This listing is provisional and subject to changes.
Expand the sections below to explore our Spring 2027 course descriptions.
Undergraduate Courses
CAS AH112 A1: 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 Cranston / Williams
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.
CAS AH324: Introduction to Art of the Caribbean
Introduces students to the art of the Caribbean region. The course is not a survey of the region’s art history, but rather introduces students to major themes that link this region. We begin by thinking through the Caribbean as a space/place that includes parts of Central and South America, as well as diasporas in North America and Europe, then proceed loosely chronologically from the autonomous period to the present day. We also consider the implications of insights from Caribbean Studies, postcolonial studies and Black studies for the field of art history.
Also offered as CAS AA324.
Effective Spring 2027 this course fulfills a single requirement in the following BU HUB areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness, Research & Information Literacy.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Smythe-Johnson
CAS AH333: Early Greek Art & Architecture
Examines Greek architecture, sculpture, and painting of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE in their original contexts. Address larger aesthetic and historical issues as well as the ethics of museums and collecting.
Also offered as CAS AR333.
Effective Spring 2024, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Ethical Reasoning, Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
M|W|F 10:10-11:00 Martin
CAS AH365: Baroque Arts in Northern Europe
Explores the vibrant artistic culture of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the northern (Dutch) and southern (Flemish) Netherlands. Emphasis on major artists such as Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, and on viewing this art in global perspective. Effective Fall 2018, this course fulfills a single unit in the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
T|R 2:00-3:15 Zell
CAS AH379: American Art and Culture in the Nineteenth Century
Surveys art made in the United States between 1789 and 1900, exploring the ways that American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists contended with popular democracy, industrial capitalism, abolitionism and the Civil War, settler-colonial expansionism, and the rise of consumer culture.
Effective Spring 2020, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Historical Consciousness.
T|R 12:30-1:45 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 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 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 TBA
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 2027, this course fulfills a single unit in each of the following BU Hub areas: Aesthetic Exploration, Global Citizenship and Intercultural Literacy, Research & Information Literacy.
T|R 11:00-12:15 Haenraets
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 must contact Professor Abramson by Nov. 1, 2026.
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 AH502: Practicum in Museum Studies
Prerequisites: consent of the Director of Museum Studies, and stamped approval; prior museum/gallery experience an asset.
Graduate internships must be taken in a non-profit institution in order to count for credit.
Centered on an internship, which must comprise a supervised project approved in advance by the Director of Museum Studies. Stamped approval prior to the internship is necessary for registration in the course. Internships in Boston-area museums, galleries, historical agencies, and houses arranged for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, 10-12 hours per week (150 hours per semester) at the host institution, with written report.
CAS AH521: Curatorship
This seminar examines the evolving roles and responsibilities of curators in arts institutions with an emphasis on the production of knowledge through practices of collecting, exhibition, and display. Through critical readings and case studies as well as on-site visits and guest speakers, students will be introduced to different curatorial methodologies and gain an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, both the why and how of curatorship.
Spring 2027 topic: Curating Photography and Related Media. For Spring 2027, students will learn of the history of exhibiting and collecting photography and related media as well as study key individual photographic curators, exhibitions, and museums. Via readings and discussions, we will also weigh what was/is collected and shown versus what was/is not as well as consider how we might cast a wider net going forward. Students will likewise learn about practical and theoretical tools used by curators in these practices — including wall texts, display techniques, and educational programs — and how these contribute to the experience of exhibition making and viewing.
R 3:30-6:15 Brown
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: Topics in Art & Society: Images & Power Relations in Latin America
This course studies the role images have played in Latin American power relations since the conquest. It interrogates the power of images in constituting as well as challenging colonial, gender, racial, national, and modern identities.
CAS AH527 is repeatable for credit as topics change.
F 2:30-5:15 Reyes
CAS AH528: Landscapes: Art and Environment in China
Undergraduate Prerequisite: First-Year Writing Seminar
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 & Information Literacy, Writing-Intensive Course.
R 12:30-3:15 Feng
CAS AH544: Preservation Planning
Introduces students to local, state, and national government policies and practices intended to protect historically significant structures. In addition, the course covers planning approaches aimed at managing redevelopment in established neighborhoods, to create livable and sustainable communities.
Also offered as CAS AM554.
M 2:30-5:15 White
CAS AH545: Seminar: Black Feminist Art and Performance
Undergraduate Prerequisite: First-Year Writing Seminar
This course explores the work of eleven Black femme artists, coupled with theoretical and critical texts written primarily by Black femme thinkers. It is structured as a semester long reading group. Each week, students give presentations on a single artwork and facilitate discussion of the assigned readings. Over the semester, students 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?
Also offered as CAS AA545, CAS WS545.
T 3:30-6:15 Smythe-Johnson
CAS AH563: Global Baroque: Art and Power
Investigates the interaction between art and structures of power in seventeenth-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 AH574: Topics in African Art: Rethinking African Art
This course examines debates reshaping African art history today. Topics include restitution, fieldwork and its legacies, the boundaries of the field, African modernisms, and contemporary art. We consider how African art history has defined its objects, methods, geographies, and canons, looking at how scholars and artists are rethinking them.
T 12:30-3:15 Becker
CAS AH596: Seminar: Contemporary Art
Spring 2027 topic: Contemporary Art, Politics and Activism.
From AIDS activism of the 1980s to the anti-globalization protests of the 1990s, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements of the twenty-first century, contemporary artists have developed wide-ranging forms of political resistance. In the process, both artists and their audiences have been called upon to speak out, rally, and organize. This seminar addresses global art practices that link protest, performance, and activism to expand art’s role in fostering social and political change.
W 2:30-5:15 Williams
Graduate Courses
GRS AH733: Colloquium in Greek Art and Architecture
Graduate Corequisites: CASAH 734 – (Students must also register for 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.
M 2:30-4:15 (Colloquium) Martin
M|W|F 10:10-11:00 (Co-requisite)
GRS AH853: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
Spring 2027 topic: The Art and Literature of Italian Renaissance Courts
This seminar will explore art, architecture, literature, and performance at the secular courts of Renaissance Italy (Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, and Milan) from the late fourteenth century through the early sixteenth century. Topics to be considered include the definition of a secular court; the artworks and ephemeral entertainments commissioned by courtly patrons; courts and urban planning; employment of artists and writers at court; competition and alliances among the courts; and the role of fashion and tapestries.
M 12:20-2:05 Cranston
Spring 2027 Registration Dates
Registration for Spring 2027 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/