History of Art & Architecture

• CAS AH 596: Seminar: Contemporary Art
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, or consent of instructor. - Rotating topics in art, criticism and theory since 1960. Examines major themes such as formalism, minimalism, conceptual art, the neo-avant-garde, art and politics, postmodernism and globalization in their social and political contexts. Topic for Fall 2025: Contemporary Exhibition Practices. This seminar explores how, over the past forty years, artists, curators, critics, and architects have played various roles in the expansion of large-scale exhibitions and the emergence of new museums of contemporary art around the world.
• CAS AH 716: African Diaspora Arts in the Americas
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - Study of the transmission of African artistry in the Caribbean, South America, and the United States from the period of slavery to the present. Topics include Kongo and Yoruba arts and their influence on the arts of Santeria, Vodun, and carnival. Also offered as GRS AA 716.
• CAS AH 727: Colloquium in Chinese Art
  Graduate Corequisites: (GRSAH728) - (Students must also register for required co-req GRS AH 728.) This graduate-level colloquium will critically examine issues of Chinese art covered in AH327 Arts of China. Special attention will be given to recent scholarship that engages with Chinese art in a greater socio-cultural context. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy. Must attend MWF section with AH327.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS AH 733: Colloquium in Greek Art and Architecture
  Graduate Corequisites: (CASAH 734) - (Students must also register for required co-requisite CASAH 734.) This graduate-level colloquium will critically examine issues of Greek Classical art and architecture covered in AH333 Arts of Classical Greece. It fulfills the art-historical methodologies requirement for MA students.
• CAS AH 734: Colloquium in Greek Art and Architecture Discussion
  Graduate Corequisites: (GRSAH733) - Required discussion section for students registered in CASAH 733. Students must also register for CASAH 733.
• CAS AH 791: Colloquium in Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture
  Graduate colloquium—students also attend lectures in undergraduate course CASAH392 or CASAH393, depending on the semester in which the colloquium takes place. Topic for Fall 2023: "Contemporary Art and Globalization." Considers cultural globalization as the key critical paradigm for art produced since the late 1980s. Explores how international artists, curators, and scholars have negotiated the space between local tradition and global exchange.
• CAS AH 805: Professional Development and Placement Seminar
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD oral exam. - Offers advanced PhD students the opportunity to present and discuss works-in-progress and structured guidance for the tasks involved in academic and curatorial job applications.
• CAS AH 812: Seminar: Portraiture
  Topic for Fall 2023: "Picturing Race in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1700." This seminar traces a history of visual constructions of race and ethnicity in Europe through paintings, sculpture, prints, maps, and other forms of visual depiction of racial difference. Please note that this course will be building a collaborative syllabus during the first few weeks of the class.
• CAS AH 822: Seminar: African Art
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Fall 2022 Topic: Benin Bronzes in Context With a focus on collections-based learning, this seminar explores the historical and cultural context of art of the Benin Kingdom beginning with the material culture of Ile-Ife and concluding with contemporary conversations concerning repatriation, ethical stewardship, and institutional critique.
• CAS AH 853: Seminar: Renaissance Art and Architecture
  Topic for spring 2025: This seminar explores the early modern concept of art as a living thing through a consideration of likeness, illusion, automata, anatomy, wonders, and monsters. Attention will also be given to the role of thing theory, phenomenology, and artificial intelligence in art history.
• CAS AH 863: Seminar: Baroque Art and Architecture
  A World Art: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art in Global and Material Perspectives. This seminar explores the so-called “Golden Age” of Dutch art from the perspectives of the recent global and material turns in art history. Classes conducted at the MFA's new Center for
• CAS AH 867: Material Culture
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Introduction to the theory and practice of the interdisciplinary study of material culture, which includes everything we make and use, from food and clothing to art and buildings. Explores contemporary scholarship from a range of disciplines. Also offered as GRSAM 867.
• CAS AH 887: Seminar: American Art
  May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2025, Section A1: Crafting Counterculture in America's Information Age. This seminar explores various countercultures within the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Students learn about analog and technology-based craft practices alongside burgeoning media theories to consider how makers interrupted the status quo through artistic innovation and experimentation.
• CAS AH 891: Seminar: Photography
  Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Historical, archival, and theoretical examinations of photography, with emphasis on its role both as document and as art. Topic for Fall 2024: The Photographic Book. Examines the photographic book from 1839 to present. Concentrates on the book as a unique form for the medium. Study image/text relationships, narrative structures, cultural constructions of message, serial quality of grouped images, and differences/similarities between literary and photographic languages.
• CAS AH 895: Seminar: Contemporary Commemorative Art in Latin America
  This seminar studies symbolic reparations within the Inter-American human rights system and relates it to commemorative artistic practices. It raises questions about the values and limitations of art for social healing in contexts of gross violations of human rights.