History of Art & Architecture

• CAS AH 728: Colloquium in Chinese Art Discussion
  Graduate Corequisites: (GRSAH727) - Required discussion section for students registered in GRS AH 727. Students must also register for GRS AH 727.
• CAS AH 733: Colloquium in Greek Art and Architecture
  Graduate Corequisites: (CASAH 734) - (Students must also register for required co-requisite CASAH 734.) This graduate-level colloquium will critically examine issues of Greek Classical art and architecture covered in AH333 Arts of Classical Greece. It fulfills the art-historical methodologies requirement for MA students.
• CAS AH 742: Colloquium in Latin American Art
  Case studies designed to explore the main aesthetic, social, and historical discourses surrounding image production in Latin America while familiarizing students with main scholars in the field and their methodologies.
• CAS AH 791: Colloquium in Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture
  Topic for Fall 2023: "Contemporary Art and Globalization." Considers cultural globalization as the key critical paradigm for art produced since the late 1980s. Explores how international artists, curators, and scholars have negotiated the space between local tradition and global exchange.
• CAS AH 805: Professional Development and Placement Seminar
  Graduate Prerequisites: completion of PhD oral exam. - Offers advanced PhD students the opportunity to present and discuss works-in-progress and structured guidance for the tasks involved in academic and curatorial job applications.
• CAS AH 812: Seminar: Portraiture
  Topic for Fall 2023: "Picturing Race in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1700." This seminar traces a history of visual constructions of race and ethnicity in Europe through paintings, sculpture, prints, maps, and other forms of visual depiction of racial difference. Please note that this course will be building a collaborative syllabus during the first few weeks of the class.
• CAS AH 820: Seminar: Asian Art
  Undergraduate Prerequisites: graduate standing. - Fall 2022 topic: "Japan on World Display." Course explores the manifold ways that Japan has been presented, performed, and received in the last 150 years through the nation's participation in major world's fairs, with attention to some domestic fairs, design exhibitions, and the Olympic
• CAS AH 822: Seminar: African Art
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Fall 2022 Topic: Benin Bronzes in Context With a focus on collections-based learning, this seminar explores the historical and cultural context of art of the Benin Kingdom beginning with the material culture of Ile-Ife and concluding with contemporary conversations concerning repatriation, ethical stewardship, and institutional critique.
• CAS AH 853: Seminar: Renaissance Art and Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2020: Collecting and Exhibiting Italian Renaissance Art. Considers the collection and exhibition of Italian Renaissance art from the 15th century until the current day. Relevant topics will include: historic and contemporary practices of collecting and display; private and public space; and the architecture of seclusion
• CAS AH 863: Seminar: Baroque Art and Architecture
  Topic for Fall 2023: "A Golden Age? Global and Material Turns in the Study of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art." This seminar explores the so-called "Golden Age" of seventeenth-century Dutch art, with particular focus on the global and materiality studies approaches that have recently transformed the field. Classes conducted at the MFA's new Center for Netherlandish.
• CAS AH 867: Material Culture
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - 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. Explores contemporary scholarship from a range of disciplines. Also offered as GRS AM 867.
• CAS AH 887: Seminar: American Art
  May be repeated for credit as topics change. Topic for Fall 2024, Section A1: American Art and the Atlantic. This seminar examines nineteenth century American art made on and about the Atlantic Ocean. We consider art including seascapes, representations of the middle passage, and Arctic photographs, while discussing critical approaches from environmental history to the blue humanities.
• CAS AH 891: Seminar: Photography
  Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Historical, archival, and theoretical examinations of photography, with emphasis on its role both as document and as art. Topic for Fall 2024: The Photographic Book. Examines the photographic book from 1839 to present. Concentrates on the book as a unique form for the medium. Study image/text relationships, narrative structures, cultural constructions of message, serial quality of grouped images, and differences/similarities between literary and photographic languages.
• CAS AH 893: Seminar: Twentieth-Century Architecture
  Graduate Prerequisites: graduate standing or consent of instructor. - Fall 2022 topic: "Government Architecture." The state is a place. What can we learn from its architecture? What can we hope from it, and how can it fail us? Focus on the United States. A joint seminar of MIT (Political Science) and BU (Architectural History).
• CAS AH 895: Seminar: Twentieth-Century Art
  Topic for Fall 2024: Section A1: "Latin American Art and the Cold War." Studies 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.