Fall 2012 Undergraduate Courses

Updated on August 24, 2012.

Lectures

(AHIS BC1001) Introduction to Art History I
P. Moxey
MW 2:40-3:55, 304 Barnard Hall
Attempting to offer an introduction to artistic creation on a global scale, this course is team-taught by specialists in a number of different cultural and historical traditions. In the fall semester we will discuss the art of Europe, the Middle East, India, Japan, and China, in periods ranging from the Paleolithic to the Renaissance. Teaching assistants run weekly sections to supplement the lectures. Museum trips are an integral part of the course.

(AHIS BC3642) North American Art and Culture
M. Davis
MW 1:10-2:25, 504 Diana Center
An examination of North American painting, sculpture, photography, graphic art and decorative arts from the Colonial Period until World War I. Artists discussed will include Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, Lilly Martin Spencer, Harriet Powers, Rafael Aragon, Robert Duncanson, Frederick Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, James MacNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Moran, Henry Ossawa Tanner and Eadweard Muybridge.

(AHIS BC3654) Institutional Critique
R. Deutsch
TR 1:10-2:25, 504 Diana Center
Examines precedents for institutional critique in the strategies of early twentieth-century historical avant-garde and the post-war neo-avant-garde. Explores ideas about the institution and violence, investigates the critique and elaboration of institutional critique from the elate 1970s to the early 1990s, and considers the legacies of institutional critiques in the art of the present.

(AHIS V3201) Arts of China
R. Harrist
TR 4:10-5:25, 612 Schermerhorn
An introduction to the arts of China, from the Neolithic period to the present, stressing materials and processes of bronze casting, the development of representational art, principles of text illustration, calligraphy, landscape painting, imperial patronage, and the role of the visual arts in elite culture.

(AHIS V3203) Arts of Japan
J. Reynolds
MW 1:10-2:25, 304 Barnard Hall
Survey of Japanese art from the Neolithic through the Edo period, with emphasis on Buddhist art, scroll painting, decorative screens, and wood-block prints.

(AHIS V3248) Greek Art and Architecture
I. Mylonopoulos
MW 2:40-3:55, 612 Schermerhorn
Introduction to the art and architecture of the Greek world during the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic periods (11th-1st centuries B.C.E.).Discussion Section Required.

(AHIS V3673) History of Photography
N. Elcott
MW 11:40-12:55, 614 Schermerhorn
Focuses on the intersection of photography with traditional artistic practices in the 19th century, on the mass cultural functions of photography in propaganda and advertising from the 1920s onwards, and on the emergence of photography as the central medium in the production of postwar avant-garde art practices.

(AHIS W3208) Arts of Africa
Z. Strother
MW 4:10-5:25, 612 Schermerhorn
Introduction to the arts of Africa, including masquerading, figural sculpture, reliquaries, power objects, textiles, painting, photography, and architecture. The course will establish a historical framework for study, but will also address how various African societies have responded to the process of modernity Global Core.

(AHIS W3230) Medieval Architecture
S. Murray
MW 10:10-11:25, 612 Schermerhorn
Developed collaboratively and taught digitally spanning one thousand years of architecture.

(AHIS V3342) Masterpieces of Indian Art and Architecture
V. Dehejia
MW 2:40-3:55, 934 Schermerhorn
Introduction to 2000 years of art on the Indian subcontinent. The course covers the early art of Buddhism, rock-cut architecture of the Buddhists and Hindus, the development of the Hindu temple, Mughal and Rajput painting and architecture, art of the colonial period, and the emergence of the Modern.

(AHIS C3001) Introduction to Architecture
F. Benelli
TR 2:40-3:55, 612 Schermerhorn
Satisfies the architectural history/theory distribution requirement for majors, but is also open to students wanting a general humanistic approach to architecture and its history. Architecture analyzed through in-depth case studies of major monuments of sacred, public, and domestic space, from the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia to Fallingwater and the Guggenheim. Discussion Section Required.

(AHIS G4084) Mesoamerican Art and Architecture
E. Pasztory
M 2:10-4, 930 Schermerhorn
A survey of the major pre-Hispanic cities of Mexico and Guatemala, including San Lorenzo, Teotihuacan, Tikal, Monte Alban, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza. Aesthetic, historical, and archaeological problems are discussed.

(AHUM V3340) Art in China, Japan, and Korea
M. McKelway
TR 10:10-11:25, 612 Schermerhorn
Introduces distinctive aesthetic traditions of China, Japan, and Korea—their similarities and differences—through an examination of the visual significance of selected works of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other arts in relation to the history, culture, and religions of East Asia.

(AHIS W3600) Nineteenth Century Art
J. Crary
MW 10:10-11:25, 501 Schermerhorn
The course examines selected topics in the history of European painting from the 1780s to 1900. It will explore a range of aesthetic, cultural and social issues through the work of major figures from David, Goya, and Turner to Manet, Seurat and Cezanne. This is a no laptop, no e-device course.

(AHIS W4089) Native American Art
E. Hutchinson
TR 4:10-5:25, 203 Diana Center
This introduction to Native North American art surveys traditions of painting, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, photography and architecture and traces the careers of contemporary Indian modernists and postmodernists. It emphasizes artistic developments as a means of preserving culture and resisting domination in response to intertribal contact, European colonization and American expansion.

(AHIS W4131) Medieval Art I: From Late Antiquity to the end of Byzantium
H. Klein
MW 1:10-2:25, 612 Schermerhorn
A survey of Early Christian and Byzantine art from its origins in the eastern provinces of the Late Roman Empire through the Ottoman Conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The course is first segment of a two-part survey of medieval monuments offered by the Department of Art History and Archaeology.

(AHIS W4848) Neo-Dada and Pop Art
B. Joseph
TR 2:40-3:55, 614 Schermerhorn
This course examines the avant-garde art of the fifties and sixties, including assemblage, happenings, pop art, Fluxus, and artists' forays into film. It will examine the historical precedents of artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Allan Kaprow, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Carolee Schneemann and others in relation to their historical precedents, development, critical and political aspects.

Seminars and Colloquium

(AHIS BC3949) Art of Witness: Memorials
R. Deutsche
W 11 a.m.-12:50, 501 Diana Center
Examines aesthetic responses to collective historical traumas, such as slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, AIDS, homelessness, immigration, and the recent attack on the World Trade Center. Studies theories about trauma, memory, and representation. Explores debates about the function and form of memorials.

(AHIS BC3968) Art Criticism I
J. Miller
T 11 a.m.-12:50, 501 Diana Center
Contemporary art and its criticism written by artists (rather than by art historians or journalistic reviewers). Texts by Dan Graham, (Art and Language), Robert Smithson, Brian O'Dougherty, Martha Rosler, Barbara Kruger and others. Also, considers the art and writing of each artist together.

(AHIS BC3985) Introduction to Connoisseurship
M. Ainsworth
M 9-10:50, TAUGHT AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Factors involved in judging works of art, with emphasis on paintings; materials, technique, condition, attribution; identification of imitations and fakes; questions of relative quality.
Notes: APPLICATION DUE MARCH 30, DIANA CENTER 500

(AHIS C3948) Nineteenth Century Criticism
J. Crary
T 10:10-12, 930 Schermerhorn
Selected readings in 19th-century philosophy, literature and art criticism with emphasis on problems of modernity and aesthetic experience. Texts include work by Diderot, Kant, Coleridge, Hegel, Emerson, Flaubert, Ruskin, Baudelaire, and Nietzsche.

(AHIS C3997) Senior Thesis
C. Hunter
M 6:10-8, 934 Schermerhorn
Required for all senior thesis writers.

(AHIS W3895) Major's Colloquium: Introduction to the Literature and Methods of Art History
N. Elcott
T 4:10-6, 934 Schermerhorn
Prerequisites: the department's permission. Students must sign up in 826 Schermerhorn. Introduction to different methodological approaches to the study of art and visual culture. Majors are encouraged to take the colloquium during their junior year.

(AHIS W3897) African American Artists in the Western US
K. Jones
W 11-12:50, 832 Schermerhorn
This course considers the creative production of African Americans primarily in California in the 19th and 20th centuries. Themes pertinent to the course include: how are African American identities and cultural production imbricated with concepts of what is considered "western" or trends of west coast art making; what can these artists tell us about notions of space, place, and migration in the African American imagination?

(AHIS W3907) The Construction of Andean Art
E. Pasztory
W 2:10-4, 930 Schermerhorn
Explores various ways in which the West has made sense of Andean Art from the 16th century to the present.

(AHIS W3923) The Public Monument in the Ancient Near East
Z. Bahrani
W 4:10-6, 832 Schermerhorn
This seminar will focus on the invention of the public monument as a commemorative genre, and the related concepts of time, memory and history in the ancient Near East and Egypt. Public monuments will be studied in conjunction with readings from ancient texts (in translation), as well as historical criticism, archaeological and art historical theories.

(AHIS W3951) Expatriate, Émigré and Exile Artists, 1789-1830
F. Baumgartner
T 2:10-4, 832 Schermerhorn
This course explores the relation between the creative process and the respective conditions of expatriation, emigration and exile from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 until the end of the Bourbon Restoration in 1830. While all three conditions involve distance from one’s home, the personal and historical factors that define them varied significantly, with corresponding differences in the way that the creative process was approached. Examining the cases of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Jacques-Louis David and Francisco de Goya among others, this course focuses on the works artists produced while away from their native land, often by constraint rather than choice. Topics of discussion include: the Grand Tour and cosmopolitanism circa 1789; the category of the émigré(e)-artist; Revolution, gender and exile; uprooting and creative paralysis/creative fury; the refashioning of artistic identity; and the relation to history and the recent past.