Global Arc

A survey of the architecture and the arts of various Islamic cultures between northern Africa and the Indian subcontinent from the seventh to the 20th century. Emphasis will be on major monuments of religious and secular architecture, architectural decoration, calligraphy, and painting. Background in Islam or Middle Eastern languages is not a prerequisite. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 1, 2, or 3 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

What was the Renaissance? This class explores the major artistic currents that swept northern and southern Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries in an attempt to answer that question. In addition to considering key themes such as the revival of antiquity, imitation and license, religious devotion, artistic style, and the art market, we will survey significant works by artists and architects including Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, Jan van Eyck, Dürer, and Michelangelo. Precepts will focus on direct study of original objects, with visits to Princeton's collections of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, books and maps.

This course examines the range of work by African artists from the colonial period to the era of post-independence. It seeks to familiarize students with modern and contemporary art from Africa by studying forms, ideas, and subject matter that have preoccupied African artists since the mid-20th century. It is also interested in the critical practices that have helped set these artists on the global stage, as well as theoretical structures that might help our understanding of these processes.

An analysis of the emergence of modern architecture from the late 19th century to World War II, in light of new methodologies. The course will focus not only on major monuments but also on issues of gender, class, and ethnicity to provide a more pluralistic perspective on the experience of modernity. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

A survey of photography from its multiple inventions in the early 19th century to its omnipresence (and possible obsolescence) in the 21st. Themes will include photography's power to define the "real"; its emulation and eventual transformation of the traditional fine arts; and its role in the construction of personal and collective memories. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.

Listed by Forbes magazine as one of the World's Most Beautiful Campuses, Princeton has long been an architectural paragon, much-admired and copied. Its astonishingly varied buildings can help tell the story of American architectural history from the 1750s on. This course will examine Princeton's fascinating relationship to ever-changing architectural trends in America and Britain. Controversies will be emphasized, from nineteenth-century fights about Gothic Revival to current debates about Neo-modernist designs by world-famous architects. Walking tours and a field trip will enhance your understanding of America's fourth-oldest campus.

Art and science may appear to have nothing to do with one another, but history suggests otherwise. For centuries, artists and image-makers have incorporated the concepts and claims of scientific inquiry into their practices. Scientists, in turn, have relied on images as both sources of and evidence for scientific knowledge. By examining the interaction of art and science in Europe and America from the early modern period to the present day, this course will investigate the diverse and complex ways in which art and science have intersected as well as the manner in which image-making has been understood as a form of scientific practice.

In China, Japan, Islamic world, and other cultures, writing is ranked as highest of the visual arts, far above painting, sculpture, even architecture. Forms taken by beautiful writing are at least as diverse as the writing systems that underlie them: think of Egyptian writing, Chinese calligraphy, and Roman monumental inscriptions. This course introduces world's major calligraphic traditions and examine the functions of beautiful writing, reasons for its existence and prestige, and factors that shape styles of writing. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 2 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.

This seminar examines the impact of the IMF's Structural Adjustment Program, military dictatorships, and political crises on artistic production in the 1980s, and the dramatic movement of African artists from the margins of the international art world to its very center since the 1990s. How familiar or different are the works and concerns of African artists? What are the consequences, in Africa and the West, of the international success of a few African artists? And what does the work of these Africans at home and in the West tell us about the sociopolitical conditions of our world today?

General survey of the indigenous civilizations of North America, Central America, and South America. The goals are to demonstrate methods and techniques employed by art historians working in this area to study the past, and to examine how art history, archaeology, and ethnohistory contribute to the interdisciplinary study of ancient peoples. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 1 distribution requirement. Two lectures, one preceptorial.