Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information.
Winter 2025 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
This course surveys the art and visual culture of North America, primarily in the United States, from European contact to the present. Beginning with imagery of the first New World encounters, we trace the roles played by visual expression in the conceptualization of American culture during the colonial, revolutionary and antebellum periods, the Civil War, southern reconstruction and westward expansion, the Gilded Age, Modernism, the Great Depression, the pluralism and media culture of the later twentieth century. While the course runs roughly chronologically, most lectures are thematic. Some offer in-depth analysis of a topic by focusing on one or two artists while others amalgamate broader sets of objects and issues Among topics considered will be the development of various modes of representation (from painting, sculpture, and photography to more everyday forms such as design, illustration, cinema and other media); the emergence of American artistic institutions including schools, museum; and criticism, the role of the visual in constructions class, race, and gender; issues of local and regional expression; and the relationship between art, nation and identity.
CRN#: 53622
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 11:00AM-12:20PM
Place: Watkins 1000
This course is an introductory survey of the art, architecture, and visual culture of Latin America from the colonial to the contemporary period. We will begin by examining the introduction and adaptation of European artistic models into the Americas as well as the transformation of Pre-Columbian art as a result of contact between these cultures, analyzing a variety of materials and media including urban planning, religious and secular architecture, paintings, sculpture, manuscript drawings, and prints from the colonial period (1492–ca. 1820). The second half of the course will be dedicated to studying material from the nineteenth century to the present, examining the role of the arts in the building of independent nations, how Latin American artists and architects responded to international avant-gardes, and conclude by considering current trends in contemporary art from the region.
CRN#: 52120
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday 3:30PM-4:50PM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
500 years ago, the Aztec (Mexica) capital of Tenochtitlan fell to Spanish invaders. This course uses material culture to examine Mexico’s tumultuous transition into a Christian settler colonial society within the Spanish Habsburg’s global empire. 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#: 57198
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 9:30AM-10:50AM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
This course is an introduction to the art and architecture of Muslim dynasties in South Asia from the eighth century conquest of Sindh by the Umayyads to the eighteenth century when the Mughal Empire was significantly diminished and other, smaller polities were coming to power. Moving across the Indian Subcontinent, this course maps the movement and settlement of religious, political, and intellectual elites through this vast region. The buildings they commissioned — immense forts, monumental tombs, highly ornate mosques — and the artistic objects they produced — illustrated manuscripts, metalwork, ceramics, textiles —illustrate the different motivations that underpinned artistic production in South Asia.
CRN#: 57199
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 2:00PM-3:20PM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
Winter 2025 GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES
SPRING 2025 UNDERGRADUATE COURSES (PRELIMINARY PLAN, SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
This course is an introduction to the artis tic achievements of the world’s cultures and to the ways in which they can be viewed. It provides students with a sound understanding of major artworks from all ages and corners of the world, and the theoretical concepts and historical circumstances to which they owe their existence. We ask questions such as: What is art? What is an artist? How has their perception changed over time? What is an image? Why does art exist? What is ‘world art’? Why do we study art history?
CRN#: 75326
Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 11:00AM-12:20PM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
A broad introductory survey of the visual and material culture of the Islamic world from its formative period in the seventh century to contemporary practices in the Middle East, North Africa, South and South East Asia. Although lectures will follow a rough chronological order, mapping out the historical development of the Islamic world and the role of historical events upon culture and society, each week will also be thematic in nature highlighting important aspects of the period and culture discussed. Emphasis will be placed upon understanding the complexity of terms employed, such as “Islamic Art” as well as the contradictions inherent in such categorisation and the possible values of such a broad genre.
CRN#: 73743
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 2:00-3:20PM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
What makes a work of art “Asian”? Are there borders to Asia within the world geography of visual cultures? If so, what do such borders look like? If not, how and why do we speak of “Asian art”? This course thinks through these questions by way of an introduction to major works of visual arts produced in the large cultural area that we identify today as East, Central, South, and Southeast Asia. Rather than studying these regions and their artistic traditions in isolation from its surrounding regions, we take a broader approach, which considers the contribution of the wider world in catalyzing major artistic innovations throughout Asia’s history. Moving chronologically from the ancient to the modern period, we look at masterpieces and monuments from archaeological sites as well as major museum collections. We consider works of architectural monuments as well as portable objects in a variety of media such as cast metals, stone and wood carvings, paintings, textiles, prints, and porcelains.
CRN#: 72201
Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 9:00-10:20AM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
This course provides an introduction to the art and architecture of ancient to contemporary Mexico through a case study of Mexico City (formerly Tenochtitlan). Beginning with the ancestral cities of Tula and Teotihuacan, continuing through the Spanish invasion and defeat of Aztec Tenochtitlan in 1521, and concluding with the legacy of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, and Olympics, we will examine the criteria inhabitants and historians use to define a “city.” The tension between antiquity and modernity, global and local identities, colonialism and resistance, and the relationship between art and community formation will be major themes. Special emphasis will be placed on the development of the skills of critical writing and visual analysis through discussion and short writing assignments. Readings from a range of sources (manifestos, dialogues, literary essays, newspaper articles) add a complementary focus to our analysis of the city.
CRN#: 75337
Meetings: Monday and Wednesday, 9:30-10:50AM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
How do artists conceive of themselves and their public persona? How does their self-perception reflect in works of art? Which myths and legends are behind the notions of what an artist is? And how do artists and theoreticians work with or against them? In addressing these and other important question of what artistic identity meant and how it was performed and represented in different time periods in the Western world, the seminar serves as an introduction to core concepts of artistic thinking and production. Ideas of creativity, artistic skill, and the role of self-fashioning in portraiture will be discussed. Through a close reading of texts and images, you will be introduced to strategies of (self-) promotion and mythmaking as well as their affirmation and deconstruction in later interpretations. The seminar will familiarize you with different text genres (biographical and autobiographical writings, psychoanalytical interpretations. key texts in the history of art), and it will cover a range of different art forms (sculpture, painting, photography, film, body art, artists’ books). The goal is to develop your individual skills in the analysis of different types of texts together with a formal analysis of significant works of art, to sharpen your understanding of different historical and intellectual contexts, and to deepen your insight in the history of artistic identities.
CRN#: 75339
Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30-1:50PM
Place: Arts 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#: 75336
Meetings: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:30-4:50PM
Place: Arts Screening Room 335
SPRING 2025 GRADUATE-LEVEL COURSES (PRELIMINARY PLAN, SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
In recent decades, the traditional western canon of art has been questioned and quite openly opposed in academic circles. And yet the appeal of the artistic ‘masterpiece’ is very much alive. Tourists, as well as art historians, flock to the museums around the world to get a glimpse of the ‘highlights’ of Western art, with record breaking numbers of visitors to exhibitions that feature the big names of the art historical pantheon. Our modern notion of the ‘masterpiece’ is closely tied to ideas established in classical antiquity, consolidated and organized in the theoretical writings of the Renaissance, and popularized in the nineteenth century. What then is a ‘masterpiece’? And how have art historians written about their stylistic features, their meanings, their relevance? If there are masterpieces of art, are there also masterpieces of interpretation? And what are the criteria by which ‘mastery’ is and was measured? This course is based on a dual approach: 1. The practice of visual analysis and attentive description in a group setting, without prior knowledge of interpretations. We will first look, then read. 2. Critical discussion of works that are deemed “masterpieces” through the lens of interpretations that are commonly understood as exceptionally relevant and left a mark on the discipline.
CRN#: 75341
Meetings: Tuesday, 3:00-5:50PM
Place: Arts Seminar Room 333
This course examines the possibilities — and indeed necessity — for an American (U.S.) art history oriented to the Pacific world. Since its coalescence as a field, the study of American art has been guided by attention to Transatlantic exchange, which now sits firmly at the foundation of the literature. It is easily demonstrated that an equally though differently rich set of cultural entanglements and expressive transfers took shape between the U.S. and the nations/cultures/people that inhabit and transit through the “Pacific World.” Our goal in the seminar is to develop ways of thinking about U.S. art and its Transpacific elements in order to craft a fuller understanding of American visual, material, and cultural expression. We will do so in particular by considering U.S.-Pacific artistic interaction in relation to the recent and heavily debated “global turn” in art history theory. While much of the discourse of the global has been generated around contemporary art, historians are now beginning to explore the applicability of this theoretical constel- lation to earlier periods. One of our goals is to evaluate the possibilities and issues of a Pacific-oriented American art in relation to this effort. Another is to consider the effectiveness of usually generative strains of post/colonial critique in the specific context of U.S.-Pacific entanglement. Yet another is to disclose the deep and substantial ways that Asian encounters shaped U.S. cultural expression at myriad levels, especially in the formative period of American modernism and modernity from 1850-1950.
CRN#: 73739
Meetings: Wednesday, 1:00-3:50PM
Place: Arts Seminar Room 333
*Note: The availability of this course for Spring 2025 is subject to change without notice.