Global Arc

The tombs of Sufi saints have long been nodes of contact in South Asian cities, gathering devotees from across social classes and religious groups. These monuments are constantly transforming -- pilgrims seek to be buried in the shadow of saintly sepulchres, shrines become complexes with ancillary structures, additional monuments, courtyards, and other open spaces. As they expand, they become significant public spaces, places of sociability and of communal gathering. Through close architectural analysis and literary study, this seminar explores funerary landscapes and their connection with urban spaces in the subcontinent.

Hundreds of Tlingit belongings journeyed from Alaska to Princeton in the 19th century. Now in the Princeton University Art Museum, they reflect an ongoing condition of broken knowledge and asymmetrical relationships. This course reflects on the place of these items within and beyond the Princeton community; explores the question of epistemology through multiple ways of seeing and knowing Alaska and its histories; and considers Alaskan colonization in relation to Tlingit cosmology, ecology, oral tradition, and kinship. The course includes collaboration with Tlingit artists and scholars and a break trip to University of Alaska, Southeast.

What does it mean to make art about the contemporary world? What does it mean for a work of art to make that world? This course traces contemporary artistic practice to key moments of internationalism and globalization, from decolonial movements and Cold War realignments to the watershed events of 1989, current considerations of ecological crisis, and the rise of new nationalisms. Mobilizing interdisciplinary theoretical frameworks and foregrounding first-hand engagement with art on campus, it introduces contemporary art as a vital means to comprehend and reimagine our disputed, but incontrovertibly shared globality today.

This course explores the art and archaeology of the later Bronze Age (2000-1100 BCE) in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. Through weekly readings and seminar discussions students will examine the material culture of the major powers of this first age of globalization, as well as the rise of an international stylistic koine facilitating diplomatic and commercial exchange between Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Aegean, and Iran. Class lectures and discussions will be supplemented by visits to the PUAM, the University's department of Geology, and a guest class lead by an eminent scholar of the period.

Junior Independent Work requires students to complete a substantial piece of research and scholarship under the supervision and advisement of a Princeton faculty member. The work requires sustained investment and attention throughout the semester. See below for details on works-in-progress submissions and due dates.

This course covers the history of printmaking in the Western world from c. 1400 to today, considering its significance, techniques, uses, and landmarks in print history. With an emphasis on 15th-18th century Europe, we will examine the mass media implications of print: its use in news, politics, and propaganda; in the creation and dissemination of art and science; and in entertainment. The course will include frequent Museum study room sessions with artworks, and hands-on workshops and printing demos. Artists covered include Mantegna, Dürer, Goltzius, Callot, Rembrandt, Goya, Daumier, Posada, Kollwitz, Catlett, Rauschenberg, and Amos.

Within Indigenous art, land often takes center stage: practices rooted in places their practitioners have lived since time immemorial. But displacement has also been fundamental to Native history: land seizure, migrations, and of course, voluntary travels. Objects of Native visual culture have witnessed similar dynamics: collected for museums, appropriated, or designed for exhibition. How have objects moved, and how does movement reveal new avenues for interpretation? How do works anticipate or resist circulation? Reading across art history and Indigenous Studies, we will examine place and movement as analytics for the study of Native art.

This seminar examines Black Latinidad as an epistemology; as a way of knowing that allows us to better understand the historical relationship between race, colonialism and diaspora. Through the analysis of cultural texts: including novels, music, film, and visual art, we will engage in a genealogical examination of Black Latinidad beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and through the present. Expanding the conceptual, geographical and temporal limitations that continue to produce Latinx Studies as a contemporary, U.S. based field of knowledge, our course will engage a historical approach to Latinx thought that centers blackness.

This course will examine the historical, sociological, and political writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the foremost intellectuals of the twentieth century and a foundational figure in the field of African American studies. Close attention will be given to his views of American democracy and identity as well as race and Pan-Africanism. Our aim is to explore and understand the long arc of Du Bois's ideas.

This seminar will interweave the history of New York City with the history of dance across the twentieth century. It will use the work of dancers, choreographers, and critics to illuminate social, political, and cultural trends in New York's urban life. Topics include dance in working-class leisure, dance as cultural activism during the Popular Front and Black Arts eras, immigration and assimilation in NYC, and the impact of urban renewal on communities and the performing arts.