This course introduces intersectionality as a critical framework for analyzing visual culture, contemporary art, and design practices. Drawing from Black feminist theory, critical race theory, and disability studies, students will examine how race, gender, sexuality, class, and ability shape visual representation and institutional norms. Through case studies of exhibitions, archives, public art, and digital media, students will develop analytical tools for reading images and cultural objects. The course emphasizes discussion, close analysis, and reflective engagement, encouraging students to consider how their own creative practices operate within intersecting systems of power.
Sample Readings and Materials:
- Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color”
- Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought (selected chapters)
- bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation
- Tina Campt, Listening to Images (selected chapters)
- Nicholas Mirzoeff, How to See the World
CV Bailey Thomas
Dr. Bailey Thomas (They/Them) is the Eleanor M. Carlson Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies. Previously, they were an Assistant Professor of Philosophy (2021-2022) and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Dartmouth College (2022-2024).
Thomas’s research focuses on bridging the gaps between epistemic, ethical, and political sphere through an argument for the integration of ethical and political frameworks into social epistemology. During their time at URI they will be assisting with the organization of the Mellon event series GWS will be hosting as well as a manuscript on the concept of care as a central component of Black American feminist political theory. Other projects include an analysis of epistemic erasure and appropriation of Black feminist thought. This project responds to the current challenge Black feminists face with the decontextualization and misapplication of Black feminist theory in issues of social justice and decolonization. They have published research towards this project in a peer-reviewed article, “Intersectionality and Epistemic Erasure: A Caution to Decolonial Feminism,” in Hypatia. Next, they to publish two articles that will use this research to advance the role of Black feminist theory in our understandings of social ethics, theories of social justice, and decoloniality.
In sum, Thomas’s work develops radical Black feminist approaches to understanding epistemological, political, and ethical aspects of structural oppression and the lived experiences of marginalized people.
Dr. Thomas is also the founder and director of the annual Roundtable for Black Feminist and Womanist Theory.
Research
Social Epistemology, Black American Feminist Philosophy, African American and Black American Philosophy, Critical Philosophy of Race, Social and Political Philosophy
Education
Dual-Title Ph.D. in Philosophy and African American and Diaspora Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, 2017-2021
B.A., with Honors, in Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago, 2013-2017
