Constellations: HAA 2401 Special Topics Contemporary - Theories of Contemporaneity
If we understand “the contemporary” as pointing to a multiplicity of ways of being in time––in particular, to awareness of what is it to be in the present whilst being alert to the “presence” of other kinds of time, including timelessness––it is obvious that this is not just a current but also a modern and indeed an ancient concept, one that has been deployed in a variety of ways within and between cultures and over time. Nevertheless, the contemporary pervasiveness of idea of “the contemporary” in public speech, political discourse, cultural analysis, critical theory and in arts practice seems to have some distinctive qualities that go beyond sheer quantitative predominance. What are these qualities? How do influential thinkers in a variety of disciplines identify them? How might they be contrasted with the ways in which contemporaneity has been thought in earlier periods? The seminar will read a range of recent and current texts on these topics as well as examine as variety of works of art that deal with them. “Art” is understood to mean all forms of visual culture, including architecture, design, film, new media, the Internet, etc. Students will be expected to write critical exegeses of key texts, undertake exercises in charting temporalities, and to write an essay on a key issue within these debates.
