This course provides a broad historical and cultural awareness of illustration as a field with its relationships to both fine art and commercial practices. Equipped with terms and concepts specific to illustration, students will consider past and current challenges to the field, towards imagining critical and responsible future trajectories. Students will analyze how images are thought to function in different frameworks, alert to ever-evolving social and political contexts, artistic movements, and technological changes. Students will also deepen their understanding of illustration genres, techniques and methodologies by reflecting on their own creative processes through these historical lenses and theoretical frameworks.