John Paul Ricco
Associate Professor of Contemporary Art, Media Theory, and Criticism
Undergraduate Appointment: Department of Visual Studies (UTM)
Graduate Appointment: Centre for Comparative Literature (St. George)
Cross-appointments and affiliations: Department of Art, Cinema Studies Institute, Centre for the Study of the United States, Sexual Diversity Studies Program
Contact
john.ricco@utoronto.ca
905-828-3749
CCT 3057, UTM
Education
PhD, Department of Art History, University of Chicago (1998)
AM, Department of Art History, University of Chicago (1991)
BA, Department of Fine Arts (Art History), New York University (1988)
Biography
I joined the U of T Faculty in 2006, having previously taught in the Department of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; in the School of Art at Texas Tech University; the Department of Art History at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and at Cornell University as a Fellow at The Society for the Humanities.
My primary graduate appointment is in the Centre for Comparative Literature, on the St. George campus of the University of Toronto, where I teach graduate seminars and supervise dissertations in the fields of Continental Philosophy, Queer Theory, and Visual Culture.
My work brings together Derridean deconstruction; Jean-Luc Nancy’s philosophy of politics, aesthetics and ethics; and late-twentieth art history, visual culture, and architecture, in order to think social-sexual spaces and spatiality of bodies in their relation and exposure to the Outside—an non-dialectical exteriority that lies just between us and puts us besides ourselves. In fact, one might go so far as to say that my work over the past 20 years has been singularly devoted to conceptualizing and developing a language in which to think this “around” or “peri-spacing,” as the topo-ontological sense of existence.
From 2004-2006, I was Chair of the Editorial Board of Art Journal, the quarterly contemporary art, and theory publication, put out by the College Art Association. I have edited an issue of the journal of philosophy and cultural studies Parallax on the conceptual theme of “unbecoming” (2006) and was Co-Editor (with Louis Kaplan) of an issue of the Journal of Visual Culture on the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy (2010). In 2007-2008, I was invited Curator-in-Residence at V-Tape, Toronto, where I organized a two-part exhibition on contemporary international queer video: “Love in a time of empty promises,” and “Sex is so abstract.”
Current Research Projects
Currently, I am completing two books. One The Decision Between Us: art & ethics in the time of scenes, is a theorization of the aesthetic staging of the space of decision in late-twentieth century art and visual culture; it will be published by the University of Chicago Press, in early 2013. The other book, Non-Consensual Futures: pornographic faith and the economy of the eve, is a response to the contemporary uses of spectacular violence and humiliation for the purposes of militarized neo-liberalism (i.e., “war porn”), their autoimmune effects on the national-security state, and systems of belief whether theological/eschatological or speculative/financial that motivate these campaigns.
Teaching Philosophy
I believe that education can be an emancipatory experience, and fully subscribe to Foucault’s axiomatic linkage of knowledge and power. It is in this regard that my teaching is approached as a political practice. I also believe that education can help improve one’s own life and how one might share in the improved lives of others. It is in this sense that my teaching strives to be an ethical practice. The principle axes that come to define my method and style of teaching are developmental (holistic view of student learning) and social reformist (education as part of a process of societal change). This involves a non-maieutic approach to learning, by challenging the status quo, conventional thinking, and unexamined assumptions. In my classes, the production of knowledge is problematized and deconstructed, in order to examine its purposes and effects.
A prevailing guiding question in my teaching is: for whom is knowledge produced and how does this directly (and indirectly) bear upon issues of equality and inequality? To begin to answer these questions, an equal amount of attention needs to be paid to what is imperceptible, invisible and unsaid, as well as to what is rendered visible, said, and represented. This has tremendous implications in the teaching of art history and visual culture, given the extent to which they are devoted to visual materialization and actualization. In my courses, attention is consistently paid to the blind spots, and students begin to understand the ways in which these are embedded in regimes of visuality.
Courses Taught
Undergraduate
FAH 289 Art since 1945
VCC 304 Visual Culture & the Politics of Identity
VCC 407 Architectures of Vision
VCC 409 Capital, Spectacle, War
VST 101 Introduction to Visual Studies
Graduate
JLF1492 Jean-Luc Nancy: Retreating the Aesthetic
FAH 1494 Queer Theory, Visuality & Sexuality
COL 5100 Late Barthes: Photography, Neutral, Mourning
A Critique of Relational Aesthetics
Select Publications
Books
The Logic of the Lure (University of Chicago, 2002).
The Decision Between Us: art & ethics in the time of scenes (University of Chicago, forthcoming, 2013).
Journal Publications
Guest Editor, Parallax, 35, volume 11, no. 2, April-June 2005. Conceptual theme: “Unbecoming.”
“Drool: Liquid Fore-speech of the Fore-scene,” in a special issue of the journal inter/Alia, edited by Michael O’Rourke, Karin Sellberg, and Kamillea Aghtan (forthcoming, 2013).
“Pornographic Faith: Two Sources of Naked Sense at the Limits of Belief and Humiliation,” in Porn Archives, edited by Tim Dean, Duke University Press (forthcoming, 2013).
Links
Academia.edu Profile
Academic Blog: unbecoming community
U of T Research Feature
