Course Notes: This course provides a chronological introduction to the arts and visual cultures of the African continent and the diaspora. Works of selected cultures from the pre-historic to the post-colonial eras will be examined in depth, considering the formal characteristics of objects within the contexts of the political, social, religious and belief systems in which they were produced. The dynamic impact of reciprocal exchanges between indigenous cultures of the continent and between African traditions and those originating outside the continent¿such as Christianity and Islam--will be investigated. A variety of media will be explored, including masquerade, regalia, sculpture, ceramics, textiles and architecture as well as sculpture, painting, photographs and performance art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This course fulfills the non-Western requirement for Art History Majors.