Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the Student Link for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• CAS AH 563: Global Baroque: Art and Power in the Seventeenth Century
  Investigates the interaction between art and structures of power in 17th- century Europe, with particular attention to its global dimensions. Focus on Rubens, Rembrandt, Velazquez, and Bernini but also other forms of cultural production that circulated through global trade.
• CAS AH 574: Topics in African Art
  An in-depth study of selected topics in the history of African art. May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Spring 2019: African Art in the City. Concentrates on contemporary art from Africa's cities. Once a month we make studio, gallery, and museum visits in Boston to consider different strategies for displaying African art, analyzing the methodologies used to represent African cultures.
• CAS AH 580: Architectural Technology and Materials
  An introduction to the history of architectural construction, technologies, and materials, and their consequences in the built environment. Students receive a practical understanding of the building process and of its social and cultural contexts.
• CAS AH 585: Twentieth-Century Architecture and Urbanism
  Topic for Fall 2018: Twentieth Century Architecture and Urbanization. Explores significance of landscape for nationalisms/territorial nation-states in the modern era. Representations, idealizations/nationalist re-significations of landscape in America, Europe, Mediterranean and Middle East. Taming of nature and "conquest" of terrain by infrastructural projects of modern nation-states and new regimes.
• CAS AH 586: Early Modern America: Visual Culture, 1900-1930
  Fall 2018's offering concentrates on American Indian and Euro-American artists in the Western United States, acknowledging transcultural aesthetic dialogues among Native and non-Native artists. Examines how artists handled concepts of modern American Indian identity and addressed cliches of Indianness.
• CAS AH 589: Topics in Nineteenth-Century Art
  Topic for Spring 2020: Addresses major European artistic currents of the 1770s through the mid-nineteenth century. Considers the work of G?ricault, Delacroix, Ingres, Goya, Turner, Constable, Blake, Friedrich, Runge, and others in the context of political revolution, nationalism, and religious revival.
• CAS AH 591: Seminar in Photographic History
  Topic for Spring 2019: Documentary Photography. A study of changing uses, definitions, and archives of documentary photography from 1839 to the present. Topics include urban photography, war imagery, topographical and survey landscapes, architectural records, social reform photography, New Deal imagery, and digital documents.
• CAS AI 101: Introduction to Asian Studies
  Mini-seminar to analyze and integrate students' coursework of the Asian Studies Major. Student presentations on relevant events outside coursework; reading and discussion focused on current issues in Asian studies. Required of all Asian Studies majors.
• CAS AM 200: Introduction to American Studies
  An exploration of the multi-faceted themes of American society and culture in selected historical periods using a variety of approaches to interpret such topics as American art, literature, politics, material culture, and the mass media. Required of majors and minors. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Research and Information Literacy
• CAS AM 202: What's Boston?
  What's Boston? explores Boston's complex urban and natural world. University faculty share cutting-edge research, focusing on Boston as a PLACE and a guiding IDEA, introducing the perspectives of disparate scholarly disciplines. Discover where you stand and where you might go! This course carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills one unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness
• CAS AM 250: American Arts and Society
  Investigates key issues and themes in American arts and letters. Topic for Spring 2020: The New England Way?: Four Centuries of Cultural and Intellectual History. An historically informed introduction to the literature, film, art, music, and philosophy of a distinctive American cultural region, from the colonial period to the present. Topics include Native and Black presences; queer historical continuities; regional identity's possible persistence today.
• CAS AM 301: Perspectives on the American Experience
  American history and society as viewed by those who made it. Topic for Fall 2019: The American War Film in the Sound Era. Examines American World War II, Vietnam War, and Iraq War films regarding aesthetic, sociohistorical, and technological contexts in which they were produced, as well as how the films reflect the shifting attitudes toward war in American culture.
• CAS AM 313: Internships in Public History
  Students undertake supervised work in Boston-area institutions dedicated to the public presentation of America's past. Students meet with the instructor to discuss themes in public history theory and practice that, together with the internship experience and related readings, inform a final research project and class presentation. Also offered as CAS HI 313.
• CAS AM 369: American Folk Art
  Explores the objects that collectors and museums identify as "American Folk Art." Examines how this label developed throughout the twentieth century; familiarizes students with major collections and genres including painting, sculpture, textiles, and other media. Also offered as CAS AH 369.
• CAS AM 385: American Buildings and Landscapes
  An introductory analytic survey of American buildings and landscapes within their historical and cultural contexts. Students examine forces that have shaped the American built environment. Topics range from Indian mounds to commercial strips, Spanish missions to skyscrapers. Also offered as CAS AH 385.
• CAS AM 501: Special Topics in American Studies
  Topic for Fall 2019: ReThink: Adaptive Reuse and Revitalization. Adaptive reuse and revitalization of historical places has become indispensable towards achieving healthy, sustainable and vibrant built environments. The course critically explores and analyzes American examples of completed projects and the employed approaches towards design and managing change.
• CAS AM 502: Special Topics in American Studies
  Topic for Spring 2020: Readings on the American Cultural Landscape. This interdisciplinary research seminar challenges students to interpret the built environment as evidence of human activity. Buildings, landscapes, transportation networks, and religious compounds are examined as carriers of historical and cultural meaning. Students also become familiar with the work of the leading scholars of the subject.
• CAS AM 505: The American South in History, Literature, and Film
  Explores the American South through literature, film, and other sources. Considers what, if anything, has been distinctive about the Southern experience and how a variety of Americans have imagined the region over time. Also offered as CAS HI 505.
• CAS AM 546: Places of Memory: Historic Preservation Theory and Practice
  Covers key aspects of the history, theory, and practice of historic preservation. Preservation is discussed in the context of cultural history and the changing relationship between existing buildings and landscapes and attitudes toward history, memory, invented tradition, and place. Also offered as CAS AH 546 and CAS HI 546.
• CAS AM 554: Preservation Planning
  Introduces students to local, state, and national government policies and practices intended to protect historically and aesthetically significant structures. In addition, the course covers planning approaches aimed at managing redevelopment in established neighborhoods, to create livable and sustainable communities.

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