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.

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  • 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 2022: This interdisciplinary course explores the architectural and urban transformation of a Boston neighborhood. Students craft analytical site-specific narratives using primary resources, secondary sources, and evidence from the built environment. The course involves walking tours and archival site visits in addition to classroom seminars.
  • CAS AH 557: High Renaissance and Mannerist Art in Italy
    Topic for Fall 2021: Drawing in Early Modern Italy. This seminar considers the role of drawings in workshop practice, the transition to drawings as autonomous artworks, and the relationship between invention and sketches. Attention also given to the history of materials and connoisseurship, as well as to the mobility of drawings as artworks.
  • 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 582: Historic Houses
    Studies the preservation of historic homes as museums, a phenomenon involving more than 26,000 houses throughout the U.S. since 1850. Considers Boston's excellent examples as works of architecture and design and as icons in debates about national and regional identities. Topic for Fall 2021: Historic House Museums in Boston and Beyond. Boston and New England have numerous house museums. From circa 1850, such buildings were saved internationally. But why? Do they address contemporary audiences? Uses case studies and visits; contextualizes international movement. Considers group memory, invented traditions, civic-national identities, romantic nationalism.
  • CAS AH 589: Topics in Nineteenth Century Art
    Topic for Fall 2022: The Age of Impressionism. European art, 1848-1900, is examined in light of contemporary developments in politics, literature, and the history of ideas. Class discussion of readings, both recent and classic, is followed by an oral report and a final paper on a research topic.
  • 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.
  • CAS AH 596: Seminar: Contemporary Art
    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 2020: Contemporary Exhibition Practices. Explores how, over the past thirty 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 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.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AM 220: Native American and Indigenous Studies
    Examines diverse cultural expressions of Native peoples, from oral traditions to modern fiction, and their historic and political contexts. Employs interdisciplinary perspectives from Native American and Indigenous Studies to ask critical questions about the arts, identity, community, and creativity. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, The Individual in Community, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • The Individual in Community
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • CAS AM 250: American Arts and Society
    Investigates key issues and themes in American arts and letters. Topic for Fall 2022: The Mediated Body: Gender and Sexuality in American Popular Culture. Considers bodies as sites of political and cultural expression in American culture. By examining popular cultural texts - film, television, graphic novels, music, and advertising - within their historical contexts, students learn how the mediated body is given meaning and value in relation to gender, sexuality, and other identity markers.
  • CAS AM 301: Perspectives on the American Experience
    American history and culture as viewed by those who made it. Topics vary from semester to semester. Topic for Topic for Spring 2023: Black Venus: African- American Artists and American Beauty. What would it mean to center Black women in discussions around American concepts of beauty? This course explores how the figure of the Black Venus can be used to explore American cultural ideas of beauty throughout history. We look at photographs, statues, combs, skin-care, cosmetics, novels, and poetry. Effective Summer I, 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • 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 336: Bob Dylan: Music and Words
    This course examines Bob Dylan's music and lyrics from 1962 to 1975 in the context of his life, artistic influences, and milieu. We will explore the wealth of criticism and reaction his songs have inspired, paying special attention to questions concerning the nature of his art--for example, his dependence on musical tradition or the relationship between song lyrics and poetry--and past and current critical discussion about his legacy. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AM 367: 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. Topic for Fall 2022: Race and Power in Everyday Objects. How have diverse groups of Americans used everyday objects to envision, embody, and resist racial categories since the 18th century? Students use objects like Chinese export porcelain teacups, Klan robes, and mid-century modern coffee tables to see what material culture can teach us about histories of race in the US.
  • 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 2022: Unsettling American Studies. Explores frameworks such as critical race theory and decolonization that recognize the centrality of racism and settler colonialism to American life. Students consider theories, practices, and debates, and apply what they have learned to a research topic of their choice. Capstone course for American & New England Studies majors.
  • CAS AM 502: Special Topics in American Studies
    May be repeated for credit as topic changes. Topic for Spring 2023: The History of Print in Early America. Considers the history of print in North America before 1900. Topics include the literature of colonization, the American Revolution, early Black and Native American writing, transatlantic literary culture, Reconstruction, and Victorian readers. Authors include John Smith, Benjamin Franklin, Phillis Wheatley, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
  • 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. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness

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