This course considers the influence of feminism in the arts and its emphasis on the (de)construction of norms of gender and sexuality. The question here is how such norms are inextricably intertwined with the political economy, its technologies of power, knowledge, and desire. As an investigation of various performances of gender, especially in painting, sculpture, performance, photography, film and video art, we will also address the intersection of feminism with other critical tools such as Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Post-colonial Theory, Media Theory as well as Queer theory and New Gender Politics. We follow the theoretical development of feminism in the arts from the 1960’s to the 1980’s (the “Second Wave”), especially its critiques of spectatorship and representation; then, from the 1980’s to the contemporary (the “Third Wave,” Queer Theory, New Gender Politics) and its (re-) investment in questions of embodiment.