ILLUS-3032

XXXY

Faculty: Melissa Ferreira

Course Level: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior, 5th Year, Graduate

3 CREDITS

CONCEPTS ELECTIVE REQUIREMENT: This course fulfills the additional concepts elective requirement for Illustration majors.

In this course, we examine gender—not your biologically assigned equipment, but those social constructs that shape and define what is male, what is female and what is that less absolute space between and beyond. Weekly assignments often begin by reviewing the traditional roles of women and men in American culture but through a contemporary lens, examining the astoundingly colorful range of gender and sex identities that cannot be limited to simply pink and blue. We’ll turn stereotypes inside out, flip popular icons upside down, and rework familiar images from hallowed museums. We’ll search for fresh depictions of abstract concepts like conception, contraception, relationships, power, etc. This course offers equal opportunity for XX’s, XY’s and those outside the binary.

We will also consider the prurience of both pornography and political correctness. Weekly illustration assignments will proceed from assigned readings, documentaries, films, and podcasts. Whatever the topic, we follow important illustration protocol: identifying the target audience, clarifying and strengthening concepts, and keeping to the deadline.

Our goal is inventive communication and the articulation of individual sensibility; virtually any media and method can be used as we explore what it is to be female, male or something in between.