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 527: Topics in Art and Society
  May be repeated for credit as topics change. Two topics are offered Fall 2020. Section B1: Picturing Property: Real Estate in American Visual Culture. Explores the roles that visual representations have played in American real estate markets and examines the creative ways that artists and writers have interpreted the objects, figures, practices of the land business during the past two centuries. Section C1: Cathedrals and Castles: the Art and Architecture of Medieval Europe. Castles and cathedrals with their splendid treasures from gold and gem- studded objects to vast stained-glass windows, precious textiles, and illuminated manuscripts are explored as the backdrop for the social political, religious, and cultural conditions of the period.
• CAS AH 531: Modern Asian Art in a Global Context
  Topic for Fall 2018: Japan on Display. This seminar explores the various ways that Japan--as a national entity, cultural entity, and/or artistic entity--has been presented, performed, and received in the last 150 years. Focus primarily on Japan's participation in major world's fairs, design exhibitions, and the Olympics.
• CAS AH 532: Japanese Print Culture
  Seminar on print culture of Japan from the eighteenth century to the present. Study of woodblock prints, photographic prints, book art, print advertisements, postcards, and manga. Focus on their function as both artistic expression and instruments of mass communication.
• CAS AH 533: Seminar: Greek Art and Architecture
  Topic for Spring 2019: Greek Architecture. Greek stone architecture from its origins, including the emergence and development of the Doric and Ionic orders, to the role of architecture in sanctuaries, forms of houses, invention of special buildings, accessibility, use of models, construction techniques, and gigantism. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing-Intensive Course, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Research and Information Literacy.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS AH 534: Seminar in Roman Art
  In-depth examination of varying topics in the study of Roman art and architecture. Topic for Spring 2020: The Pax Romana. Roman art and architecture at the height of the Roman Empire under the Five Good Emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius) with introductory sessions on Augustus, the Julio-Claudians, and the Flavians.
• CAS AH 540: Europe and the Islamic World: Medieval and Early-Modern Cultural Exchange
  Cultural exchange between Europe and the Islamic world, and its impact on visual culture during the late medieval and early modern periods; the transmission of aesthetic concepts and visual traditions via specific patrons, artists, and works of art and architecture.
• CAS AH 541: Courtly Commissions: Ottoman Art and Architecture
  Explores the artistic patronage of the Ottoman court, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. Questions of self-fashioning, artistic agency, courtly behavior, decorum, and the formation of an imperial style frame the discussion of specific works of art and architecture.
• CAS AH 543: Latin American Art and the Cold War
  Study of Latin American artistic practices in relation to Cold War political frameworks, such as development and dependency discourses, the impact of the Cuban Revolution, U.S. and Soviet cultural policies, and the rise of numerous political dictatorships.
• CAS AH 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 AM 546 and CAS HI 546.
• CAS AH 548: Global Heritage Conservation
  Examining global approaches towards heritage conservation through a study of concepts, charters and case studies, using themes such as world heritage, cultural tourism, historic towns, new design, intangible heritage, authenticity, integrity, recent past, historic landscapes, conflict, disasters, revitalization and reconstruction.
• CAS AH 554: Boston Architectural and Community History Workshop
  Focuses on class readings, lectures, and research on a single neighborhood or community in Boston (or Greater Boston). Greatest emphasis is on using primary sources-- land titles and deeds, building permits, fire insurance atlases and other maps. Topic for Fall 2020: Somerville Project. Explores the architectural and urban transformation of Somerville from agricultural fields, country estates, to an area of dense urban settlement and industrial development. Explores places and sources that help assess and narrate the rich history of architectural and urban development.
• CAS AH 557: High Renaissance and Mannerist Art in Italy
  Topic for Fall 2018: The early modern concept of art as a living thing through a consideration of likeness, illusion, automata, anatomy, wonders, and monsters. Attention also given to the role of thing theory, phenomenology, and artificial intelligence in art history.
• 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 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. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
  BU Hub Learn More

  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Historical Consciousness

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