Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information.
WINTER 2026 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
The period of the Mongol Empire, which at its peak spanned all the way from present-day Hungary to Korea, was a watershed moment in Eurasia’s art history. The so-called Pax Mongolica lasted less than two hundred years (13th-14th centuries), but the scope of its impact on the arts was immense, fueled by increased mobility of people and circulation of objects and ideas across the urasian continent. For the first time in world history, individual travelers such as Marco Polo could cross all the way from Europe to Central Asia. The Mongol Empire’s impact on the world was so significant that some scholars termed this time period “the Mongol Century.” In this course, we will explore various ways in which cross-cultural encounters among people from different parts of East, Central, and Western Asia led to new developments in the visual arts. We will pay attention to the individuals who participated in such encounters and the political, religious, economic, and cultural factors that informed their decisions.
CRN#: 59470
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 11:00AM-12:20PM
Place: Arts 335
WINTER 2026 GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES
SPRING 2026 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
Explore the radical art that changed everything. From avant-garde provocations to institutional critique, this course traces the movements and ideas that shattered conventions and shaped contemporary art. We’ll examine abstraction, Pop Art, performance, and conceptual practices in a networked context — with emphasis on interventions that expanded who gets to make art and what art can do. You’ll discover how artists responded to their cultural moment and why their work still matters. Expect bold gestures, challenging ideas, and art that breaks boundaries.
CRN#: 76517
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 2:00PM-3:20PM
Place: Watkins 1000
500 years ago, the Aztec (Mexica) capital of Tenochtitlan fell to Spanish invaders. This course uses art and architecture to examine Mexico’s tumultuous transition from Aztec rule to a colony in Spain’s vast global empire, ca. 1450-1620. Central to this course will be the study of the physical materials through which Indigenous communities contested, negotiated, and transformed European artistic, sociopolitical, and religious practices. From toppled pre-Hispanic temples to corn-paste crucifixes, fig-bark (amatl) paper to vibrant red cochineal dye, and feather mosaics to imported ivory, Mexico’s organic and inorganic materials supplied a diverse settler colonial society a unique range of resources to intervene in global artistic discourses and devise local solutions to drought, disease, and dispossession. Written assignments will incorporate primary (archival) textual sources and analysis of objects and images.
Prerequisite(s): sophomore, junior, or senior standing; or consent of instructor.
CRN#: 77024
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 9:30AM-10:50AM
Place: Art Screening Room 335
Do we live in a “postmedia” world? This course explores experimental contemporary art and media practices from the 1960s to the present. Departing from modernist models of “medium specificity” that distinguished different artforms, later generations of artists interrogated, melded, deconstructed, or expanded the means of aesthetic and conceptual transmission. Topics include communication technology, ecological systems, perception and embodiment, screens and moving images, artificial intelligence, and more.
CRN#: 77025
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 12:30PM-1:50PM
Place: Art Screening Room 335
This course explores key moments of the development of European art between 1870 and 1945, a period of artistic experimentation and cultural change. By examining movements such as Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Abstract Art, the discussion will highlight how artists like Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, and others redefined the boundaries of painting and sculpture. Through an analysis of major works and artistic philosophies, the course provides insight into the radical shifts that shaped modern visual culture and continue to influence contemporary art.
CRN#: 77336
Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00AM-12:20PM
Place: Art Screening Room 335
SPRING 2026 GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES
This seminar investigates nineteenth-century European painting in relation to theories of perception, cognition, and affect drawn from cognitive psychology, empirical aesthetics, neuroscience, and biologically informed approaches to art. Centering on seminal works of the period, the course examines how accounts of vision, attention, and emotion can deepen our understanding of both the making and reception of nineteenth-century art.
Students will engage with key texts from the cognitive sciences alongside art-historical scholarship, evaluating their significance for rethinking artistic practice, spectatorship, and historical interpretation. The seminar is intended for students interested in cross-disciplinary approaches and in exploring points of contact between art, scientific inquiry, and visual experience. No prior background in psychology or science is required.
CRN#: 77027
Meetings: Tuesday, 2:00PM-4:50PM
Place: Arts Seminar Room, 333
FEEDBACK IN SYSTEMS ART: 1960S TO TODAY
What happens when art “talks back”? This seminar investigates art history from the Cold War to today through the lens of loops, circuits, signals, and mechanical extensions of body and mind. In concert with postwar systems discourse, artists defined, designed, and critiqued feedback systems of all kinds; to do so, they utilized disparate mediums, from overtly “technological” forms like computer art and automata, to performances and interactive social systems, to communication tools like televisual networks, poems, and manifestos. Readings in twentieth and twenty-first century art history and the history of technology examine feedback’s reverberations in topics such as militarism, technocracy, automation, feminism, colonialism, and climate change.
CRN#: 77028
Meetings: Wednesday, 3:30PM-6:20PM
Place: Arts Seminar Room, 333