Course info

This discussion-based seminar introduces students to the rich history of African American, Afro Caribbean, and Afro Native artists whose practices were shaped by the city of Boston from the early settler-colonial period forward. With special focus on the Caribbean diaspora in Boston, we will explore how Black artists made claims to land and public space through printmaking, sculpture, memorials, and performance art. The course investigates how art in Boston engages local collections and communities by attending to the politics of memorialization, economic justice, housing rights, and Black self-determination. Though this course is remote, resources for our semester include the MFA Boston, National Center for Afro-American Artists, Museum of African American History (Boston/Nantucket), Boston Athenaeum, and the Danforth Museum (Framingham).