Summer 2021 Undergraduate Courses
Last updated: Friday, March 19th, 2021. Red text denotes a new or changed course since the previous update.
Summer A – Undergraduate Lectures
Undergraduate lectures are open to all undergraduate students.
AHIS UN2102 Gore and Violence in Greek Art
I. Mylonopoulos
T/R 9-12:10, Online
This course aims to offer an alternative – more ‘realistic’ – view of ancient Greek art and understand its violence and goriness as parts of its (at least) two faces; to add, as it were, the lightless night of violence to the luminous day of the athletic, heroic, and divine realms. Violence in art will be placed in a broader political, social, historical, and intellectual context. In addition, violence in art will be understood as a powerful visual means for the construction and deconstruction or even destruction of images of dangerous Otherness: the aggressive barbarian (Persians), the uncontrolled nature outside the constraints of the polis (Centaurs), and the all too powerful or independent female (Amazons).
Important notice: Because of the COVID-19 crisis and in order to help students cope with the unusual demands of online teaching, all readings, all PowerPoint files, and all personal notes of the instructor will be posted on coursework in the first week of the term.
AHIS UN2427 Twentieth Century Architecture
Z. Celik
M/W 1-4:10, Online
This course examines some of the key moments of architectural modernity in the twentieth century in an attempt to understand how architecture participated in the making of a new world order. It follows the lead of recent scholarship that has been undoing the assumption that modern twentieth-century architecture is a coherent enterprise that should be understood through avant-gardist movements. Instead, architecture is presented in this course as a multivalent and contradictory entity that has nonetheless had profound impact on modernity. Rather than attempting to be geographically comprehensive, the course focusses on the interdependencies between the Global North and the South; instead of being strictly chronological, it is arranged around a constellation of themes that are explored through a handful of buildings, cities, and landscapes as well as texts. Reading primary sources from the period under examination is a crucial part of the course.
AHIS S2600 Arts of China
R. Harrist
M/W 1-4:10, Online
This course introduces major forms of Chinese art from the Neolithic period to the present. It stresses the 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. Works of Chinese art in the Metropolitan Museum of Art will receive special attention, as you will be able to study these closely online and see the real things at the museum. Throughout the course we will attempt to study not only the history of Chinese art but also how that history has been written, both in China and in the West. CC/GS/SEAS: Partial fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
AHUM S2604 Arts of China, Japan, and Korea
T. Xu
M/T/W/R 9-10:35, Online
This course 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. CC/GS/SEAS: Partial fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
AHUM S2901 Masterpieces of Indian Art and Architecture
M. Muehlbauer
T/R 1-4:10, Online
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. CC/GS/SEAS: Partial fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
Summer A – Undergraduate Colloquia
Required course for Columbia AHIS/HTAC/AHVA majors. Please sign up using this online form. The form will open on Monday, February 22nd, at 10am. The form will close on Thursday, March 4th, at 5pm. Admission is at the instructor's discretion. Early sign-up is strongly encouraged. After March 4th: please email the Undergraduate Program Coordinator (eb3016 at columbia dot edu) if you are interested in taking this course.
AHIS UN3000 Majors Colloquium: Introduction to the Literature and Methods of Art History
M. Gamer
T/R 1-4:10, Hybrid
This course is an introduction to the theories and methods of art history and visual culture. It is required for undergraduate majors.
AHIS UN3000 is open to Columbia College and General Studies undergraduate majors in the Department of Art History and Archaeology. It is not open to Barnard or Professional Studies students.
Summer A – Undergraduate Seminars
Undergraduate seminars are open to undergraduates. Admission is at the instructor’s discretion.
AHIS UN3100 Hellenistic Sculpture: Intellectuals, Gods, Kings, and Fishermen
I. Mylonopoulos
T/R 1-4:10, Online
Obsession with the Classical often kept us from looking at the Hellenistic period with its artistic achievements as a time of innovation and experimentation in art. In Hellenistic times, new cultural and artistic centers arose besides Athens: Alexandria in Egypt, Antiocheia and Pergamon in Asia Minor, or Rhodes. Especially in sculpture, artists and patrons demonstrated an unprecedented interest in subjects such as ugly old women, working peasants, slaves with disfigured bodies, or non- Greeks. The seminar will study the sculpture of the Hellenistic period as an extremely imaginative and dynamic artistic expression without the Classical bias. In addition, it will look into the societal conditions that allowed this multi-cultural and rather inclusive style in sculpture to be created. The styles of the various Hellenistic artistic centers will be individually analysed based on representative works and then compared to each other and to the sculptural traditions of the Classical period, so that Hellenistic sculpture can be understood both as a continuation of the Classical and especially Late Classical sculpture and as an artistic, intellectual, and social creation – a creation that often went against the ideals of the past.
AHIS UN3206 Sacred Travel, Shrines, and Souvenirs in the Medieval World
M. Boomer
M/W 9-12:10, Online
From antiquity to the present day, people have traveled to local or far-off sites to approach holy figures, to appeal for divine intervention, and to fulfill religious obligations. This seminar explores the material dimensions of these journeys, from the spaces entered and sights encountered to the things travelers brought or took away. Classes and (if possible) collection visits will focus on medieval Christian and Islamic shrines, although student projects may cover a larger scope.
AHIS UN3321 Modern Titian
D. Bodart
T/R 1-4:10, Online
In The Stroke of the Brush (1989), David Rosand introduced the authoriality of Titian’s brushwork by discussing it in the light of contemporary painting processes, such as Willem de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionism. In the exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death, currently at the National Gallery, London, Matthias Wivel presents the Renaissance Venetian artist as the “father of modern painting”. To what extent can a Renaissance painter be modern? How can we conceptualize that modernity? Examining Titian’s life and work in sixteenth century Venice in the light of sources, literature and technical data, the seminar will reconsider the paradigm of the modernity of the Renaissance master. Investigating what defined painting as ‘modern’ in Titian’s own period, as well as its reception in modern time, the seminar will also discuss how the theorization of contemporary societal issues could allow us to think differently about Titian’s work.
Summer B – Undergraduate Lectures
Undergraduate lectures are open to all undergraduate students.
AHIS S2314 Baroque Masters at the Met: Bernini, Velazquez, Rembrandt
L. Schneider
T/R 1-4:10, Online
This course examines three masters of European Baroque art—Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), and Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)—artists who are all well represented in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Through classroom discussions and museum visits, we will examine Baroque art as part of a continuing and developing accumulation of forms and ideas throughout the 17th century, and consider the impact these artists had on their contemporaries and in ensuing centuries. Roughly half of the class sessions take place at the Metropolitan Museum, a luxury that allows for close, firsthand analysis of art, but it is not an art appreciation course. It is a history course concerned with a study of ideas, artists, and visual facts and their application to emerging art forms within their cultural-historical context. In addition to developing a critical eye, the class is intended to develop analytical thinking and communication skills as well as knowledge of the subject matter.
AHUM S2604 Arts of China, Japan, and Korea
This course 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. CC/GS/SEAS: Partial fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
Section 002
N. Kuromiya
M/W 9-12:10, Online
Section 003
C. Jiang
T/R 9-12:10, Online
AHIS S2614 Chinese Painting of the Song Dynasty (960-1279)
R. Harrist
M/W 1-4:10, Online
Painting of the Song dynasty (960-1279) represents one of the great achievements of world art. It was during these centuries that monumental landscape emerged as the most esteemed genre of Chinese painting. At the same time other genres, including bird and flower painting, scenes of everyday life, and Buddhist and Daoist figures, became models for all later painting, not only in China but in Korea and Japan as well. The Song was also the period during which the integration of texts and images achieved new complexity, in part though the interventions of art-loving emperors and empresses who composed poems to accompany paintings. The Song also witnessed the establishment of the first imperially sponsored art school in China and the production of sophisticated treatises on the theory and practice of painting, cited by artists and theorists down to the present day. The goals of this course are to study major paintings from the Song Dynasty and to explore the ways in which the artists and original viewers understood these works. In addition to close examination of works of art, with particular focus on the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we will read treatises on painting as well as poems from the Song period written in response to paintings. Among topics that will receive special attention are the rise of landscape painting, imperial patronage, painting and urban, the art of scholar-officials, and the relationship between words and images. Although helpful, no background in Chinese art history is required for this course. Global Core approval pending.
AHUM S2901 Masterpieces of Indian Art and Architecture
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. CC/GS/SEAS: Partial fulfillment of Global Core Requirement.
Section 002
S. Agarwala
T/R 9-12:10, Online
Section 003
C. Gorant
M/W 9-12:10, Online
Summer B – Undergraduate Seminars
Undergraduate seminars are open to undergraduates. Admission is at the instructor’s discretion.
AHIS S3010 Evaluating the Evidence of Authenticity
L. Catterson
M/W 1-4:10, Online
The adjudged authenticity of a work of art is fundamental in determining its value as a commodity on the art market or, for example, in property claim disputes or in issues of cultural property restitution. Using case studies some straightforward and others extremely vexing--this course examines the many ways in which authenticity is measured through the use of provenance and art historical research, connoisseurship, and forensic resources. From within the broader topics, finer issues will also be explored, among them, the hierarchy of attribution, condition and conservation, copies and reproductions, the period eye and the style of the marketplace.
AHIS S3409 Fun City: The Architecture of New York’s Entertainment, Leisure, and Culture Industry
I. Oryshkevich
M/W 1-4:10, Online
AHIS S3426 Jackson Pollock and the New York School
K. Minturn
T/R 1-4:10, Online
This seminar will trace the rise and fall of Abstract Expressionism, from its pre-World War II precipitates in Europe (Surrealism) and in America (Regionalism), to the crucial moment when, as scholar Serge Guilbaut has argued, New York 'stole' the idea of modern art, and finally, through the decade when Pop Art rendered Abstract Expressionism obsolete. Although special emphasis will be given to Jackson Pollock, whose persona and work reside at the literal and figurative center of the movement, we will also look closely at works by Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Willem DeKooning, Lee Krasner, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Cy Twombly. Class lectures and presentations will be supplemented with trips to New York's world-renowned museums.
AHIS S3441 New York City and the History of Museums
R. Majeed
T/R 1-4:10, Online
This course will introduce students to the history of museums and display practices through New York collections. The birth of the museum as a constitutive element of modernity coincides with the establishment of European nation states. Throughout the course of the nineteenth century, museums were founded in major European and American cities to classify objects, natural and manmade, from plants and fossils to sculpture and clothing. This course presents the alternate art history that can be charted through an examination of the foundation and development of museums from cabinets of curiosity to the collection-less new museums currently being built in the Middle East and beyond. We will consider broad thematic issues such as nationalism, colonialism, canon formation, the overlapping methods of anthropology and art history, and the notion of 'framing' from the architectural superstructure to exhibition design. We will visit a wide variety of museums from the American Museum of Natural History to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum as in-depth case studies of more general concepts. Students will have the opportunity to meet museum educators, conservators and curators through on site teaching in a variety of institutions.