Expand the sections below to explore our Fall 2024 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.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Martin / Kahn
plus a discussion section – see the academic planner on MyBU 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 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 the academic planner on MyBU 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 AH220: Islamic Art and Architecture
Examines key monuments of Islamic art and architecture within their historical and cultural context and emphasizes the diversity within the visual cultures of the Islamic world. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research and Information Literacy.
M|W|F 11:15-12:05 Alnajada
CAS AH284: Arts in America
A survey of art and visual culture made in North America between the early colonial period and World War I, exploring the ways that painters, sculptors, photographers, and graphic artists navigated major aesthetic debates, political conflicts, and economic crises. Carries humanities divisional credit in CAS.
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 Barrett
CAS AH327: Arts of China
Explores major works of Chinese art, from bronze vessels, Buddhist caves, ink painting, to contemporary performance. Addresses 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 the following BU Hub areas: Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Aesthetic Exploration, Research and Information Literacy.
T|R 12:30-1:45 Maddaloni
CAS AH352: Venetian Renaissance Art
A study of art and architecture in Renaissance Venice with focus on the “Myth of Venice,” Byzantinne heritage, introduction of the oil medium, Scuole, and the work of the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Palladio, Veronese, and Tintoretto.
Effective Fall 2019, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Cranston
CAS AH367: Material Culture: Thinking with American Pie
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.
Topic for Fall 2024: Thinking with American Pie. Sweet or savory, appetizer, entree, or dessert, pie provides an exceptional opportunity to trace an American commonplace through its constitutive elements and contexts. The class organizes itself around pie as an idea, object, and pathway to see what material culture can teach us about the U.S. and its diverse cultures.
T|R 2:00-3:15 Bunschoten
CAS AH385: American Buildings and Landscapes
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 AH391: Twentieth – Century Art to 1940
A study of the key tendencies in European art between the 1880s and World War II. The work of van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Dali, and their contemporaries is examined in relation to major issues in European culture and politics.
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 11:00-12:15 Hite
CAS AH393: 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 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.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Haenraets
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
Seminars for Undergraduate & Graduate Students
CAS AH500 A1: Methods of Inquiry in Architecture Studies
This seminar draws from different methods across the humanities, social sciences, and environmental design to explore the range of research methods that can be used in architecture studies and architectural history. As we work through the semester, students will do assigned readings that provide an overview of intellectual debates and methodological approaches for architectural research, including humanist, ethnographic, archival, oral historical, urban, environmental, postcolonial, forensic, photographic, and virtual. Throughout, students will work on a set of exercises specifically created to expose them to different kinds of methods.
M 2:30-5:15 Alnajada
CAS AH500 B1: Carving the Divine: Japanese Buddhist Sculpture
This course explores what is often considered the golden age of Buddhist sculpture in Japan from the seventh through thirteenth centuries. More than mere figural representations, icons of the Buddha and other powerful deities were central to the religious and political imaginations of early and medieval Japan. Through focused studies of exemplary and unusual images in their historical and ritual contexts, students will combine art historical analysis with multidisciplinary approaches to the study of these complex cultural artifacts. What social and technological transformations drove changes in style, technique, and materials? How were religious statues endowed with agency as living beings? Why do these powerful images continue to draw crowds of worshippers to remote temples across Japan? We will also explore new questions raised by advances in conservation science and material analysis.
T 3:30-6:15 Borengasser
CAS AH507: Digital Curation: Towards National Parks: Art and Nature, Nature and Nation
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 the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Digital/Multimedia Expression, Creativity/Innovation.
T 12:30-3:15 Hall
CAS AH520: 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.
R 12:30-3:15 Hall
CAS AH527 A1: 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.
W 2:30-5:15 Kahn
CAS AH527 B1: Global Islamic Art
This seminar is an overview of the history of global Islamic art, including manuscripts, textiles, ceramics and more from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Students will also learn how museums and curators shape the field of Islamic art.
R 12:30-3:15 Mansour
CAS AH546: Places of Memory: Historic Preservation 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.
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 AH557: High Renaissance and Mannerist Art in Italy
This seminar will consider the collection and exhibition of Italian Renaissance art from the 15thcentury until the current day. Relevant topics will include: historic and contemporary practices of collecting and display; private and public space; 19th-c. Boston and the interest in Italian Renaissance art; and the architecture of seclusion. The seminar will also critically evaluate current exhibitions of Italian Renaissance art in Boston-area museums, as well as digital exhibitions/projects.
T 12:30-3:15 Cranston
CAS AH571: Problems of African Diaspora Art History
After at least three decades of “African Diaspora” gaining currency as a concept and field of study— with several major texts on the theme published, and university departments and museums taking the name— there is still a great deal of debate about what the African Diaspora is and how we might study it. This course will consider scholarship in the field of art history, which has not enjoyed the prominence of literature and cultural studies (both fields that often avoid the visual in favor of popular culture, particularly music) in African Diaspora Studies. The seminar challenges students to think diasporically through a careful examination of the potential and difficulties diaspora introduces to artistic and scholarly practice. It also introduces students to the sub-field of African Diaspora Art History asking them to think through a series of key debates that have shaped and continue to animate the field.
Cross-listed as CAS AA571.
R 12:30-3:15 Smythe-Johnson
CAS AH596: German Art Since 1989
Explores German art since reunification in 1989-91. Examines cultural and political legacy of East/West division and analyzes artists’ responses to German colonial history and migration in the context of contemporary debates about national identity.
W 2:30-5:15 Williams
Graduate Courses
CAS AH727: Colloquium in Chinese Art
Open only to MA students, this colloquium will critically examine issues of Chinese art covered in AH327 Arts of China. Special attention will be given to recent scholarship that engages with Chinese art in a greater socio-cultural context.
Students registered for this course must attend both the weekly colloquium meeting and AH327 class sessions.
T|R 12:30-1:45 and T 3:30-5:15 Maddaloni
CAS 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
CAS AH887: American Art and the Atlantic
This seminar examines nineteenth century American art made on and about the Atlantic Ocean. We will consider art including seascapes, representations of the middle passage, and Arctic photographs, while discussing critical approaches from environmental history to the blue humanities.
F 12:20-2:05 Barrett
CAS AH891: Photographic Books
This seminar will examine the photographic book throughout the years from 1839 to the present. We will concentrate on the book as a unique form for the medium, and study image/text relationships, narrative structures, cultural constructions of the book’s message, the serial quality of grouped images, and the differences and similarities between literary and photographic languages.
M 10:10-11:55 Sichel
CAS AH895: Seminar: Twentieth-Century Art: Latin American Art and the Cold War
Course 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.
W 2:30-4:15 Reyes
Fall 2024 Registration Dates
Registration for Fall 2024 opens based on your academic class standing.
Details about specific registration dates and times can be found at https://www.bu.edu/reg/calendars/registration/