HAA 1441 Special Topics Modern - Dada, Surrealism, and the Politics of Desire between the Wars

(offered infrequently)

This course provides an international history of Dada and Surrealism between the two World Wars. Special attention will be devoted to art and politics in these two movements, in specific the oftentimes tense relationship between Dada's and Surrealism's engagement with the Communist Party on the one hand and radical psychoanalytic thought on the other. Through discussion of the work of Marcel Duchamp, George Grosz, Hannah Höch, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and others, we will examine Dada and Surrealist work in a variety of media, including collage, painting, photography, film, and fashion. Related issues to be addressed in the course include: the response of both movements to the development of mass culture, the status of women and gender issues in their avant-garde projects, and Dada and Surrealist notions of the "revolutionary unconscious."