This course explores Europe's obsession with porcelain and the ""Chinese taste"" in the eighteenth century and its complex afterlives today. The class will delve into the problematics of Chinoiserie, a vague stylistic term used to describe a “neutral, harmless” style of decoration shaped by European fantasies of ""the East."" Fueled by the early arrival of Chinese porcelain in the sixteenth century, Chinoiserie was by the eighteenth century rampant in the art, architecture, and decorative arts of Europe. Far from being neutral, this style was polemical from the outset.

The class will focus primarily in the eighteenth century, as we look at historical examples of porcelain, luxury, and commerce, reading these against the grain with the aid of theoretical writings. Analyzing the stylistic, historical and ideological dimensions of Chinoiserie, we will consider how this term can be reframed in order to construct a critical framework that takes into account issues of race, gender, sexuality, and class.