Undergraduate Program

This course overviews Western painting, sculpture, architecture, film, performance and installation and its dialogues with the wider world. We will examine various practices in historical contexts, while paying particular attention to the narratives, sociabilities, and materials that bear upon them, such as the influence of the past, religion, gender, colonialism, race, ideology, technology, ecology, and politics. The course will attempt to familiarize students with the way some principal monuments of world art from about 400 BCE onward were made and understood, and to develop visual literacy, that is, the ability not only to identify, but also to discuss art works as central elements of culture. Museum, gallery, and archive field trips are key components of the course.

Location

Gavett Hall Room 310 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

As an introduction to the art of film, this course will present the concepts of film form, film aesthetics, and film style, while remaining attentive to the various ways in which cinema also involves an interaction with audiences and larger social structures.

Location

Morey Room 321 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course examines the vibrant history of art and culture in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan from the early twentieth century to the present. This class will begin with an introduction to modern Chinese history through an examination of early photography and painting. We will then ask: How does Chinese socialism negotiate with global capitalism? How do Chinese artists grapple with identity, trauma, and sexuality through installation, film, performance, and painting? This course is structured thematically to address the complexity of diverse cultural productions in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Our topics include the colonial gaze, avant- garde art, social realism, postmodernism, feminism, gender, globalization, and cultural diaspora. Applying these lenses to close read artwork and artists’ documents, we will explore how individual artists (e.g., Xu Bing, Rong Rong, Xing Danwen, and Cao Fei) and art collectives respond to social and political changes. To better understand popular culture and the Chinese diaspora, we will also discuss films directed by Zhang Meng, Wang Kai Wei, and Ang Lee. This course is taught through a combination of lectures and discussions. Students will become familiar with cultural movements in modern and contemporary Chinese Art. Moreover, students will think critically about contemporary Chinese art in dialogue with major concepts derived from Western art history. Please Note: Absolutely no prior knowledge of Chinese language or culture is required to enroll in this class. All required readings and discussions will be in English.

Location

Goergen Hall Room 110 (MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

The Ancient Near East, a geographical and historical region encompassing the cultures that flourished in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Basin and what is now the Middle East, is best known for the development of agriculture, the rise of complex societies, and the establishment of powerful empires. In this introductory course, we will explore the major architectural and artistic developments that accompanied these societal accomplishments in Mesopotamia, Persia, the Levant, and Anatolia. We start our investigation when writing was invented in the region, ca. 3300 BCE, and end with the arrival of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. The course adopts a regional approach and provides a basic understanding of the contextual factors—geography, religious beliefs, and social-political structures—that influenced artistic production.

Location

Morey Room 525 (MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course is a survey of courtly art and monumental architecture in South Asia from 2500 BCE to the present. It spends some time exploring where, when, why, and for whom these examples of art and architecture were made to understand what they mean in their historical and geographical contexts. This course is also designed to help improve students’ “visual literacy” by looking at the art and architecture of South Asia. Students will develop their analytical skills by comparing and contrasting formal, spatial, and material aspects of artifacts and structures in discussions during the lectures and assignments at home. They will also develop their critical thinking and research skills through weekly readings and semester research projects. By the end of the course, students will not only have a clear sense of South Asian art and architecture in Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic contexts but will also be able to “see” and perceive objects and buildings of their multicultural world in a different light.

Location

Gavett Hall Room 312 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This class will consider the relationship of art exhibition and production in contemporary art practices as part of a gallery practicum. This course is an introduction to art exhibition practices including research, curation, planning, art handling, installation, and hands-on experience in galleries. Students will install exhibitions in the teaching galleries and spaces on campus, including (but not limited to) Hartnett Gallery and Frontispace Gallery. Students will visit galleries and museums and attend exhibition openings, studio visits, and artist lectures. This course is geared toward those with career interests in arts administration and curation so Art and Art History majors/minors and those having previous coursework in those areas is preferred but not required. Studio Art lab fee applied.

 Instructor permission is required for this course.  Use the “Request Course Section Prerequisite Override” task found on your academics dashboard under the Planning & Registration section to request this permission.

Location

Sage Arts Center Room 102 (T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

The first of a sequence of two, the course approaches 'The Divine Comedy' both as a poetic masterpiece and as an encyclopedia of medieval culture. Through a close textual analysis of 'Inferno,' and the first half of 'Purgatorio,' students learn how to approach Dantes poetry as a vehicle for thought, an instrument of self-discovery, and a way to understand and affect the historical reality. They also gain a perspective on the Biblical, Christian, and Classical traditions as they intersect with the multiple levels of Dantes concern, ranging from literature to history, from politics to government, from philosophy to theology. A visual component, including illustrations of the 'Comedy' and multiple artworks pertinent to the narrative, complements the course. Class format includes lectures, discussion, and a weekly recitation session. Intensive class participation is encouraged. Dante I can be taken independently from Dante II. No prerequisites. Freshmen are welcome. Part of the Dante Humanities Cluster.

Location

Gavett Hall Room 310 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Dance is powerful. Art is a tool that inspires social change. This course examines the relationship between social activism and artistic practice, exploring this integration in dance, art, music, and film. Through a combination of lecture and experiential learning, students will be invited to explore creative social engagement practices to understand the impact of arts in activism while also investigating the creative perspective in successful social movements. Emphasis will be placed on socially engaged art as a practice and philosophy, creative composition within effective social movements, and the power that art can have in promoting social change.

Location

Spurrier Gymnasium Room 104 (TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course seeks to improve students' writing and analytical skills through analysis and experimentation with different styles of writing about contemporary and historical arts. Students analyze prose by artists, historians, cultural critics, poets, and others who have written on the visual arts, with an eye towards how writing on art can be a tool for improving expression in many areas. Slide lectures, discussions, and writing projects on objects of diverse media and historical eras will be augmented by visiting speakers and field trips to museums and galleries. This course fulfills one-half of the upper level writing requirement for both studio and art history majors. Permission of instructor required.

Location

Morey Room 504 (TR 9:40AM - 10:55AM)

This discussion-based course interrogates the construction and evolution of Japan’s cultural traditions and idioms from ancient times to the eve of modernity. Drawing from oral records and mythology, performing and visual arts,  literary, religious and historical texts, among other mediums, this course asks students to understand and appreciate the dynamic contexts of Japanese “tradition.” At the same time, innovative evocations of the past will help us understand the processes through which literary, cultural and religious traditions are challenged, (re)invented, and (re)made. This course is therefore invested in both the historical legacy of traditional Japan and the ways in which tradition itself remains central to contemporary evocations of Japanese culture. No prior knowledge of Japan is required or expected.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 420 (MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course explores Hollywood's fascination with race and gender as social issues and as spectacles. In particular, we will focus on the ways that social difference have become the sites of conflicted narrative and visual interactions in our films. To examine competing representations of racial difference and sexual difference in US culture, we analyze popular films from the 1950s to the present.

Location

Morey Room 504 (MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

What is enlightenment? Is enlightenment a place or time? A state of body or a state of mind? Is it an unembellished moment from ordinary life or an unbounded vision of an endlessly unfolding cosmos? Does it happen in this life or after we die? Is it beyond language or is it language itself? This course explores how diverse Japanese Buddhists conceive of enlightenment in all of these different ways and, in addition to the literary, visual, cultural, and philosophical study of enlightenment, this course also invites students to engage in the practice of a wide variety of Buddhist ritual activities and “speech acts” including sutra copying, reciting mantra, chanting sutras, and sitting zazen. Students will also study the visual cultures of enlightenment through mandala, painting, and sculptural icons. All readings are done in English. However, students will be asked to recite some short ritual texts and ritual formulations in their original language for educational purposes. No prior knowledge of Japanese or meditation required.

Location

Frederick Douglass Room 420 (MW 6:15PM - 7:30PM)

This course introduces students to the poetics of television. We will explore the ways that television tells stories, creates characters, and constructs worlds; the significance of genre, style, and form to those stories, characters, and worlds; and the relationship between television and the horizons of social, historical, and aesthetic experience that television opens as one of the most important culture industries of the last 100 years. Much of our class will be devoted to watching TV and discussing what we watch, especially scripted television such as sitcoms, soap operas, procedurals, “quality” television, web series, and so on. Students will also come to understand poetics, a method that goes back to Aristotle, as an approach useful to the study of any medium, especially when combined with methods enabled by digital technologies. 

Location

Lechase Room 163 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course surveys the history of cinema from its emergence in the mid-1890s to the transition to sound in the late 1920s. We will examine the cinema as a set of aesthetic, social, technological, national, cultural and industrial practices as they were exercised and developed during this 30-year span. We will explore the diverse forms cinema took and functions it performed during this period by looking closely at a range of films and writings about films and film culture. We will also examine contexts within which these films were produced and experienced as well as theorizations of cinema that emerged concurrently with them. The course thus introduces students to the study of film history as well as a key national and international trends in making and thinking about cinema as it rose to prominence as a vital component of the art and culture of the twentieth century. Previous coursework in film is recommended, though not required; please contact the professor if this will be your first experience studying film in an academic setting.

Location

Hylan Building Room 102 (TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

This course provides a transnational survey of film history, examining the technical and formal aspects of the medium in its production and exhibition. As we explore the development of cinema during this period, we will address a number of aesthetic and technological issues. For example, how did the development of sound technology affect film form? How did it affect cross-cultural cinematic exchange? What is the significance of genre across various film traditions? What did the studio system contribute to Hollywood's success in the international market? How did immigrant and exiled film personnel shape the industries they joined? Weekly screenings and film journals required.

Location

Morey Room 504 (MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course explores textiles as vital objects in human lives for millennia. It explores a selection of these luxurious textiles and their intersection with social, economic, and political lives in the Islamic world between the ninth to the eighteenth centuries. At the end of the semester, students will have an overall picture of Islamic dynastic history, its broad geographical expansion from Spain to India, and its cultural themes such as political system, social structure, economic sectors, religious rituals, cross-cultural exchanges, diplomatic gifting, royal leisure, and funerary practices. This course invites students to see artifacts as not merely passive objects but active agents in history as well as their everyday lives. It also discusses a few technical aspects of weaving textiles and looks at textiles as three-dimensional objects. Finally, this course will assist students with developing their critical thinking, research, and writing as crucial skills to succeed in their future careers through weekly readings, visual analysis, in-class discussions, and research projects.

Location

Hylan Building Room 105 (TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Course examines the major philosophical approaches to art, both Continental and Analytic, focusing mainly on the 20th century. Topics studied include the nature of art, the end of art, the ontology of art, the meaning of art, high and low art, committed versus autonomous art, fascism and art, art and value, art and mass media. Authors studied include Nietzsche, Adorno, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Ranciere, Goodman, Danto, Crimp, Vattimo. Conducted in English.

Location

Morey Room 502 (W 4:50PM - 7:30PM)

From Noah to January 6, disasters have impacted the ways human culture has visualized, excavated, and understood itself – for better and for worse. This seminar explores the relationships between natural and political catastrophes of all stripes and landscape across critical theory and the humanities, looking to the various forms of response that earthly cataclysm (and its imaginings) have wrought. The Judeo-Christian idea of civilization's origins – enwrapped within a story of worldly inundation – installed the idea of culture as something always under threat from its surroundings. Faceless, nature's agency was always in flux, and thus easily enlisted as character into stories told at the grandest scale. But what do older texts and images tell us about our current environmental and democratic precarity? As much as fables of extinguished hubris, many classic accounts explore (with painstaking detail) relationships between the individual and the mass, the realms of inevitability and fate, the binaries of technology and nature. The purpose of this course is to look closely at the poetics of these natural catastrophes as experienced by humans, to the discourses of annihilation and survival that they engage, and to the cultural specifics of the debris and myths they leave behind. At the forefront of our inquiry will be the question – timely, it is hoped – of catastrophes (both water-borne and not) understood as cleanly "natural" or man-made, of cataclysms as episodic or quietly attritional. Subjects include Hurricane Katrina, Gaza, Stalin, Trump,  Genesis, 1960s land art, Pompeii, the Black Death, Hiroshima, Voltaire 1753/5, Dürer's 1525 deluge nightmare, and others. Readings, guest speakers, and film screenings all semester.

Location

Morey Room 524 (W 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

Independent study under faculty guidance of a limited field of art history or individual study on a single topic at an advanced level under the guidance of a member of the art history faculty.

Registration for Independent Study courses needs to be completed thru the instructions for online independent study registration.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

See 'Requirements for Honors in Art History.'

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Internships in London and the United States.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Blank Description

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

The Seminar in Contemporary Art is a course designed to bring together studio art and art history majors and minors in an extended discussion of contemporary artistic practices. We often look backwards to the 1960s or earlier but usually focus on a method, issue, or aspect to contemporary art (e.g. participation; photography; authorship). This course prepares students for critical engagement with contemporary art practices and can serve as an excellent preparation for Art New York or for a career in the arts.

Location

Morey Room 524 (M 10:25AM - 1:05PM)