In this seminar, we will examine the potency of ideas of "Otherness" in the development of modern and contemporary arts in the last century and the thorny process of interpreting works of art by contemporary non-Western artists in relation to this larger history. Beginning with an analysis of the political and philosophical genealogy of "primitivism" with all of its attendant notions of exoticism, eroticism, and primordialism, the course will then trace the shifting critical theories employed by art historians, critics, visual anthropologists, feminists, and cultural studies scholars alike to frame the politics of representation that underlie our understanding of the contemporary productions of transnational artists.