Subject to Changes
Expand the sections below to explore our Spring 2026 course descriptions.
Undergraduate Courses
CAS AH112: Introduction to Art in Europe and the United States from the Renaissance to Post-Modernism
This course explores major monuments and artists in Europe and the United States from the Renaissance to today.
Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Teamwork/Collaboration.
M|W|F 11:15-12:05 Zell / Ribner
plus a discussion section – see the academic planner on MyBU for section times.
CAS AH113: Arts & Monuments of Asia
An introduction to the art and architecture of Asia from the earliest times to the present. Course addresses not only important cultural monuments but also portable art objects within museum collections. Course examines a wide range of media, including ink painting, ceramics, textiles, photography, as well as major architectural projects, monuments, and built environments. It aims to challenge and rethink monolithic definitions of “Asian art” by allowing students to understand the complex and sophisticated processes of interregional and global cultural exchange.
Effective Spring 2023, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Oral and/or Signed Communication, Aesthetic Exploration.
T|R 9:30-10:45 Feng
plus a discussion section – see the academic planner on MyBU for section times.
CAS AH210: Learning to See
This course 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 the academic planner on MyBU for section times
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 are examined.
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 Kahn
CAS AH257: 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.
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 11:15-12:05 Cranston
CAS AH316: Art of the African Diaspora
This course introduces students to the art of Black-identified people from across the African Diaspora, as well as the concepts, debates and preoccupations that have shaped the production and reception of art by Black artists. We will begin with a review of the concept of diaspora generally, and the African diaspora more specifically before moving on to take up African American art historian Darby English’s concept of “black representational space” and tracking the evolution of that space over time with a focus on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This course is not chronological and should not be considered a survey, rather it seeks to introduce key themes in the study of the art of the African diaspora. Students should expect to leave with not only a deeper understanding of African diaspora creative production, but also an understanding of the implications of African diaspora art history for the broader fields of art history, curatorial studies and visual studies. Meets with and also offered as CAS AA316.
M|W|F 10:10-11:00 Smythe-Johnson
CAS AH323: Art and Soft Diplomacy: Latin American Art at International Exhibitions, 1876–Present
This course examines how Latin American art has been presented at World’s Fairs, Biennials, and major exhibitions from 1876 to today. Through case studies, students explore themes of cultural exchange, regional identity, and diplomacy, analyzing how exhibitions shape global narratives and challenge simplified understandings of Latin American art and its diverse national and aesthetic traditions.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Robles
CAS AH331: Early Greek Art & Architecture
Examines the origins of Greek art and architecture through ancient accounts, modern scholarship, and physical remains. Topics include town and sanctuary planning, theories of the orders, wooden and stone sculpture, painted pottery, miniatures, color, artists, technologies, and myth.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Writing-Intensive Course.
M|W|F 10:10-11:00 Martin
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.
T|R 9:30-10:45 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.
M|W 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.
M|W|F 9:05-9:55 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.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Sichel
CAS AH398: Global Modern and Contemporary Architecture
This course introduces major developments in architecture and urban planning from the 19th century to the present. It challenges canonical history of architecture by showcasing global perspectives on and struggles for/against modernity, colonialism, decolonization, nationalism, and more.
Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfilled a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Historical Consciousness, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy.
Effective Spring 2025, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Critical Thinking, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Historical Consciousness.
T|R 9:30-10:45 Alnajada
CAS AH399: History & 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: Museum Exhibits
Have you ever wondered what a curator of Islamic art does all day? Or how Islamic art fits into the larger scheme of the encyclopedic museum? This seminar will interrogate the curation of global Islamic art and the history of museums through an anti-racist-anti-Islamophobia lens. Students will learn how museums buy and store art, how exhibitions are developed, how to work with contemporary artists and more. Furthermore, students will learn to read museums like texts and how to understand Islam as a religion within the context of a museum, as well as how curators think about geography and time.
R 3:30-6:15 Mansour
CAS AH486: Architecture Capstone
This course guides senior 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, 2025.
Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: The Individual in Community, Ethical Reasoning.
T 12:30-3:15 Abramson
Seminars for Undergraduate & Graduate Students
CAS AH500 A1: A Global History of Camps: 19th Century to the Present
The image of the camp dominates contemporary representations. This course examines this spatial device from a global historical perspective, tracing a genealogy from colonial camps, Nazi camps, Soviet gulags, US internment camps to contemporary detention camps, refugee camps, border camps.
R 12:30-3:15 Alnajada
CAS AH500 B1: Pigments and Prisms: Histories of Color in North American Art
This course positions color as a framework to examine artworks and artistic practices within North America. Through case studies, students will consider color and its various regional, historical, cultural, and social contexts. Topics include color theory, technology, pigments, dyes, and minerals.
T 12:30-3:15 Barton
CAS AH525: American Cultural Landscape
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.
T|R 12:30-1:45 Moore
CAS AH527 A1: Contemporary Memorial Art in Latin America
This seminar investigates contemporary artivism practices in Latin America in countries where artists, institutions, and social movements continue to memorialize victims of military dictatorships, civil wars, and armed conflicts. Symbolic reparations have become an important component of human rights and transitional justice. As measures of satisfaction and in the pursuit of “non-repetition,” courts can mandate states with erecting public monuments. This seminar seeks to question the power of the visual field in relation to gross human rights violations and post-conflict narratives by looking at specific case studies of public or official memorials and individual artistic memorial practices. The seminar raises fundamental questions about how we invest collective memory with concepts of forgiveness, restitution of dignity, claims to truth, and the reconstitution of communities in the context of human rights violations or war atrocities.
F 11:15-2:00 Reyes
CAS AH527 B1: Black Feminist Art and Performance
This course explores the work of ten Black women artists, coupled with theoretical and critical texts written primarily by Black women thinkers. It is structured as a semester long reading group. Each week, students will give presentations on a single artwork and facilitate discussion of the assigned readings. Over the semester, students will 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?
M 2:30-5:15 Smythe-Johnson
CAS AH527 C1: The Bayeux Tapestry Seminar
A creation of immense historical and artistic significance – the study of this great work provides a window on art, belief, humor, and daily life in eleventh-century Europe. On loan to the British Museum September 2026-27!
M 2:30-5:15 Kahn
CAS AH528: Landscapes: Art and Environment in China
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.
R 12:30-3:15 Feng
CAS AH533: “Pots and Plays”: Greek Drama in Text and Art
This course will examine Athenian comedy and tragedy by looking at selected texts and at vases that appear to refer to both these texts and to other Greek dramas. Questions to be examined include the relation/difference between visual and textual evidence, the extent to which we can recapture the actual experience of the drama, the relation of a 5th c. location for the performances to a later, Italian reception in material culture, and the significance of differences in representation between tragedy and comedy. In addition to an overall consideration of the plays and pots assigned for consideration each student will be asked to prepare a particular pot for presentation to the class.
Readings of the plays will be in translation and class will meet periodically at the Museum of Fine Arts.
Meets with AR 533 and CL 791 (Stephanie Nelson)
R 11:15-2:00 Martin
CAS AH591: Documentary Photography
A study of changing uses, definitions, and archives of documentary photography from 1839 to the present. Topics will include urban photography, war imagery, topographical and survey landscapes, architectural records, social reform photography, New Deal imagery, and digital documents.
T 3:30-6:15 Sichel
Graduate Courses
GRS AH791: Midcentury Modernisms
Examines different 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 and after WWII. In addition to weekly meetings, students attend lectures in AH392, “Twentieth Century Art from 1940 to 1980.”
M 10:10-11:55 Williams
GRS AH853: Renaissance Portraiture
The seminar will consider how representation both reflects and constructs the conception and perception of identity and self. With particular focus on Renaissance and Baroque portraiture, the course will address historical precedents, the response in successive centuries, biography, autobiography, and the sustained interrelationship between theories of the self and of representation.
M 12:20-2:05 Cranston
Spring 2026 Registration Dates
Registration for Spring 2026 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/