AHIS 333 SU01: Interdisciplinary Forums

Topic: Inter-view: Art, Activism, and Critical Pedagogy
“…[T]he problem is no longer one of tradition, of tracing a line, but one of division, of limits; it is no longer one of lasting foundations, but one of transformations that serve as new foundations, the rebuilding of foundations. What one is seeing, then, is the emergence of a whole field of questions.” (Michel Foucault)

Taking up the inter-view as a model for critical engagement, this course will explore the relationship between art and design practices, critical pedagogy, social activism and social justice. As a contemporary journalistic structure, the interview is a widely used tool to maintain and reaffirm the status-quo. Indeed, the conventional structure and function of the interview might be seen to operate as a binary opposition or dialectic between the interviewer and the interviewee. However, if we think 'inter-view' literally, it means 'between views,' in French, entre voir, between seeing. An engagement with the concept of inter-view opens up the possibility of conceptualizing otherwise: how might the inter-view bear witness to and indeed engage the experience of liminality, between art and design, critical pedagogy and social activism - between you and I?

By focusing on activist oriented art and design practices and their interaction with and as radical pedagogy, we will engage with a consideration of contemporary aesthetic and political events. What is the relationship between artists, capitalism, and protest, between pedagogy, the maintenance of status quo, and anarchic interventions? And, how might critical art and pedagogical practices provoke ruptures in perspective, refusing to merely affirm what is, but rather opening the space for an as yet to be determined future? Confirmed speakers include Randy Lee Cutler, Kristina Lee Podesva, Maya Suess, and Erdem Taşdelen. Texts presented will include interviews and essays by Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Guillermo Gómez Peña, Ken Lum, Kristina Lee Podesva, Avital Ronell, and Martha Rosler. The class will also examine inter-view practices in documentary film and television such as Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I, Astra Taylor's The Examined Life, Jan Švankmajer's Dimensions of Dialogue, The Invisible Children's Kony 2012, and Adam Curtis' The Rise and Fall of the TV Journalist, Claire Denis' Vers Nancy, and the anonymous documentary Weroy.