Pre-seminar: 2 hours per week, 2 semesters 

This course is open to all students, both international and Polish, who wish to discuss contemporary art in English.

Course Requirements:

Regular attendance and participation - both terms.

/Active participation in class discussions is an important element of the final grade/.

 1/ Presentation of one selected text,

 2/ Presentation of one selected artist from one's country

This course surveys the diverse projects of postmodern art in the light of contemporary American art theory. The course will be composed of two parts: field trips to Warsaw galleries (first part), and a close examination of major theoretical statements on postmodern art (second part), the overall aim being to trace some of the conceptual threads that run through current artworks and art criticism.
During the first weeks we will try to explore the current Polish artscape while visiting the most prominent galleries in Warsaw and meeting their curators. /Centre for Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Zachęta Gallery, Galeria Foksal, National Museum, etc./
The following theoretical part will be based on interesting reading assignments concerning contemporary art. We will refer to philosophical papers focused on the contemporary state of art criticism and theory, with the emphasis on present American and French aesthetics. We will read articles by: Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Fredric Jameson, Richard Rorty, Jean-Luc Nancy, Donna Haraway, Michel Foucault, Ihab Hassan, Jean-Luc Nancy, Arthur Danto, George Dickie, Judith Herman, David Wood, etc.
Each student will be required to prepare a short analysis of a selected topic related to contemporary art issues that the studenst considers important.
The aim of the seminar is to introduce students to the most significant theoretical statements concerning the current state of art and prepare them to carry out further research in the field.

Literatura (do wyboru)

1. John Bell, Contemporary Art and the Sublime, TATE.
2. Ewa Bobrowska, UCI Critical Theory and Contemporary Art Practice: Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Bruce Nauman, and Others, with a Prologue by Georges Van Den Abbeele, Peter Lang, Berlin, 2020.
3. Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic subjects, New York: Columbia University Press 1994.
4. Artur Danto, Bruce Nauman, "The Nation" May 8, 1995.
5. Arthur Danto, "The Original Creative Principle": Motherwell and Psychic Automatism, in(1997) Robert Motherwell on Paper.
6 Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, Chicago 1987, pp. 81 -114.
7. Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, Routledge, 2001.
8. George Dickie, Institutional Theory of Art.
9. Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, Semiotext(e) 2001.
10. Michel Foucault, Panopticon in Discipline and Punish.
11. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Logic of Late Capitalism.
12. Jasper Johns, Gray The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Press, New Heaven and London, 2007.
13. Donna Haraway, Laboratory Animals and Their People, in: When Species Meet, U of Minnesota Press, 2008.
14. Judith L. Herman, Trauma and Recovery, The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, New York 1992.
15. Jean-François Lyotard, "Philosophy and Painting in the Age of Their Experimentation", in The Lyotard Reader, Andrew Benjamin, editor. Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1992.
16. Jean-François Lyotard, Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?, [in:] Docherty, Thomas, ed. Postmodernism: A Reader. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993. pp. 35-46, The Postmodern Condition A 17. Jean-François Lyotard, Clouds in: Peregrinations Law, Form, Event, Columbia University Press 1988.
18. Jean-François Lyotard, The Differend, University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
19. Jacques Derrida, “Differance” [in:] A Derrida Reader. Between the Blinds, New York 1991.
20. Richard Rorty, “Private Irony and Liberal Hope” [in:]: Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Cambridge 1989, pp.73 -95.
21. Catherine Malabou, The Ontology of the Accident, trans. Carolyn Shread, Cambridge: Polity, 2012.
22. Jean-Luc Nancy, Corpus, Fordham University Press, 2008.
23. Jean-Luc Nancy, Pleasure in Drawing, Fordham, New York 2013.
24. Jean-Luc Nancy, Multiple Arts: The Muses II, Stanford California 2006.
25. Jacques Derrida, Death Penalty Seminars, 2014.
26. Peter Osborne, Gerhard Richter's Negatives.
27. John E. Thornes, A Rough Guide to Environmental Art.
28. David Wood., Trees and Truth: Our Uncanny Arboreality..
29. David Wood, Thinking with Cats.