Expand the sections below to explore our Fall 2022 course descriptions.
Undergraduate Courses
CAS AH111 – Pyramids to Cathedrals: An Introduction to Ancient and Medieval Art
A chronological examination of the fundamentals of art and architectural history, this course introduces students to major monuments and works of art from antiquity to the middle ages in their social, religious and historical contexts.
This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
T, R 11:00 – 12:15 Martin / Sloutsky
plus a discussion section – see link for section times
CAS AH114 – Kongo to Cuba: Art, Exchange, and Self-Determination in Africa and Latin America
This course introduces the arts of Africa and Latin America. It explores the rich diversity of each continent’s artistic production and highlights the impact of their intertwining histories on visual expression in the wake of transcontinental exchange and globalization.
Effective Fall 2022, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Critical Thinking.
M, W, F 1:25 – 2:15 Becker/Reyes
plus a discussion section – see link for section times
CAS AH201 – Understanding Architecture
Introduces a range of approaches to understanding architecture in an historical perspective. Learn how architects and others have interpreted meaning through rubrics of art, nature, and culture, focused upon European and American architecture from 1400 to the present.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research and Information Literacy.
T, R 2:00 – 3:15 Abramson
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.
M, W, F 9:05 – 9:55 Ribner
plus a discussion section – see link for section times
CAS AH257: Italian Renaissance Art
Survey of the arts in the Renaissance in Italy from the communes of the early fifteenth century to the courts of the sixteenth century.
This course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Critical Thinking.
T, R 11:00 – 12:15 O’Reilly
CAS AH325 – Art, Media, and Buddhism
Examines how textual, visual, and material forms of religious expressions have been conceptualized by Buddhists as well as how Buddhist objects are understood and re- contextualized in the West. Topics include: self- immolation; museums; war propaganda, and pop culture.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
T, R 11:00 – 12:15 Hughes
CAS AH363 – The Arc of Russian and Ukrainian Art
This course introduces students to the history of art and architecture of Russia and Ukraine from the early Slavic period to the present day. The lectures and readings are organized chronologically and follow the main artistic developments throughout this period.
T, R 9:30 – 10:45 Sloutsky
CAS AH365 – Baroque Arts in Northern Europe
Explores the rich artistic traditions of the northern (Dutch) and southern (Flemish) Netherlands from the late sixteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Emphasis on major artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer. Visits to the MFA’s new Center for Netherlandish Art, conditions permitting.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
M, W, F 10:10-11:00 Zell
CAS AH367 – Material Culture
What can whale oil lamps and IKEA bookshelves tell us about modern life? This class uses a series of iconic consumer goods to explore how diverse groups of Americans navigated social transformations including the formation of an Atlantic world economy, industrialization, the emergence of mass culture, and globalization.
Also offered as CAS AM 367.
T, R 2:00-3:10 Lennard
CAS AH385 – American Built Environment
An introductory analytic survey of American buildings and landscapes within their historical and cultural contexts. Students examine forces that have shaped the American built environment. Topics range from Indian mounds to commercial strips, Spanish missions to skyscrapers.
Also offered as CAS AM 385.
T, R 12:30-1:45 Moore
CAS AH393 / GRS AH693 – Contemporary Art: 1980 to Now
Explores the terms of debate, key figures, and primary sites for the production and reception of contemporary art on a global scale since 1980. Painting, installation art, new media, performance, art criticism, and curatorial practice are discussed.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
T, R 3:30-4:45 Williams
CAS AH398 – 20th Century Architecture
This course provides an introduction to the major developments in architecture and urban planning from ca. 1900 to the present. It traces the proliferation of modernist thought through key projects but also to everyday buildings and landscapes.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
M, W, F 11:15-12:05 Bozdogan
CAS AH404 – Contemporary Exhibition Practices
This course examines developments in contemporary exhibition practices from the 1980s to the present. Taking a global perspective, the course considers how curators, artists, and scholars have sought to expand and decentralize the art world through transnational and multicultural approaches to exhibition-making, including large-scale exhibitions and biennials.
R 3:30-6:15 Cooney
CAS AH444 A1: Castles and Cathedrals
Castles and cathedrals with their splendid treasures from gold and gem-studded shrines to vast stained-glass windows, textiles and illuminated manuscripts will be explored against their social, political, religious and cultural background. The course aims to help students develop the ability to analyze secular and ecclesiastical monuments, learn the basics of medieval iconography, and understand the function of images as props for the faithful, as didactic tools and a source of entertainment in medieval society.
T 3:30-6:15 Kahn
Seminars for Undergraduate & Graduate Students
CAS AH527 B1: Medievalism & the Mount Auburn Cemetery
Founded in the early nineteenth century, the Mount Auburn sits on the Cambridge/Watertown line. The cemetery is a treasure trove of ‘medieval’ structures and graves – from Gothic Revival to Byzantine to Romanesque to the High Crosses of Ireland. These structures will be studied on site in the context of the medieval works they imitate. Several foundational classes will be devoted to the art and architecture of the Middle Ages. Human attitudes to mourning, to the semblance of permanence and to the comfort to the living will be considered both in medieval society and in the present. There will be several site visits to the Mount Auburn cemetery. Comfortable walking shoes essential.
R 12:30-3:15 Kahn
CAS AH546: 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.
F 11:15-2:00 Stevenson
CAS AH548 – Global Heritage Conservation
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.
R 3:30-6:15 Haenraets
CAS AH554 – Boston Architecture Workshop
This interdisciplinary course explores the architectural and urban transformation of a Boston neighborhood. Students will craft analytical site-specific narratives using primary resources, secondary sources, and evidence from the built environment. The course involves walking tours and archival site visits in addition to classroom seminars.
W 2:30-5:15 Ahlstrom
CAS AH589 – 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.
W 2:30-5:15 Ribner
Graduate Courses
GRS AH812 – Early Modern Portraiture
Portraiture, both those visual and verbal representations of a person, will serve as the focus of the seminar and will offer an opportunity to consider how representation both reflects and constructs the conception and perception of identity and self.
F 10:10-11:55 Cranston
GRS AH820 – Japan on World Display
This seminar explores the various ways that Japan—as a national entity, cultural entity, and artistic entity—has been presented, performed, and received in the last 150 years. We will investigate Japan’s participation in major international expositions, with attention to some domestic fairs, design exhibitions, and the Olympics hosted in Japan. In studying the architecture and visual culture of national display, the course seeks to understand the conditions surrounding, and motivations for, the creation of national narratives and nationalist ideologies—intertwined with concepts of race, gender, and cultural authenticity—in an era of intensifying international encounters.
M 2:30-4:15 Tseng
GRS AH822 – 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.
W 4:30-6:15 Clunis
GRS AH863 – 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 regularly at the MFA’s new Center for Netherlandish Art.
R 1:30-3:15 Zell
GRS AH867 – Material Culture
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.
T 3:30-6:15 Moore
GRS AH893 – 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).
T 6:30-9:15 Abramson
GRS AH895 A1 – Art and Society: Contemporary Commemorative Art in Latin America
This seminar studies symbolic reparations within the Inter-American human rights system and relates it to commemorative artistic practices. It raises questions about the values and limitations of art for social healing in contexts of gross violations of human rights.
F 2:30-4:15 Reyes
GRS AH895 B1 – Seminar: Contemporary Exhibition Practices
This seminar explores how, over the past thirty 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.
W 2:30-4:15 Williams
Click here to view a poster gallery page of our Fall 2022 course offerings.
Fall 2022 Registration Dates
Registration for Fall 2022 courses 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, Mar 26 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Graduate Students in CFA, EGS, ENG, GRS, MED, QST, SDM and SED | Sun, Mar 27 | 9:00 a.m. |
| MET Evening Undergraduate Degree Students | Sun, Apr 3 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Seniors* | Sun, Apr 3 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Juniors* | Sun, Apr 3 | 12:00 p.m. |
| Sophomores* | Sun, Apr 10 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Continuing Freshmen* | Sun, Apr 10 | 9:00 a.m. |
| Non-Degree Students | Tue, Apr 12 | 9:00 a.m. |
*Undergraduate populations are divided into 10 groups by class year (in Fall 2022) and the last digit of the student ID number; see the Start Times charts here.