BCULST 592 Topics in Cultural Research: Black Arts North/West (5 credits)
Instructor: Jed Murr
W 5:45 – 10 pm
UW Bothell campus
SLN#22898
This course explores what theorist and poet Fred Moten calls the “autonomous aesthetic thrust of Black radicalism” as it has taken shape in multiple formations on the West Coast of the U.S. and in the Pacific Northwest from the 1960s to the present. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship that situates African American and Black diasporic life and politics on the West Coast in comparative and transnational frames, we will work to (1) collectively investigate this new body of scholarship with a specific focus on the Pacific Northwest; (2) generate place-based research and critical and creative writing about local political and aesthetic movements; and (3) engage together recent Black Digital Humanities projects as examples of public-facing, accountable, participatory, and accessible scholarship.
Students will be asked to attend–in-person or virtually–and write about local arts events, such as Barbara Earl Thomas’s The Geography of Innocence and upcoming exhibits at Wa Na Ri. We will also work together to build and curate two online archives, one focused on Black periodicals in the PNW and one on contemporary Black art practices. And we will interrogate the stakes of doing cultural studies work in a time of revolt against racial capitalism and its violences.
Questions? Contact Jed Murr, jmurr@uw.edu
