This course explores the dreams of newness that traversed modernity’s overlapping geopolitical spaces, 1900-1968, and gave rise to experimental artistic practices around the world. In particular, we focus on the formation and reformation of four paradigms of avant-garde efforts: Futurism, Constructivism, Surrealism, and Socialist Realism. These are considered via close studies of the work of artists and art groups in Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, the North Atlantic, Latin America, India, Japan, China, and elsewhere, and accompanied by the fresh examination of influential theories of the avant-garde. Rather than maintain a strict division between historical and "neo" avant-garde projects, as has often structured the study of the European avant-garde, the course instead explores the fluid and productive interplay between Futurist, Constructivist, Surrealist, or Socialist Realist projects and the many cultural, social, and economic conditions of the twentieth century. 

Fulfills the following Major requirements: Geographical area (E) and Chronological period (III).