Undergraduate Program

The aim of this course is two-fold: First, to develop an understanding of the extraordinary variety of ways meaning is produced in visual culture; secondly, to enable students to analyze and describe the social, political and cultural effects of these meanings. By studying examples drawn from contemporary art, film, television, digital culture, and advertising we will learn techniques of analysis developed in response to specific media and also how to cross-pollinate techniques of analysis in order to gain greater understanding of the complexity of our visual world. Grades are based on response papers, class attendance and participation, and a midterm and a final paper. Occasional film screenings will be scheduled as necessary in the course of the semester.

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(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Teaching assistantship in Visual and Cultural Studies

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Graduate research assistantship in Visual and Cultural Studies.

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( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of media studies. We will look at a range of both media and historical tendencies related to the media, including manuscript culture, print, and the rise of the newspaper, novel, and modern nation-state; photography, film, television and their respective differences as visual mediums; important shifts in attitudes towards painting; the place of sound in the media of modernity; and the computerization of culture brought about by the computer, social networks, video games, and cell phones. In looking at these, we will consider both the approaches that key scholars in the field of media studies use, and the concepts that are central to the field itself (media/medium; medium-specificity; remediation; the culture industry; reification and utopia; cultural politics). By the end of the class, students will have developed a toolkit for understanding, analyzing, and judging the media that shape their lives in late modernity.

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(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

How did we get here? And, how do we know what we know about the past? This course is a general introduction to archaeology, with emphases on the methods, theories, and ethical issues of archaeological research. To this end, this course will provide students with an overview of the various theoretical and methodological approaches that have been used to study artifacts and archaeological sites and make inferences about the past. In addition, we will focus on how archaeological finds are used to understand the history of human evolution, agriculture, urbanism, religion and complex societies in many areas of the world.

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(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

Buildings are enduring cultural artifacts that embody both artistic expression and technological limitations, influencing societies beyond their creators. This course explores the design, creation, and study of architecture through lectures, exercises, and thematic assignments by while developing skills in architectural design and understanding the built environment. Coursework culminates in a fully realized building design.

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(MW 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An introductory survey of art and architectural achievements of Indigenous societies within specific cultural sphere of Mesoamerica (including parts of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) from colossal monolithic portraits of Olmec rulers in the 10th century BCE to the delicate feather paintings commissioned by Nahua elites as gifts sent to the courts of sixteenth-century Europe. Participants will learn to recognize the formal features of material culture and built environments of major historic groups as well as their descendant communities. Through work by contemporary artists, we will also consider how these images continue to participate in the social and political realities of today.

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(TR 11:05AM - 12:20PM)

This course will introduce students to the art, architecture, and archeology of ancient Egypt, from the Predynastic Period until the country’s inclusion into the Roman Empire. This course will highlight the wide range of materials encountered in Egyptian archaeology—architectural remains in secular, sacred, and funerary contexts; material culture (pottery, stone and wooden artifacts, artistic creations); human and faunal remains; written documents; iconographic material—and will evaluate how they reflect the cultural, social, and political organization of each major period of Egyptian history. Special attention will be given to both Egypt’s interconnections with its neighbors—Nubians, Libyans, and inhabitants of Syria-Palestine—and the impact of religion on the artistic production. Material will be presented to the students in the form of lectures, student-led discussions on specific readings and topics, and guest lectures.

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(MW 6:15PM - 7:30PM)

This course introduces students to art made from the late 19th century to the present. We examine the various movements in their historical contexts, from Impressionism and post-Impressionism through Cubism, Abstraction Expressionism, Pop and Minimalism, as well as contemporary developments like installation and performance art. We consider how issues of gender, technological developments, and wars and social movements have affected art. The course is taught through a combination of lecture and discussion, and we will be constantly looking at images to understand how ideas, social change, and history are refracted in works of modern art.

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(TR 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

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.

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(TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

This course surveys the art and architecture of the Islamic world from the seventh century to the present. It investigates a wide range of artifacts, buildings, and cities from Spain to India around three interrelated themes: piety, power, and propaganda. This class discusses key monuments, from religious buildings such as the Ka‘ba in Mecca to the architecture of leisure in palaces and gardens. It introduces students to the significance of text on sacred artifacts such as the Qur’an and religious buildings such as mosques to ceramicware of everyday life. It explores the transformation of prominent capital cities of Isfahan, Istanbul, and Cairo under dynastic development, as well as the production of luxurious textiles and glassware in their court workshops as reflections of political power and glory. By studying royal patronage of lavishly ornamented history books, the course shows how kings propagated their legitimacy to rule during political crises. In this class, students will develop a clear sense of the history of the Islamic world through studying its objects and buildings. They will also improve their analytical skills through visual analysis and critical writing.

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(MW 12:30PM - 1:45PM)

This introductory course surveys the rich and complex arts of Europe in relation to the broader world between ca.AD 1400-1700. Painting, sculpture, textiles, architecture, urbanism, printmaking, and cartography are just some of the media surveyed. Visits to Special Collections and the MAG, lecture and discussion.

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

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. Studio Art lab fee applied.

Location

(T 11:05AM - 1:45PM)

This class explores global trends in film history from 1989 to the present. In considering the contemporary period of cinema, we will look at the technical, social, and formal aspects of the medium. Of interest will be new digital technologies for production, post-production, and exhibition in both commercial and independent filmmaking (e.g., CGI, HD, Motion Capture, High Frame Rate), all of which are linked to a network culture that emerges after 1989. We will also focus on geopolitical developments and social upheavals such as the end of the Cold War, the events of September 11, 2001, economic and cultural globalization, and the post-2008 financial crisis as all these altered various national/regional cinemas and genres (e.g., the spy film, the horror movie, the comedy-drama, and action movies). We will screen the works of major figures in late twentieth century and early twenty-first century world cinema from the United States, Mexico, China, and Hong Kong to Palestine, Iran, India, and Senegal.

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(MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

Cities of the World explores the histories of a selected group of global cities during notable moments in their social, economic, and political lives. It spans roughly 40 centuries from ancient Mesopotamia to post-world war South America to investigate how cities have been made by, and have made, humans. This course will focus on one or two cities based on a theme each week and discuss the urban built environment and monumental architecture in their historical context. In this course, students will learn about the history of major cities such as Rome, Cairo, Tenochtitlan, Angkor, Paris, Beijing, Isfahan, New York, and Brasília. More importantly, they will comprehend critical social, economic, and political themes from the “Agricultural Revolution” to Capitalism. Finally, they practice how to “read” urban spaces by developing their spatial analytical skills in historical contexts.

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(MW 10:25AM - 11:40AM)

This course explores key topics related to the social, cultural, and political contexts of art museums in the 21st century. A broad overview of the academic and professional field of museum studies will be presented alongside an in-depth examination of specific topics of concern to museum professionals. These topics include: the roles of the museum in society; the relationship between the museum and the artist; the ways in which museums engage communities; and how museums are reckoning with issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. The Memorial Art Gallery (where much of this course will be taught) will serve as a case study for many contemporary issues in museum studies. 

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(F 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

An examination of the physical remains of ancient Roman civilization, with an emphasis on architecture, sculpture, painting, and other visual arts, in order to understand Roman culture and society.

Location

(TR 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

How does art understand oppositionality? Why have undergrounds physical and metaphorical (caves, tombs, mines, catacombs, subways, punk rock, political activism) remained fundamental to culture for centuries? Since the European avant-gardes, advanced art’s importance tends to me measured by its resistance – from below - to something dominant above. This vertical image of power, race, hierarchy, gender and class affects understandings of culture worldwide. Meanwhile, science fictions of all moments all traffic in the subterranean, and critical theory has pivoted upon a questioning of what lies “beneath” some dominant culture. This course surveys art’s many understandings of “against.”

Location

(MW 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

The second 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 the second half of 'Purgatorio' and the entirety of 'Paradiso,' 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.

Location

(MW 3:25PM - 4:40PM)

How are Indigenous women represented in art? What is revealed in the differences between autochthonous representations and those created by outsiders? Focusing on images of Nahuatl-speaking women specifically, this course considers the intersecting roles of gender and power, labor and knowledge, sacrifice and sustenance in the conception of Nahua femininities from the pre-Hispanic period to the present day. Topics include the changing perception of Aztec female deities in New Spain and their Chicana reclamation, as well as historical figures such as Malinche, “tongue” of Hernán Cortés, and Doña Luz Jiménez, muse to the Mexican Muralists who fostered a cultural and linguistic revival in her community.

Location

(T 2:00PM - 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

(TR 2:00PM - 3:15PM)

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.

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(MW 4:50PM - 6:05PM)

This course will utilize the resources of New York City as a starting point for creative production. Projects will encourage students to explore urban spaces, histories, and systems using a variety of media such as drawing, photography, video, sound, bookmaking, printmaking and/or installation.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

As an integral part of the internship program, all students participating in ANY will meet weekly with the program's resident director. The class will visit museums, art galleries, film & media screenings, & learn from these visits through readings, papers, presentations & discussions. The colloquium will also serve to provide an intellectual framework for understanding the operations of the NY art world & to allow students to discuss with one another their experiences at the various institutions where they intern. Each student will be expected to make a presentation about their internship to the ANY group. There will be an entrepreneurial component which will introduce the students to a wide variety of entrepreneurial activity & innovative practices within arts and culture. Through guest speakers, seminars & field trips the students will learn how entrepreneurial endeavors develop. By the end of the semester, the students will create their own proposal for an entrepreneurial project.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

While the land art movement in the 1960s/1970s changed many understandings of conceptualism (and landscape) in Europe and America, little attention has been paid to its cultural precedents. This seminar surveys the famous enterprises and writings of artists like Robert Smithson, but interprets them through current (and past) "environmental" discourses. Weekly meetings, discussion, and a final paper.

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(R 2:00PM - 4:40PM)

This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

This course provides undergraduate students the opportunity to pursue in-depth, independent exploration of a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum, under the supervision of a faculty member in the form of independent study, practicum, internship or research. The objectives and content are determined in consultation between students and full-time members of the teaching faculty. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)

Under the guidance of a faculty advisor, Seniors identify a topic, develop a project plan, conduct substantive work, and present their findings or creations in a final written report, portfolio, performance, or presentation. Responsibilities and expectations vary by course and department.

Location

( 7:00PM - 7:00PM)