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 507: Digital Curation: Towards National Parks: Art and Nature, Nature and Nation
  Prerequisite: CASAH 112, or at least one course on art or literature in Europe/US 1300-1750 or 1750-present. - 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.
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  • Aesthetic Exploration
  • Creativity/Innovation
  • Digital/Multimedia Expression
• 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
  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 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 543: Latin American Art and the Cold War
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: junior standing or above. - 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 544: Preservation Planning
  Introduces students to local, state, and national government policies and practices intended to protect historically significant structures. In addition, the course covers planning approaches aimed at managing redevelopment in established neighborhoods, to create livable and sustainable communities.
• 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 582: Historic Houses
  Studies the preservation of historic homes as museums in Boston and beyond. This year, the course focuses on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Considers its place in debates about Romantic nationalism, and the house museum as an expression of its owner's vision past and present. Topics include: invented traditions, group memory; curation, authenticity, conservation, and the problems of caring for a static collection. At least 4 sessions held in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with its curatorial team. Students have the opportunity to curate their own digital exhibition based on the collection.
• 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.