As expectations regarding the social responsibilities of art museums change, training students how to be anti-discriminatory in their professional practice becomes ever more crucial. This course is an introductory seminar to anti-racist curatorial practice. As such, students will explore various aspects of museum history, art history, collection management, object interpretation, fundraising, exhibition design, cataloging, community engagement and more to analyze the ways in which museums have functioned as cultural repositories of colonization and continue to exist as institutions rooted in imperialist histories and practices. The course is a radical reframing that considers what it means to see the functionality of whiteness as a system of possession, and how to employ various anti-racist, decolonial, and Black feminist methodologies to undo its cultural hegemony in the arts.

In the decade following World War I, African American cultural production flourished during what has become known as the Harlem Renaissance. Though the movement had a tremendous impact on African American culture, it was a moment of global significance for American visual art. This course will examine the Harlem Renaissance, and its connections to Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and other parts of the U.S. like Chicago and the Deep South. In particular, it focuses on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, and how artistic production during the 1920’s and 1930’s both influenced and informed those intersections. The course also aims to help students develop and refine critical analytical skills regarding Black culture. Texts will include paintings, essays, poems, songs, and short stories.

African American museums have long been crucial institutions for culturally specific arts education. These centers preserve and celebrate Black history, art, and culture. In this course, Dr. Kelli Morgan examines the histories of first-voice institutions and how they provide unique educational experiences often overlooked in mainstream conversations about diversity and inclusion in the arts.