PERIODIZING THE SEVENTIES

Although the 1970s has become an object of cultural nostalgia or ridicule (or both), it remains markedly out of focus in comparison with the 1960s and 1980s. Historians and art historians, both, have found it difficult to summarize and even sometimes to talk about. This course will examine the historical and art historical transformation of this decade and explore new historical and methodological tools by which to approach it. Particular attention will be paid to artistic engagements with the body (including, but not limited to feminist and performance art), to the radicalization of political action (drawing, in part, upon period discussions of violence), and to the emergence of related cultural phenomena such as punk rock. The increased hybridization of media, the heterogeneous mixing of different “movements,” and the unparalleled melding of art with popular culture that mark this period will also be examined, as will the legacies of its cultural production and contemporary artistic practices.