Global Arc

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.

During the last century, spectacle became a key notion within the practice, criticism, theory and history of art. It posed a question that remains relevant: How could artists compete with the intensely visual entertainments that were flourishing on the stage, street and screen and attracting increasingly large audiences? This course explores how major artists approached this practical and intellectual challenge, as well as the ways that the theory was generalized and applied in important studies of fascist, capitalist and communist politics, the society at large and the history of 18th- and 19th-century French painting.

This course explores the visual and material culture during the century of turmoil in China (1840s to 1940s) while considering critically how modernity was defined and how it operated. In this class, we will examine a wide array of visual mediums, such as painting, calligraphy, prints, sculpture, photography, and cinema. While doing so, we will reflect upon issues crucial to our understandings of modern Chinese art in particular and "modernity" in general, such as globality, coloniality, nationalism, gender, popular culture, and cultural heritage among others.

This seminar explores the history of early modern European printing and its materials, with a focus on Albrecht Dürer. An underlying assumption of the course is that art-making materials and practices are linked to contemporary conceptions and theories of nature. From 1450 to 1850, the natural resources most commonly deployed for printing were wood, metal, and stone. Their use was shaped by environmental conditions, and had an impact on the ecology of their places of origin. While the course will focus on European print culture, and Albrecht Dürer when possible, it also will refer to early modern print materials and practices from East Asia.

This course covers the arts of South Asia beginning in the 2nd century BCE. Topics will include the relationship between architecture, sculpture and the religions of the region, networks of court painting, Islamic art and architecture, forms of patronage, and art making and changing ecologies of power in South Asia. Lectures may cover a range of media including painting, calligraphy, architecture, sculpture and prints. Class discussions will focus on formal and material concerns, as well as the religious, historical or political contexts in which these works were produced.

What was Italy like before the Roman Empire? Who were the peoples that shaped the peninsula's history? This course examines the art and archaeology of the first millennium BCE, focusing on the diverse cultures and civilizations that inhabited Italy, each defined by its own traditions and innovations. Through the study of daily life, religion, and material culture, we will uncover the interconnected and ever-changing dynamics of this fascinating and complex world.

Artmaking as both creative practice and subject of scholarly inquiry. Weekly collaborative sessions between practicing artists and art historians or scientists, creating dynamic conversations that illuminate shared themes and methodologies. Through a combination of artmaking exercises, close visual analysis, readings, and discussions, students cultivate new approaches to understanding how artworks function as both cultural artifacts and creative expressions. The course emphasizes experiential learning, encouraging students to think like both makers and scholars as they develop critical and practical skills for engaging with visual culture.

Artistic invention refers to original concepts, new techniques, novel media and fresh approaches in the creation of art. This course examines invention in European art from around 1400 to 1650, a period that (unlike contemporary ideas about unprecedented originality) considered imitation as a paradigmatic mode of innovation. As well as exploring historical modes of creative imitation, we examine theories of imagination, the intersection of new technologies and materials with artistic ingenuity, the marketing of authenticity through signatures, copyrights and novel technique, concepts of authorship and collaboration, and the rise of fakes.

Introduction to art made in Western Europe since 1945, with a dual focus: How do works of art come to terms with the history of modernity? How do they reckon with changing circumstances in the present? How have painting and sculpture in certain moments succeeded or failed in remaining aesthetically and culturally vital? What happens when artists turn to "new media" (television, video, digital technologies)? What roles do museums and international exhibitions play in shaping artistic practice? How has art responded to and produced knowledge about the Holocaust, decolonization, migration, nuclear warfare, political violence, climate emergency?

The most fascinating art objects from Africa primarily depict supernatural beings and were often used for religious and ritual activity. This course returns these objects to their original contexts; it helps us develop fuller appreciation of these art works now in collections around the world, and the different ways African societies used art and religion to enrich their experience of life and the afterlife. We examine how Africans imagined their world through religion, and how art - objects, images, and performances - were/are used to articulate and make sense of the encounter of humans with a complex, exciting, and bewildering world.