Female Gaze: American Art and Visual Culture after 1970 4219-SD0087

We will examine American visual culture through a prism of a theory of the female gaze conceived in relation to the concept of the male gaze proposed by film theorist, critic and artist Laura Mulvey; we will look at various ways of constructing characters, relationships, as well as imagery and narration in cinema and the visual arts from the 1970 onwards, including artists such as Cindy Sherman, Marry Kelley, Martha Rosler, Susan Meiselas, Nan Goldin, Ana Mendieta, Carrie Mae Weems, Greta Gerwig, and others.

We will take a close look at artistic works and jointly develop a theory of the female gaze, which, by no means boils down to constructing an opposition to the male gaze, but rather opens up a field to various non-normative constructions of both the person looking, the person seen or looked at, and, above all, ways of seeing. The course will enable its participants to become competent in analysis of contemporary visual and performative art and cinema with the use of concepts of selected feminist critics.