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.

• CAS AH 521: Curatorship
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - Graduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. Introduces students to curatorial strategies and the pragmatics of exhibition-making.
• CAS AH 525: American Cultural Landscape Studies
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - 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. Three topics are offered Fall 2026. Section A1: American Art and the Environment. Employing a variety of "green" ecocritical approaches, this class explores the relationship between artistic practice and natural science, extractive industry, and environmental activism in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. Section B1: The Mount Auburn Cemetery. An exploration of remembrance, and the invention, appropriation, and development of imagery and landscape for commemorative monuments. Much of this seminar takes place on site in the Mount Auburn Cemetery and in regional early burying grounds. Many outdoor site visits during class time are required. Section C1: The Silk Road Seminar. This course explores the arts of the Silk Road. Focusing on objects and sites along land-bound and maritime trade routes, from jewelry, ceramics, silk, to Buddhist caves and port cities, the course explores important questions of cultural exchange, trade, diplomacy, faith, and gender.
• CAS AH 528: Landscapes: Art and Environment in China
  Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or 120). - This seminar examines the visual culture of landscapes in China. Topics include mountain cults, Daoist grotto-heavens, ink painting, gardens, and contemporary art projects that engage with environmental concerns. Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Research and Information Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course.
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  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS AH 530: American Art and the City
  Topic for Fall 2025: Visual Culture of the American City. This course examines the art forms, popular pictorial media, visual entertainments, and structures of looking that developed in American cities in the years between 1790 and 1917.
• CAS AH 531: Modern Asian Art in a Global Context
  Topic for Fall 2025: Japan on World Display. Thematic study of the presentation and performance of Japan at international events, starting with 19th-century world’s fairs, with attention to domestic regional fairs, colonial expositions, and the Olympics hosted in Japan. Focus on architectural, artistic, and visual expressions of nation.
• CAS AH 533: Seminar: Greek Art and Architecture
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: First Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120) - Topic for Fall 2026, Section A1: Greek Architecture. A of study classical architecture broadly conceived, from the origins of monumental stone architecture in Greece, including the emergence of the Doric and Ionic orders, to the use of architecture in sanctuaries, the form of houses, and construction techniques. Meets with CASAR 533. 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.
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  • Oral and/or Signed Communication
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS AH 545: Seminar: Black Feminist Art and Performance
  Prerequisites: First-Year Writing Seminar (e.g., CASWR 100 or WR 120). - This course explores the work of eleven Black femme artists, coupled with theoretical and critical texts written primarily by Black femme thinkers. It is structured as a semester long reading group. Each week, students give presentations on a single artwork and facilitate discussion of the assigned readings. Over the semester, students debate what Black feminism is, and what makes a work of art or set of ideas Black feminist. Is it an identity, a method, an interpretive frame?
• 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
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: consent of instructor. - 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
  Focusing on a single neighborhood in Greater Boston, this course explores ways to assess and narrate architectural and urban development. Emphasis is on primary sources—land deeds and plans, building permits, historic maps, etc. —coupled with fieldtrips and classroom discussion.
• CAS AH 557: High Renaissance and Mannerist Art in Italy
  This course examines the ways in which prevailing ideas about women and gender shaped visual imagery, and how these images, in turn, influenced ideas concerning women from the Renaissance. Effective Fall 2026, this course fulfills a single requirement in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Writing-Intensive Course.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Writing-Intensive Course
• CAS AH 563: Global Baroque: Art and Power in the Seventeenth Century
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or consent of instructor. - Investigates the interaction between art and structures of power in seventeenth-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 571: Problems of African Diaspora Art History
  This course examines the African Diaspora in art history, addressing debates on its definition and study. It challenges students to explore diaspora’s impact on artistic and scholarly practice, introducing key debates shaping the sub-field of African Diaspora Art History.
• CAS AH 574: Topics in African Art
  Repeatable for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2025, Section A1: This course examines the collection and display of the arts of Africa and the Diaspora from the colonial period to the present. The course also considers seminal exhibitions of modern and contemporary African art, asking how these practices have shifted perceptions of African art in the twenty-first century.
• CAS AH 589: Topics in Nineteenth Century Art
  Prerequisites: junior or senior standing (or graduate student). - Topic for Fall 2025: 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
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, or consent of instructor. - Topic for Spring 2026: 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
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, or consent of instructor. - 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 2025: Contemporary Exhibition Practices. This seminar explores how, over the past forty 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 AN 101: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology
  Introduction to the basic concepts, principles, and problems of sociocultural anthropology, emphasizing the study of traditional and complex societies. Special attention to the organization and meaning of religion, economic life, kinship and political order; and the problem of cultural variation in the contemporary world. Carries social science divisional credit in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Social Inquiry I, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
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  • Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy
  • Research and Information Literacy
  • Social Inquiry I
• CAS AN 102: Human Biology, Behavior, and Evolution
  Introduces basic principles of evolutionary biology, human origins, genetics, reproduction, socio-ecology, and the evolution of primate and human behavior and adaptions. Section activities include examination of fossil and skeletal material, and hands-on projects involving human and primate behavior and biology. Carries natural science divisional credit (with lab) in CAS. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Scientific Inquiry I, Social Inquiry I, Critical Thinking. Effective Fall 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Scientific Inquiry I, Critical Thinking.
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  • Critical Thinking
  • Historical Consciousness
  • Scientific Inquiry I