History of Art & Architecture

• 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 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 study of 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. Effective Fall 2019, 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 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 High Renaissance and Mannerist art and architecture (1490-1550). Specific topic varies each semester. 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 571: Problems of African Diaspora Art History
  This course examines the visual life of the African Diaspora. It challenges students to explore diaspora, Black studies and postcolonial studies’ bearing on aesthetic concerns, and introduces 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.