Art History and Criticism (AHIS)

Description: Understanding through direct experience how the rhetoric of the art museum and art exhibition alters, frames and revises art historical arguments, issues, questions and research. In order to do so, each iteration of the seminar will select a particular art historical concept (e.g. ephemeral art; interactive art; gendered art; labor and(in) art; illness and art, and so on) and critically assess how curators can best express an argument about the history and meaning of art within the terms set by the museum. Those terms include both the ideological and practical: education, conservation, collections management, marketing development, publications, visitor evaluation and administration. Students will gain a sophisticated understanding of the methods available to curators for researching, organizing and expressing an art historical question in the form of an exhibition. The Sheldon Museum of Art serves as a lab for this course. Students will follow the path of an exhibition from original proposal to installation, considering the curator's involvement and interactions with all the departments of the museum.

Description: A new approach to looking at the history and development of ancient cities, combining history and archaeology with digital methods, in particular 3D modeling.

Description: History and development of architectural orders and styles from ancient Greece and Italy.

Description: Greek sculpture from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic periods. Stylistic evolution and classical themes as presented in individual freestanding and architectural sculpture. Techniques, materials, and uses of sculpture.

Description: Development of Roman painting from the Etruscans through the Age of Constantine.

Description: Exploration of the art and architecture of the Italian city in the late middle ages and Renaissance, with particular attention to civic projects and the role of art in defining the identity, and creating the "myths" of that city.

Description: Painting, sculpture and architecture in Italy from the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth century.

Description: French Impressionism and Post-impressionism with consideration of the historical context out of which they emerged. Development of the avant-garde and the changing relationship of the artist to society.

Description: Art and design from 1945 to the present focusing on the development of the avant-garde, the transition from modernism to post-modernism, and the various art world institutions.

Description: Developments in art since 1970, exploring the various art styles and the relationship of the artists to their audience and to the institutions of the art world.

Description: 19th Century American art and material culture.

Description: Early 20th-century American art.

Description: Introduction to the history of still photography with major emphasis on its development as an art form.

Description: Movements in photography since 1960 with emphasis on the interaction with art theory and criticism.

Description: Covers the changes to art and design that took place in the 1960s. Includes cultural shifts such as decolonization, rising consumerism, changing approaches to gender and sexuality, and emergent technologies.

Description: Introduce graduate students to and offer them hands-on experience with curatorial planning, research, art handling, exhibition design and installation, publicity and publications.

Description: Further training in archaeological field research techniques.

Description: History of the discipline, with an examination of the various art historical approaches. Development and refinement of specialized research skills appropriate to the field.

Description: Introduction to the history of museums and to collecting practices in Western Europe and the United States that have influenced the ways in which art and culture are understood in art history and related disciplines (archaeology, anthropology). Takes into account both cultures that collect and cultures that are collected. Provides critical vocabulary and framework for understanding how museums produce knowledge, social hierarchies and cultural differences, and how this structure has changed over time.

Description: Methods and state of research in the disciplines--art, music, literature, language, history, philosophy--dealing with the Middle Ages. Assistance in independent reading and research in subjects related to the student's own research interests. Taught jointly by faculty members in art, music, theatre, English, history, classics, modern languages, and philosophy.

Description: Methods and state of research in the disciplines--art, music, literature, language, history, philosophy--dealing with the Renaissance. Assistance in independent reading and research in subjects related to the student's own research interests. Taught jointly by faculty members in art, music, theatre, English, history, classics, modern languages, and philosophy.