Expand the sections below to explore our Spring 2023 course descriptions.
Undergraduate Courses
CAS AH112: Introduction to Art in Europe and the United States from the Renaissance to Post- Modernism
Major monuments and artists in Europe and the United States from the Renaissance to Post-Modernism. Sequential development of major styles in architecture, sculpture, painting, and photography. Relationship of visual art to social and cultural forces.
Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
MWF 11:15-12:05 Cranston / Ribner
plus a discussion section – see link for section times
CAS AH210: Learning to See
Strengthens your ability to describe and analyze the visual world. From fundamentals such as color and composition to the design of advertisements, propaganda, and appliances. A lab component provides opportunities for direct engagement with objects, images, and the built environment.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
MWF 9:05-9:55 Ribner
plus a discussion section – see link for section times
CAS AH215: Arts of Africa and Its Diaspora
Exploration of a diversity of visual and performing arts from Africa, including royal regalia, masquerades, and contemporary painting. Examines how the dispersal of Africans, due to the transatlantic slave trade and immigration, contributed to the cultural richness of the Americas.
Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Critical Thinking. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
TR 5:00-6:15 Clunis
CAS AH240: 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 will be examined.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
TR 11:00-12:15 Kahn
CAS AH323: Topics in Latin American Art
Topic for Spring 2023: “Artivism Since the 1960s.” Course examines art and aesthetics in political activism, focusing on artists, activists, and curators’ contributions to the struggles against dictatorships during dirty wars, ongoing racial and gender discrimination, as well as environmental over-exploitation.
TR 11:00-12:15 Reyes
CAS AH327: 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.
TR 9:30-10:45 Berliner
CAS AH333: Arts of Classical Greece
Examines architecture, sculpture, painting, and other arts of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Topics include: the concept of classicism, how art was made, the “Greek revolution” and consequences of naturalism, the artist as individual.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
MWF 9:05-9:55 Martin
CAS AH361: Southern Baroque Art
Explores transformations in painting, sculpture, and architecture of late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Italy, Spain, and France. Topics include: crisis of the religious image and Counter-Reformation; arts in service of a rejuvenated, triumphant Catholic faith; papal nepotism and patronage.
Effective Spring 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
TR 9:30-10:45 Zell
CAS AH369: American Folk Art
Explores the objects that collectors and museums identify as “American Folk Art.” Examines how this label developed throughout the twentieth century; familiarizes students with major collections and genres including painting, sculpture, textiles, and other media. Also offered as CAS AM 369.
MWF 11:15-12:05 Moore
CAS AH386: 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.
MWF 10:10-11:00 Barrett
CAS AH387: 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.
MW 2:30-5:15 Abramson
CAS AH392: Twentieth Century Art from 1940 to 1980
Explores major currents in art produced around the world during the tumultuous middle decades of the 20th century. The following topics, among others, are examined in relation to postwar culture and Cold War politics: realism vs. abstraction, global pop art and conceptual art, new materials and technologies, international artists’ networks, and performative art practices.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
MWF 1:25-2:15 Williams
CAS AH395: History of Photography
An introduction to the study of photographs. The history of the medium in Europe and America from its invention in 1839 to the present. After lectures on photographic theory and methodology, photographs are studied both as art objects and as historical artifacts.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
TR 11:00-12:15 Graves
CAS AH399: History and Theory of Landscape Architecture
Explores man’s relationship with nature by a study of selected built environments from antiquity to the present. Focus on both the private garden and the public park–here considered as works of art–and their changing forms, meaning, and interpretations.
Effective Spring 2021, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Writing- Intensive Course, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration.
TR 11:00-12:15 Haenraets
CAS AH404: Seminar: Topics in Museum Exhibits
Spring 2023 Topic: TBA
May be repeated for credit as topics change. Considers and uses the methods and tools of curators and other museum professionals in gallery arrangement and exhibition- making. Taught around specific projects, with visits to museums and meetings with practitioners as can be arranged.
TR 11:00-12:15 Linssen / Tanga
CAS AH486: Architecture Capstone
This course guides senior and eligible junior architectural studies majors through a capstone experience, which may be an internship or a research project. Open only by application. Interested students contact Professor Abramson by Nov. 1, 2022.
Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Ethical Reasoning.
TR 12:30-3:15 Abramson
Seminars for Undergraduate & Graduate Students
CAS AH521: Curatorship
This course examines the role of the curator today and considers practices and debates related to decentralizing and decolonizing paradigms of art, privileging, and foregrounding historically excluded narratives of art, and shaping new and inclusive approaches to exhibition-making. Students also learn practical and theoretical tools used by curators in these processes, including wall text and labels, display techniques, and educational programs supplemented by readings, class discussions, and case studies
R 12:30-3:15 Cooney
CAS AH527 A1: Topics in Art & Society
Topic for Spring 2023: “Architectures of Social Engagement.”
The massive social and environmental challenges of today make it urgent to reclaim the initial social purpose, humanitarian ideals and transformative aspirations of modern architecture, if not its discredited technocratic utopianism. This seminar explores contemporary global practices of community-based “spatial agency” and “social engagement” in architecture, tracing their roots in postwar ideas of informality, sustainability, vernacular inspiration, and participatory design.
R 12:30-3:15 Bozdogan
CAS AH527 B1: Topics in Art & Society
Topic for Spring 2023: “The Bayeux Tapestry and Its Context.”
A work of immense historical and artistic significance – the study of this great work is like opening a window on art, belief, humor, and daily life in eleventh-century Europe.
T 12:30-3:15 Kahn
CAS AH563: Global Baroque: Art and Power in the Seventeenth Century
Investigates the interaction between art and structures of power in 17th- 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.
W 2:30-5:15 Zell
CAS AH591: Seminar in Photo History
Topic for Spring 2023: “Black Photographic Portraiture.”
This course examines photography’s role in Black self-making, focusing on objects with physical and aesthetic origins in the home. It explores the values held by these objects throughout the spaces they travel: the market, private collections, museums, and artworks.
R 3:30-6:15 Prince
Graduate Courses
GRS AH733: Colloquium in Greek Art and Architecture
The colloquium (paired with AH333) investigates the visual culture of Classical Greece inclusive of painting, sculpture, architecture, and portable objects. We will take a critical approach and use the MFA’s collections. Prior coursework in Classics helpful but not expected.
MWF 9:05-9:55 & M 12:20-2:05 Martin
GRS AH742: Colloquium in Latin American Art
Topic for Spring 2023: “TRANS-FORM-ARTE.”
TRANS-FORM-ARTE is offered in conjunction with AH323 Special Topics in Latin American Art: Artivism. It is designed as a dialogical collaboration about Artivism in Latin America since the 1960s. It will also familiarize students with many artists and scholars working today.
TR 11:00-12:15 & M 2:30-4:15 Reyes
GRS AH805: Professional Development and Placement Seminar
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.
F 12:20-2:05 Cranston
GRS AH822: Seminar in African Art
Topic for Spring 2023: “Art and Architecture in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia from the Nineteenth-Century to Today.”
This seminar looks at examines how colonialism, collecting practices, climate change, tourism, and post-colonial identity politics have impacted artistic production.
T 1:30-3:15 Becker
GRS AH895 A1: Seminar in 20th C Art
Topic for Spring 2023: “Midcentury Modernisms.”
Examines competing conceptions of modernism and modernity that developed around the world during the mid-20th century. Assesses recent scholarship challenging long-dominant narratives of modern art written by European and North American curators and art historians before WWII.
W 4:30-6:15 Williams
Click here to view a poster gallery page of our Spring 2023 course offerings.
Spring 2023 Registration Dates
Registration for Spring 2023 opens based on your academic class standing as follows:
| Academic Class Year: | Start Date: | Start Time (ET): |
| Graduate Students in CDS, COM, LAW, MET, SAR, SHA, SPH, SSW and STH | Sat, Oct 22 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Graduate Students in CFA, EGS, ENG, GRS, MED, QST, SDM and SED | Sun, Oct 23 | 9:00 a.m. |
| MET Evening Undergraduate Degree Students | Sun, Oct 30 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Seniors* | Sun, Oct 30 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Juniors* | Sun, Oct 30 | 12:00 p.m. |
| Sophomores* | Sun, Nov 6 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Continuing Freshmen* | Sun, Nov 13 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Non-Degree Students | Tue, Nov 15 | 9:00 a.m. |
*Undergraduate populations are divided into 10 groups by class year (in Fall 202s) and the last digit of the student ID number; see the Start Times chart here.