Outcasts and Others in Western Art

This course critically analyzes images of the so-called "Other" in Western art. Western art is crowded with bodies that dominant powers have violently suppressed. In considering case studies from medieval times to the present, we re-evaluate maligned societal “types” - witches, criminals, peasants, shepherds, beggars, prostitutes, homosexuals, non-Europeans and non-Christians, the mentally ill and disabled – who have typically been marginalized or excluded from dominant culture. Select readings and images will be studied to expose the ideologies that privilege some people and subordinate others. The contexts include colonialism, xenophobia, patriarchy, religious strife, psychiatry, and medicalization of sexuality, and race.