Course director: Yana Barinova
The course aims to provide a comprehensive and historically informed perspective on international cultural negotiations under the constraints installed by wars and terrorism. It seeks to equip students with theoretical and practical knowledge in the realm and advance the critical understanding of the art scenes’ and state politics entanglements. Collecting the nuances of art production and curatorship (from exhibitions to literary residences), the course discloses the processes of shaping and conveying messages through organizing cultural events set up in international settings. Additionally, it problematizes the uses of cultural diplomacy during the war by various agents to introduce students to the different and complex dimensions behind the “soft power,” shaped by personal, institutional, and state agendas. In this way, the course invites the students to reckon with the differentiations between “cultural diplomacy,” “cultural expansion,” and “propaganda.”
The main focus of the course is the unfolding war of Russia against Ukraine; hence, the course draws upon experiences and practices of contemporary Ukrainian actors—both affiliated and autonomous—who will share their diverse viewpoints and first-hand knowledge with the students within the course. Every week we will have a guest (representative of an important institution, project, intellectual or artistic milieu) and the class will combine theoretical and practical discussion around these themes.