Global Arc

This seminar focuses on the Netherlands in the early seventeenth century, a time when new scientific discoveries and geographical expansion challenged established worldviews. We examine how Netherlandish artists used elemental imagery to draw attention to the hidden forces of nature, the beginning and end of the world, the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, and the transformative powers of their own craft. How did they imagine and represent the elements and other ultimate particles of the material world at a time when the intersections of life and art were being redefined?

Vitruvius, the author of the only surviving architectural treatise from Antiquity has been called alternatively an architect or an engineer. Architects and engineers started to organize themselves as professions in the early modern period and to compete to secure commissions. This course addresses the story of how two professions came to define themselves against each other. Students will first review the different actors of the European early modern building world, before focusing on the fields of contest between architects and engineers and how this battle ultimately defined the nature of each profession, between art and science.

Archaeology is a visual discipline: it searches for material evidence of the human past and presents its discoveries with an array of graphic media. This hybrid studio/seminar combines training in drawing as an observational tool for excavation with critical analysis of visual media based on archaeological and art historical theory. Build your drawing portfolio with hands-on study of artifacts from the University's collections, delve into archives, and learn digital recording tools. What are the challenges of reconstructing fragmentary evidence? Do drawings shape our perception of the past?

How have collecting practices shaped the perception of Indigenous cultures in the Americas? The recognition and reception of native art and architecture reflects the evolving intellectual preoccupations of collectors over 500 years. Charting this history, topics will include the role of archaeological illustrations; the invocation of national identities; issues of appropriation in modern and contemporary art; the faking and restoration of objects; the ethical considerations of museum display; the reconstruction of ruins into tourist destinations; and misrepresentations in New Age religiosity, conspiracy theories, and popular entertainment.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

The senior thesis (498-499) is a year-long project in which students complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. While a year-long thesis is due in the student's final semester of study, the work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the academic year.

What is anti-colonial art? What Latin American artworks reflect the lasting impacts of colonialism? The cultural geographies of "Latin America" show there are no simple answers. Anti-colonial studies reveal that coloniality affects all aspects of life - subjectivity, race, gender, sexuality, language, and knowledge. This course examines artistic practices and their challenge to coloniality's ongoing effects. By exploring materials such as literary texts, visual artworks, and performances, students will engage in critical debates and develop methodological skills to analyze Latin America's cultural histories from the 1960s to the present.

We tend to think of borders as hard lines on a map, yet in the ancient world things rarely operated so clearly. Borders instead formed regions of uncertain control, with their own authorities adept at playing both sides. This was especially true in the Classical and Late Antique Middle East, contested by the empires of Rome and Iran. This seminar explores the visual world of the ancient frontier (including sites such as Hatra, Palmyra, and Dura Europos) and examines the unique forms of cultural expression possible in these contested places, as well as their importance in forging an international visual language of prestige and sacrality.

This course examines major themes in the visual cultures of China, Korea, and Japan from the Neolithic period to the present and provides a basic introduction to art historical methods. Through a series of case studies and the analysis of key artifacts and monuments, we will reflect on such central questions in East Asian art as: What are the cultural factors that give rise to iconographic and stylistic traditions? In what ways do objects and designs reflect religious and philosophical beliefs and ideas? How do structures of authority limit or further self-expression? Precepts will focus on key objects in the Princeton University Art Museum.

The history of art making in Japan is populated with an enormous cast of characters who inhabit the lively moving surfaces of a wide variety of artistic media, from medieval handscroll format paintings to contemporary manga and anime. This class will take its own part in animating these stories by exploring the ways in which words and pictures are inextricably linked to create meaning in these artistic forms. We will analyze the formal characteristics of images and texts in these immersive narrative worlds, placing them in their contemporary contexts as we reflect on their ongoing lives in our own.