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Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. 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 225: The Arts of Asia
    Surveys of the major artistic traditions of Asia. Important monuments are examined analytically in order to explain why certain forms and styles are characteristic of specific times and places, and how these monuments functioned in their cultural contexts. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AH 240: Medieval Art in Europe
    This course covers roughly one thousand years of art and architecture in Europe, Western Asia, and the Mediterranean from the Late Roman Era to the Renaissance. A broad range of media from stained glass to sculpture, gem encrusted metalwork, mosaics, ivories, manuscript illumination, lavish textiles, and other types of visual culture are examined. 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 251: Ancient Maya Civilization
    An exploration of the Maya civilization of Mexico and Central America, including its origins, intellectual achievements, city-state rise and collapse cycles, and the cultural endurance of the Maya people of today. This course carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Social Inquiry I.
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Social Inquiry I
  • CAS AH 257: Renaissance Art
    Survey of the arts in the Renaissance in Italy from the communes of the early fifteenth century to the courts of the sixteenth century. 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
    • Critical Thinking
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 284: Arts in America
    A survey of art and visual culture made in North America between the early colonial period and World War I, exploring the ways that painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists navigated major aesthetic debates, political conflicts, and economic crises. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AH 311: Arab Cities: Architecture, Politics, Religion
    This course presents a historical overview of Arab cities through architecture, politics, and religion. It considers modern Arab Ottoman cities, colonial cities, Palestinian cities. It also looks at refugee camps, Gulf cities, development, informality, de-development, destruction, and post-war reconstructions.
  • CAS AH 316: Art of the African Diaspora
    This course introduces students to the art of Black-identified people from across the African Diaspora, as well as the concepts, debates and preoccupations that have shaped the production and reception of art by Black artists.
  • CAS AH 323: Topics in Latin American Art
    This course examines rotating topics in Latin American art, such as Utopian Modernisms, Artivism, or Cuban art. Emphasizing historical context, transnational exchange, and cultural politics, it develops students’ skills in art historical writing, visual analysis, and critical thinking. May be repeated for credit as topics change.
  • CAS AH 324: Introduction to Art of the Caribbean
    Introduces students to the art of the Caribbean region. The course is not a survey of the region's art history, but rather introduces students to major themes that link this region. We begin by thinking through the Caribbean as a space/place that includes parts of Central and South America, as well as diasporas in North America and Europe, then proceed loosely chronologically from the autonomous period to the present day. We also consider the implications of insights from Caribbean Studies, postcolonial studies and Black studies for the field of art history. Effective Fall 2026 this course fulfills a single requirement in the following BU HUB areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research, Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AH 325: Art, Media, and Buddhism
    Examines how textual, visual, and material forms of religious expression have been conceptualized by Buddhists as well as how Buddhist objects are understood and re-contextualized in the West. Topics include: self- immolation; museums; war propaganda, and pop culture. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Teamwork/Collaboration
  • CAS AH 327: Arts of China
    Explores major works of Chinese art, from bronze vessels, Buddhist caves, ink painting, to contemporary performance. Addresses topics such as constructions of monumentality, cultural exchange, displays of power, literati identity, feminine space, and quests for modernization. Effective Fall 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
    • Research and Information Literacy
  • CAS AH 331: Early Greek Art and Architecture
    Undergraduate Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - Examines a critical formative stage in Greek art. Analyzes the rise of identifiable artists, the relationship of art to epic, the evolution of the architectural orders, and the formation of Greek style in monumental stone sculpture. Effective Fall 2025, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
    • Writing-Intensive Course
  • CAS AH 333: Arts of Classical Greece
    Examines Greek architecture, sculpture, and painting of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE in their original contexts. Address larger aesthetic and historical issues as well as the ethics of museums and collecting. Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Ethical Reasoning
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 352: Venetian Renaissance Art
    A study of art and architecture in Renaissance Venice with focus on the "Myth of Venice," Byzantinne heritage, introduction of the oil medium, Scuole, and the work of the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palladio, Veronese, and Tintoretto. Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Creativity/Innovation
    • Digital/Multimedia Expression
  • CAS AH 365: Baroque Arts in Northern Europe
    Explores the vibrant artistic culture of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the northern and southern Netherlands, corresponding roughly to present-day Holland and Belgium. Emphasis on major artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Visits to the MFA's Center for Netherlandish Art. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 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. Effective Fall 2026, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Historical Consciousness.
    • Critical Thinking
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 379: American Art and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
    Surveys art made in the United States between 1789 and 1900, exploring the ways that American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists contended with popular democracy, industrial capitalism, abolitionism and the Civil War, settler-colonial expansionism, and the rise of consumer culture. 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
  • CAS AH 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 AM 385. Effective Fall 2026 this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
    • Aesthetic Exploration
    • Historical Consciousness
  • CAS AH 386: Modern American Art
    This class explores the diverse and contested field of modern art in the United States, examining the broad range of artists and art practices that laid claim to aesthetic modernism in the years between 1890 and 1945. 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 387: Boston Architecture and Urbanism
    This class presents a history of Boston from the seventeenth through twenty- first centuries, as seen through the region's architectural and urban history. Major buildings, architects, and urban planning schemes are examined in terms of economic, political, social, and institutional histories. Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Oral and/or Signed Communication, Teamwork/Collaboration.
    • Oral and/or Signed Communication
    • Social Inquiry I
    • Teamwork/Collaboration

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