This selective survey explores a variety of art forms produced in Africa and the Americas from c. 1325, when the historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari recorded the failed attempt by the Malian Emperor to cross the Atlantic Ocean, to 1791, when Toussaint L'ouverture led a successful insurrection against French colonial rule on the island of Saint-Domingue to found the first multi-racial free republic of Haïti. Iconography, style, and materials will be considered, as will questions of religion and gender; students will engage with both primary sources and recent scholarly analyses.
- Teacher: Hilary W-sanchez