This course will trace the emergence of Socially Engaged Art as a post-Relational response to the urgencies of contemporary life. The course will have an emphasis on contemporary arts practice in the 2000s and the ways in which artists have responded to important local and global issues. Topics explored will include utopia; art and everyday life; globalization; realism and the politics of representation; racism, necropolitics, decolonality; environmental politics; survivalism and the avant-garde. The course will include lectures, tutorials, independent research and group discussions.