism versus Indigenism, modernism and the Black Atlantic, magical realism and Surrealist aesthetics, and decolonization in both theory and practice. Weekly discussions will be grounded in a wide range of readings, including background overviews, artist writings and manifestoes, and critical theory that sheds light on the sociopolitical, racial, ethnic, colonial, decolonial, and ecological dimensions of the Latin American modern—with broader implications for how the modern is defined, constructed, and lived.

Elective