NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts' (MCLA) MOSAIC will host a lecture titled "Looking at Rembrandt with Roland Barthes and Derek Walcott" by Caroline Fowler at 5:30 p.m. on March 5. 

 

Part of the ongoing Politics of the Visual lecture series, Fowler's talk will examine how race has shaped interpretations of Dutch painting since the 20th century. She will highlight the contributions of Saint Lucian poet Derek Walcott, who she argues is an overlooked theorist of Dutch art, and discuss how his insights into 17th-century Dutch visual culture remain relevant today. 

 

Fowler is the Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program at the Clark Art Institute and the author of "Slavery and the Invention of Dutch Art" (Duke University Press, 2025), which explores how the transubstantiation of life into property transformed the Dutch visual economy. 

 

The Politics of the Visual lecture series, organized by MCLA Associate Professor of English and Visual Culture Dr. Victoria Papa, explores the power structures of perception, representation, and spectacle in contemporary culture. Past lectures in the series have included Technologies of Magic: Contemporary Artists and Rituals, Talismans, and Folklore by Alexandra Foradas and What Lies at the Intersection of Land Ownership and Documentary Poetics by Anaïs Duplan.