History of Art & Architecture

• CAS AH 591: Seminar in Photographic History
  Topic for Spring 2021: 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.
• GRS AH 692: Twentieth-Century Art from 1940 to 1980
  Explores major currents in European and American art made between 1940 and 1980. Examines the following movements and media in relation to postwar culture and politics: abstract expressionism, pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, earthworks, performance, and video.
• GRS AH 693: Contemporary Art: 1980 to Now
  Explores the terms of debate, key figures, and primary sites for the production and reception of contemporary art on a global scale since 1980. Painting, installation art, new media, performance, art criticism, and curatorial practice are discussed.
• GRS AH 716: African Diaspora Arts in the Americas
  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.
• GRS AH 742: Colloquium in Latin American Art
  Case studies designed to explore the main aesthetic, social, and historical discourses surrounding image production in Latin America while familiarizing students with main scholars in the field and their methodologies.
• GRS AH 757: Colloquium in Renaissance Art
  The colloquium considers the theoretical writings on the visual arts produced in Renaissance Italy and their important role in shaping and responding to the interests and concerns of artists, patrons, and viewers.
• GRS AH 791: Colloquium in Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture
  A study of the key tendencies in European art between the 1880s and World War II. The work of van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Dalí and their contemporaries will be examined in relation to major issues in European culture and politics.
• GRS AH 802: Seminar: Art Historical Writings
  This seminar considers the history and methods of art history through the writings of Vasari, Bellori, Winkelmann, Kant, Hegel, Wolfflin, Riegl, Warburg, Panofsky, and Gombrich, among others.
• GRS AH 805: Professional Development and Placement Seminar
  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.
• GRS AH 813: Seminar: Topics in Islamic Art and Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2020: On the Eve of Modernity: Islamic Art and Architecture of the 18th Century. Examines eighteenth century art and architecture from the Ottoman Empire, Iran and India paying particular attention to cross-cultural exchange, collecting, dynastic legitimacy, and urban growth. Situates Islamic visual culture within global trends of the period.
• GRS AH 820: Seminar: Asian Art
  Topic for Spring 2021: Japan on Display. Course explores the manifold ways that Japan has been presented, performed, and received in the last 150 years through the nation's participation in major world's fairs, with attention to some domestic fairs, design exhibitions, and the Olympics.
• GRS AH 822: Seminar: African Art
  Topic for Spring 2021: Photography in Africa. This course considers the role historical photographs played in determining how the world views Africa. It examines images created by African photographers today in order to address how people have actively confronted colonialism and presented their own self-image.
• GRS AH 853: Seminar: Renaissance Art and Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2020: Collecting and Exhibiting Italian Renaissance Art. Considers the collection and exhibition of Italian Renaissance art from the 15th century until the current day. Relevant topics will include: historic and contemporary practices of collecting and display; private and public space; and the architecture of seclusion
• GRS AH 863: Seminar: Baroque Art and Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2021: Johannes Vermeer. This seminar explores Vermeer's art and career through various perspectives and methods of art history, and attempts to situate his astonishingly small production of about 35 paintings within the cultural and social worlds for which they were created.
• GRS AH 867: Material Culture
  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 GRS AM 867.
• GRS AH 887: Seminar: American Art
  Topic for Spring 2021: American Art and the Ocean. This seminar examines American art made on and about the ocean during the long nineteenth century. Focusing on representations of the Atlantic, we will consider a range of artworks while discussing critical approaches from environmental history and the blue humanities.
• GRS AH 891: Seminar: Photography
  Historical, archival, and theoretical examinations of photography, with emphasis on its role both as document and as art. Topic for Fall 2021: 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.
• GRS AH 893: Seminar: Twentieth-Century Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2021: Histories of Modern Architecture. The historiography of modern architecture focused upon classics published since the 1920s by Pevsner, Giedion, Scully, Banham, Tafuri, and others. Accompanied by philosophies of history by Foucault, White, Kellner, and others. Learn to think critically about all constructions of history.
• GRS AH 895: Seminar: Twentieth-Century Art
  Topic for Fall 2020: Paris 1900-1940. This interdisciplinary seminar will explore the representation of Paris in a variety of media, from the Exposition Universelle in 1900 to the beginning of World War II, through the media of literature, universal expositions, painting, photography, fashion, and film.

Back to full list of Courses