Although the history of modern art in the 20th century is often told in terms of tendencies towards abstraction, this course investigates the important role played by 'realisms' across much of the socialist and non-aligned world (including Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa), tracing an alternate history of how artists used art to convey the urgency of political change.

Examines Black creative works that express futuristic spaces of radical possibility and radical imagination, often loosely termed "Afrofuturism." Afrofuturism encompasses a network of Black artists who are geographically diverse and whose creative explorations are located at the intersection of art, technoculture, and Black identity. These visual artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers engage different mediums and technologies to articulate new futures through a Black cultural lens, often with a space-age theme. Throughout this course, we will trace the Afrofuturist point of view in 20th and 21st century Black speculative fiction, film, music, and the visual arts. We will analyze fiction by authors like Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, study artworks by Wangechi Mutu, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Yinka Shonibare, explore the music and visual output by Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic, and Janelle Mone and consider films such as "Black Panther."