This class introduces the diverse visual cultures of the geographic area now known as California. The course will consider how space and race are culturally represented and reproduced over a broad span of time and across California’s shifting political designations, including its Native American, Spanish, Mexican, and United States periods. Course sessions will be organized around chronological case studies of diverse subjects made in varied media and may incorporate: Native American landscape architecture, Spanish maps and missions, Russian ethnographic illustrations, advertisements spurring the Gold Rush, paintings of Mexican Ranchos and the Western landscape, photographs of San Francisco’s Chinatown and Japanese internment, Polynesian-inspired surfing films, and Black Panther posters. This class will visit campus and Bay Area museums with related collections. It is designed for majors and non-majors with interests in art history, art practice, architecture, landscape design, ethnic studies, and the history of California. No prerequisites required.