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 MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

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  • CAS AH 392: Twentieth Century Art from 1940 to 1980
    Explores major currents in art produced around the world during the tumultuous middle decades of the 20th century. The following topics, among others, are examined in relation to postwar culture and Cold War politics: realism vs. abstraction, global pop art and conceptual art, new materials and technologies, international artists' networks, and performative art practices. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 393: 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. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 395: History of Photography
    An introduction to the study of photographs. The history of the medium in Europe and America from its invention in 1839 to the present. After lectures on photographic theory and methodology, photographs are studied both as art objects and as historical artifacts. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Critical Thinking
  • CAS AH 398: Twentieth-Century Architecture
    This course provides an introduction to the major developments in architecture and urban planning from ca. 1900 to the present. It traces the proliferation of modernist thought through key projects but also to everyday buildings and landscapes. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • CAS AH 399: History and Theory of Landscape Architecture
    Explores man's relationship with nature by a study of selected built environments from antiquity to the present. Focus on both the private garden and the public park--here considered as works of art--and their changing forms, meaning, and interpretations. Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AH 404: Seminar: Topics in Museum Exhibits
    Topics seminar. May be repeated for credit as topics change. Considers and uses the methods and tools of curators and other museum professionals in gallery arrangement and exhibition- making. Taught around specific projects, with visits to museums and meetings with practitioners as can be arranged. Topic for Fall 2023: Contemporary Exhibition Practices. Examines developments in contemporary exhibition practices from the 1980s to the present. Taking a global perspective, the course considers how curators, artists, and scholars have sought to expand and decentralize the art world through transnational and multicultural approaches to exhibition-making, including large-scale exhibitions and biennials.
  • CAS AH 444: Seminar: Medieval Art
    In-depth examination of varying topics in the study of Medieval Art. Topic for Fall 2022: 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 486: Architecture Capstone
    This course guides senior and eligible junior architectural studies majors through a capstone experience, which may be an internship or a research project. Open only by application. Interested students contact Professor Abramson by Nov. 1, 2022. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Ethical Reasoning.
    • The Individual in Community
    • Ethical Reasoning
  • CAS AH 500: Topics in History of Art & Architecture
    May be repeated for credit as topic varies. Two topics are offered Fall 2023. Section A1: A Global History of Camps: From the 19th Century to the Present. The image of the camp dominates contemporary representations. This course examines this spatial device from a global historical perspective, tracing a genealogy from colonial camps, Nazi camps, Soviet gulags, US internment camps to contemporary detention camps, refugee camps, border camps. Section B1: Images and Power Relations in Latin America. Seminar interrogates images in the constitution and challenging of colonial, national, and modern power relations. Focus on colonial caste hierarchies; the articulation of nation through gender (patriarchy), race (criollismo, indigenismo and afro-latinidad), and discourses of universality, modernity, and development.
  • CAS AH 507: Digital Curation: Towards National Parks: Art and Nature, Nature and Nation
    Before national parks, wild locations attracted artists, photographers and poets. Their works made these areas known to tourist-viewers. Prepare a digital exhibition and map artist- advocates as they explored mountains, forests and waterfalls. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
    • Creativity/Innovation
  • CAS AH 520: The Museum and The Historical Agency
    History, present realities, and future possibilities of museums and historical agencies, using Boston's excellent examples. Issues and debates confronting museums today examined in the light of historical development and changing communities. Emphasis on collecting, display and interpretation.
  • CAS AH 521: Curatorship
    Topic for Spring 2023: This course examines the role of the curator today and considers practices and debates related to decentralizing and decolonizing paradigms of art, privileging, and foregrounding historically excluded narratives of art, and shaping new and inclusive approaches to exhibition-making. Students also learn practical and theoretical tools used by curators in these processes, including wall text and labels, display techniques, and educational programs supplemented by readings, class discussions, and case studies
  • CAS AH 525: American Cultural Landscape Studies
    This seminar provides an introduction to analyzing and interpreting American cultural landscapes and acquaints students with the historiography of interdisciplinary study of the built environment. Also offered as CAS AM 525.
  • CAS AH 527: Topics in Art and Society
    May be repeated for credit as topics change. Two topics are offered Fall 2023. Section A1: Art in 1940s America. This seminar explores the ways that American painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists negotiated the socio-political crises, cultural dilemmas, and aesthetic debates engendered by World War II and the inception of the Atomic Age. Section B1: The Mount Auburn Cemetery. Centers on the exploration of remembrance, and the invention, appropriation, and development of imagery and landscape for memorials. Much of this seminar takes place on site in the Mount Auburn Cemetery and in regional early Burying Grounds.
  • 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 Fall 2021: Greek Painting. Painting was the most esteemed genre of ancient Greek art, famed for its beauty and ability to fool the eye. We study panel and wall painters, colorists who collaborated with sculptors and architects, and craftsmen who decorated pottery 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.
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Research and Information Literacy
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • 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.

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