This course begins by grounding students in “bodies of work” by 14 contemporary artists. In addition to investigating these artists for the multiple mediums and languages they create in, we will also be using their works to address recent theorizations of the black female body in relationship to a diverse set of sub-themes including: Diasporic notions of beauty, violence, religion, labor, immigration, aesthetics, pleasure, movement, hip-hop, and health. From there we will in turn develop our own critiques of how we, as individuals and members of various collectives, fashion our own bodies in our contemporary world, allowing students to become more aware of their racialized and gendered selves. This course combines weekly seminar and studio classes. In lieu of more traditional, weekly response papers, the students will be trained in the studio classes to develop their own creative responses, using the genre/medium of the artist that is being studied in that week’s seminar. The midterm paper and final film screenplay will be responses to both one or more of the 14 artists we will discuss and the work the students create in the studio exercises.