Art History: Dangerous Women

Study of selected aspects of gender, race, or ethnicity in art, and/or of the contributions of women or ethnically diverse people to the visual arts. Material and emphasis vary with instructor. Representative topic: Women in Art. May be repeated for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Prerequisite: Three hours in Art History.

Prereqs: ARTH 1410 or ARTH 1420. PACE students with permission and override.

This course examines how women deemed “dangerous” have shaped—and unsettled—the history of art. From mythic figures like Medusa and Salome to feminist and contemporary artists who defy social and aesthetic conventions, we will explore how the female body has long served as a site of projection for male anxieties about power, sexuality, and control. Through painting, sculpture, photography, and performance, students will trace how artists have imagined women as witches, seductresses, saints, and revolutionaries—and how female, queer, and nonbinary artists have reimagined those tropes to reclaim danger as a form of liberation. Topics include the femme fatale in nineteenth-century art, feminist body politics in the 1970s, and contemporary practices that confront gender, race, and desire. Through close visual analysis, critical readings, and discussion, students will consider how danger, desire, and rebellion have redefined what it means to see—and to be seen—in art history.