Organizations from Google to NASA are recruiting diversity task teams. College DEI initiatives have become a flashpoint in the culture wars. Social media feeds are flooded with clickbait headlines like "13 Queer Superheroes We Need to See" and "Disney's Ariel is Black and People are MAD!" Everywhere, debates about equity and transformation seem to turn on a single phrase: "Representation matters!" But how does representation matter, why does it matter, and when did it come to matter most? Pushing beyond competing narratives of 'wokeness' and 'inclusion', this course thinks through representation as a uniquely visual formula for social change with its own history, assumptions, and limitations. Working at nested scales from national controversies (like an all-female Ghostbusters) to local case studies (like East Hollywood's Flavors From Afar, with its roster of refugee chefs), students will study efforts to increase visibility and institutionalize diversity across cultural contexts, and explore how communities, in turn, challenge and transform identities prescribed for them.