PHOTOGRAPHY Art 871, Workerism

This course traces the trajectories within and around contemporary notions of art and labor. Beginning with the advent of the Federal Art Project and the Artists’ Union during the New Deal, moving through the developments and permutations of national and international activist labor organizations through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the course explores the multifaceted ideologies and theories of wage-based labor, cognitive and affective labor, post-workerism, and de-growth. We utilize analysis and research regarding the terms of precarity, labor practices, economic exchange, cultural capital, and class consciousness within the stream of production, speculation, competition, spectacle, and demand. Incorporating weekly readings, lectures, and discussion, the course requires a final ten-page paper and a visual presentation that expands upon the course materials and student research. [Not offered 2018-19]