Avery Gordon defines haunting as an alteration of time where what appears to have been concealed from the past is no longer avoidable and becomes present. It demands your attention, stating what has been “repressed, blocked or confined” is still alive, near and producing a distinctive “something-must-be-done.” If time haunts, what does it ask of us? How does the act of interrogating time require a simultaneous consideration of the role of power, empire and the limits of representation? How might texts, performance, and art offer entry points into working with, against and beyond time? Through the writing, photography, film, performance and social histories of artists and thinkers across the Black Atlantic, Haunted Time: Black Aesthetics, Archive and the Repertoire critically examines how we intervene in and work with tools used as keepers of time: the material archive, the body and memory. This course will explore histories of enslavement, colonialism, imperialism and its legacies today to cultivate a praxis of intervention into the past to consider what we can or must do with it. Part studio, part seminar, we will read, watch, critique and dissect work from writers and artists who turn to our distant or recent past as a material of analysis. Readings will range across topics but will explore fiction, opacity, queer studies, built and natural environments, Black performance practices, surrealisms, futurities and the role of the camera as witness. In Meaning + Making: Theory, we address the relationship between theory and practice. This long-standing debate will be addressed through some of its historical and contemporary expressions. You will be challenged to develop their own balance between theoretical and practical work in text and making. We will ask, “what makes something a theory? What kind of a hierarchical relationship do you think exists between theory and practice? Why?” We will assess social, political, and historical phenomena of the material world through a critical framework of writing and making. In Making+Meaning classes, students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar pathways into this sequence.

In this Making + Meaning course we will discuss the burgeoning philosophy of materialism and consider where contemporary artist practices intersect. As a seminar course we will read historical texts from those who have considered “What is matter?” while looking at artistic practices which ask “What can my materials say about me?”. Our semester will look back at the varied philosophical history of materialism as it has led to the Marxist informed pluralist reading of materialism; from the Greek Atomists to Robin Wall Kimmerer, Jane Bennett to Kadji Amin. The artists we study will be working within the realms of sculpture and craft and have a developed relationship to a material practice. This course is designed at the intersection of philosophy, and visual art. Students will be required to read weekly critical theory, lead one class discussion, and develop their own materialist philosophy to create a final project. We will study the contemporary practices of artists such as Nicki Green, Jes Fan, Lotus L. Kang, and Gordon Hall. In Meaning + Making: Theory, we address the relationship between theory and practice. This long-standing debate will be addressed through some of its historical and contemporary expressions. You will be challenged to develop their own balance between theoretical and practical work in text and making. We will ask, “what makes something a theory? What kind of a hierarchical relationship do you think exists between theory and practice? Why?” We will assess social, political, and historical phenomena of the material world through a critical framework of writing and making. In Making+Meaning classes, students are encouraged to integrate the knowledge they acquire from their studio and seminar pathways into this sequence.