Global Arc

Although "alienation" might seem passé as a concept, modern art and literature were long steeped in this condition. This seminar will explore its principal expressions by its primary voices--artists, writers, and philosophers--from Baudelaire, Marx, and Manet through Rimbaud, Nietzsche, and Gauguin, to Existentialist philosophy and outsider art, and on to "Black Dada" today. Among our themes will be the underground, spleen, dandyism, detachment, primitivism, art brut, absurdity, and objectification.

Topics in contemporary painting, sculpture, or criticism in Europe and America since World War II. Prerequisite: a course in the art of this period or instructor's permission. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.

A study of some of the major themes and movements of modern architecture from the late 19th century to the present day. Students will be encouraged to examine the social and political context, to probe the architects' intellectual background, and consider issues of class and gender in their relation to architectural and urban form. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.

A practicum for developing critical approaches to the use and interpretation of archival materials, with emphasis on the way archives have been deployed to construct the idea of Latin American art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Departing from recent developments such as digital meta-archives, the display of historical archives within contemporary art exhibitions, and the construction of new documentation centers, the class considers specific case studies alongside theoretical texts that explore how archives constitute institutional authority, how they produce their objects of study, and how we can narrate absences within them.

This seminar explores how the complex and contested concept of "race" intersects with the categories of "art" and "visual culture" in the history of the United States (colonial era to the present). By examining the work of a range of artists and image-makers, we will explore how the concept of "race" is imagined, constructed, used, and/or challenged by artists and audiences as well as the manner in which the discipline of art history approaches considerations of race and racial/ethnic identity. Our approach will be thematic rather than chronological; material studied will include painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and film.

An in-depth exploration of the history, theory, and interpretation of American art and visual culture from the colonial period to the present day. Topics covered will include race and representation in American art and culture; art and science; landscape art and theory; the Harlem Renaissance; and the art and artists of the Stieglitz circle. Visits to the Princeton University Art Museum as well as to other area museums (such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) will be an integral part of this course. For department majors, this course satisfies the Group 3 distribution requirement. One three-hour seminar.

Museums have long disciplined conducts and framed ways of seeing through the production and reproduction of dominant values. But can they also act as instruments of transformation, even emancipation? This course investigates the museum and the exhibition as sites of experimentation within the overlapping spheres of art, society, and technology, with particular focus on their implications and enactment in Latin America. Key components will be hands-on work with the collections of Latin American art in the Princeton University Art Museum and Marquand and Firestone Libraries, as well as visits to museums and artist's studios in New York.

This course explores royal Maya courts of the 7th and 8th centuries, with particular attention given to art and writing. We will consider in depth several of the most impressive Maya courts. Regular decipherment assignments will complement assigned readings. A spring recess trip to Chiapas, Mexico, is a mandatory component of the course (funded by Princeton). Students will conduct independent research on a topic of their choosing, presenting their findings both as an oral presentation and as a term paper.

Painting was the ancient Maya expressive mode par excellence. Whether depicting mythology, history, or hieroglyphic writing, painting was for more private acts of visual consumption than architecture or sculpture. This seminar invites students into this private realm of ancient Maya scribes, nobility, and royal patronage. The course explores the 1500-year history of Maya painting, including murals, ceramics and books. We will consider techniques of production, iconography, aesthetics, and social context. Students will gain basic literacy in Maya writing and training in Maya astronomy.

This course explores the interface of American art, ecology, and environmental history in the context of a groundbreaking exhibition held at Princeton's art museum in Fall 2018. Using emerging interpretive strategies of ecocriticism, we will approach American art as creative material that has imagined and embodied environmental issues and attitudes concerning nationhood, development, species extinction, pollution, climate change, sustainability, and justice since the 18th century, when the foundations of ecology began to emerge. We will also address conceptual and practical issues surrounding the mounting of a major traveling loan exhibition.