Program Overview

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Art History (ARTH)

Course Fees

Some courses may carry fees beyond the standard tuition costs to cover additional support or materials. Program-, subject- and course-specific fee information can be found on the Office of the Bursar website.

ARTH 501. Advanced History of Graphic Design

• Term Typically Offered: Fall Only
• Prerequisite(s): BFA Graphic Design Candidacy or faculty consent.
• Description: Seminar course covering the development of graphic design from 1800 to present. Topics include key movements, technologies, ethics, and general issues relating to design theory and criticism. Cross-listed with DES 501.
• Note: Formerly taught as Advanced History and Issues of Graphic Design.

ARTH 521. Special Topics in Modern Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Modern Art or consent of instructor.
• Description: Reconstruction and interpretations of modern artistic aspirations through study of sources and documents by artists, critics and historians. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 523. History of Performance Art

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 270 and ARTH 325; or permission of instructor; or graduate standing.
• Description: History of Performance Art is designed as an advanced upper-level seminar that investigates the international, historical developments in Performance Art after World War II. It considers the experimental strategies and ideological aims of visual artists who used their bodies as the primary vehicle of expression, information, communication, and social change. Performance Art has had the dubious distinction of being the most censored art medium, and since the 1960s artists have been continually arrested and fined for their work. This is a highly significant social fact, one that draws attention to Performance Art's particularly disruptive aesthetic codes and materials-emphasizing presentation over representation; intersubjective, human bodies over inanimate objects; and temporality over spatiality.

ARTH 524. Installation Art

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 270 and ARTH 325; or permission of instructor; or graduate standing.
• Description: An advanced exploratory seminar that investigates a contemporary art form as well as a thorny art-historical problem: the term "installation" now functions both as a loose descriptor for a myriad of contemporary artworks (having supplanted terms such as Assemblage and Environment) independent of medium and context, as well as a general and comprehensive art-historical genre, a circumstance that has its own compelling historical development. The course is designed so that students can grapple with a central issue for contemporary art-the definition of a burgeoning critical term for art history.

ARTH 525. Representations of Trauma in the Visual Arts

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 270 and ARTH 325; or permission of instructor.
• Description: This seminar examines the changing relationships between trauma and its representation in the twentieth century. Beginning with the Holocaust, the course charts a trajectory from this most profound of collective traumas, to the refinement of clinical definitions of trauma (e.g., PTSD) in the wake of the Vietnam War, to the development of trauma studies in the humanities in the 1990s, to the recent "pictorial turn" within scholarship on trauma. This historical framework will be brought to bear upon the dynamics of how trauma and visuality have been approached by scientists, scholars, and artists.
• Note: Cross-listed with WGST 525.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 526. Studies in Contemporary Art

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 320, or ARTH 321, or ARTH 325 or ARTH 326, or permission of the instructor.
• Description: An advanced-level seminar on special topics in contemporary art.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period 2/Area - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 531. Studies in Asian Art

• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Asian Art, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Selected topics that examine the development of art and architecture in the context of the social and cultural history of China and Japan.
• Note: Cross-listed with AST 531.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 3 - Non-Western requirement.

ARTH 541. Theories & Methods in the Visual Arts - WR

• Term Typically Offered: Fall Only
• Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
• Description: An introduction to various art historical and interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that have shaped the understanding, interpretation, and production of visual art and culture in the nineteenth century to the present. The course will explore these theories and methods as specific fields of inquiry through the study of primary texts, secondary or applied texts, artists' writings and artworks.
• Note: This course is required for completion of the BA in Art History.
• Note: Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).

ARTH 542. Special Topics - WR

• Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
• Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
• Description: An examination of one or more specific areas of Art History not covered in the regular course offerings. Content to be indicated in schedule of courses. Satisfaction of curricular requirement determined by individual course content. Approved for the Arts and Sciences upper-level requirement in written communication (WR).
• Note: May be taken with four different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.

ARTH 543. Independent Study

• Prerequisite(s): Minimum grade point average of 3.0 overall, and minimum grade point average of 3.5 in the department, and at least 18 semester hours credit in the department, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Topic and content to be determined in consultation with instructor.
• Note: Satisfaction of curricular requirement determined by individual course content.

ARTH 544. Pan-African Art: Form and Content

• Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.
• Description: Similarities and differences in African-American folk art, Caribbean folk art, and traditional African art.
• Note: Cross-listed with PAS 581.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 3 - Non-Western requirement.

ARTH 547. Introduction to Critical and Curatorial Studies I

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: An introduction to curatorial practice of the last 30 years. Focusing on the curator's increasingly prominent role in the reception and synthesis of contemporary art, the course explores developments in exhibition design in terms of art production, international exchange, globalization, and critical theory.
• Note: Cross-listed with CCS 547.
• Note: A student may only receive credit for only one of the courses: ARTH 547, CCS 547, ARTH 647, CCS 647.
• Note: Formerly Museum Methods I.

ARTH 548. Critical and Curatorial Studies II

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 547, or CCS 547, or ARTH 647, or CCS 647, or consent of instructor.
• Description: This seminar is structured as a curatorial practicum. Students work with the professor to develop and produce an exhibition from the university's print collection. Throughout the semester, weekly readings and presentations focus on contemporary exhibition practice as well as on the theoretical and critical concerns undergirding the student's developing exhibition.
• Note: Cross-listed with CCS 548.
• Note: A student may receive credit for only one of the following courses: ARTH 548, ARTH 648, CCS 548 and CCS 648.
• Note: Formerly taught as Museum Methods II.

ARTH 549. Contemporary Trends in African-American Art

• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level art history course or faculty consent.
• Description: Survey of contemporary African American art since the 1960s into current trends today. Examination of contemporary paintings, sculpture, fabric art, folk art, public art, and installation art.
• Note: Cross-listed with PAS 509.
• Note: Undergraduate credit may not be earned for this course and ARTH 349 and ARTH 329.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period 3/Area - Non-Western requirement.

ARTH 550. Art History Undergraduate Capstone Seminar - CUE

• Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
• Prerequisite(s): Senior standing and BA candidacy; or faculty consent.
• Description: The Art History Program's undergraduate capstone seminar evaluates the ability of our majors to conduct original art historical research, frame their investigations in the form of a scholarly abstract, and present their ideas in a "conference paper" following the conventions appropriate to the discipline.
• Course Attribute(s): CUE - This course fulfills the Culminating Undergraduate Experience (CUE) requirement for certain degree programs. CUE courses are advanced-level courses intended for majors with at least 90 earned credits/senior-level status.

ARTH 551. Studies in Ancient Art

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 351, or ARTH 353, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Selected topics in ancient art and architecture.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 552. Ancient Painting

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 351, or ARTH 353, or consent of instructor.
• Description: A study of mural painting from the ancient cultures of Egypt, the Aegean, Greece and Italy.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 553. Ancient Cities

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 351, or ARTH 353, or consent of instructor.
• Description: A study of the development of the city in the Mediterranean region from prehistoric times to the late Roman Empire.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 561. Studies in Medieval Art

• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Medieval art or architecture, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Studies in the art and architecture of the Middle Ages emphasizing a synthesis of the arts in a particular period or place.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 571. Studies in Renaissance Art

• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Renaissance art, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Study of a major phase of painting or sculpture, fifteenth or sixteenth century, in Italy or Northern Europe, with emphasis on sources and development of style.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 574. History of Drawing and Prints

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Art History, or faculty consent.
• Description: Origin and development of woodcut, engraving, etching, aquatint, lithography, and serigraphy; major artists using these techniques.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 581. Studies in Baroque Art

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 381 or consent of instructor.
• Description: Study of one of the leading artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Bernini, Borromini, Tiepolo, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, or Watteau.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 593. Special Topics in Modern Architecture

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in Modern architecture, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Principal forms and theories of urban and building design in relation to social forces in modern Europe and America. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 595. Special Topics in American Art

• Term Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
• Prerequisite(s): One 300-level course in American art or architecture, or consent of instructor.
• Description: Studies in American architecture, city planning, decorative arts, painting, or sculpture, from colonial times to present. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 597. Special Topics in Photographic History

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: The aesthetic development of photography, with emphasis on U.S. photographers and contemporary issues relevant to the medium. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 600. Graduate Seminar

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail
• Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.
• Fee: An additional $75.00 is charged for this course.
• Description: Reports, critiques, presentations and discussions on personal research and current topics in visual arts.
• Note: Cross-listed with ART 600 and CCS 600.

ARTH 621. Special Topics in Modern Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: An advanced-level seminar on special topics in modern art. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period 2/Area - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 623. History of Performance Art

• Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.
• Description: Consideration of investigation of experimental strategies and ideological aims of visual artists who used their bodies as the primary vehicle of expression, information, communication, and social change. Performance Art has had the dubious distinction of being the most censored art medium, and since the 1960s artists have been continually arrested and fined for their work. This is a highly significant social fact, one that draws attention to Performance Art's particularly disruptive aesthetic codes and materials, emphasizing presentation over representation; intersubjective, human bodies over inanimate objects; and temporality over spatiality.

ARTH 624. Installation Art

• Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.
• Description: An advanced exploratory seminar that investigates a contemporary art form as well as a thorny art-historical problem: the term "installation" now functions both as a loose descriptor for a myriad of contemporary artworks (having supplanted terms such as Assemblage and Environment) independent of medium and context, as well as a general and comprehensive art-historical genre-a circumstance that has its own compelling historical development. The course is designed so that students can grapple with a central issue for contemporary art-the definition of a burgeoning critical term for art history.

ARTH 625. Representations of Trauma in the Visual Arts

• Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing.
• Description: This seminar examines the changing relationships between trauma and its representation in the twentieth century. Beginning with the Holocaust, the course charts a trajectory from this most profound of collective traumas, to the refinement of clinical definitions of trauma (e.g., PTSD) in the wake of the Vietnam War, to the development of trauma studies in the humanities in the 1990s, to the recent "pictorial turn" within scholarship on trauma. This historical framework will be brought to bear upon the dynamics of how trauma and visuality have been approached by scientists, scholars, and artists.

ARTH 626. Special Topics in Contemporary Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Permission of instructor.
• Description: An advanced-level seminar on special topics in contemporary art. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 631. Special Topics in Asian Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Restricted to graduate students or consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in Asian art and architecture. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 3 - Non-Western requirement.

ARTH 641. Seminar in Art History

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Exploration of core problems in iconography, formal analysis, criticism, or historiography.

ARTH 642. Theories & Methods in the Visual Arts

• Term Typically Offered: Fall Only
• Prerequisite(s): Graduate standing, or permission of the instructor.
• Description: Introduces students to various art historical and interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that have shaped the understanding, interpretation, and production of visual art and culture from the nineteenth century to the present. The course will explore these theories and methods as specific fields of inquiry through the study of primary texts, secondary or applied texts, artists' writings and artworks.
• Note: This course is required for completion of all graduate degrees in the Department of Fine Arts.

ARTH 643. Independent Study

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Credit according to achievement.

ARTH 644. Independent Study

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Credit according to achievement.

ARTH 645. Thesis Guidance

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail

ARTH 646. Thesis Guidance

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail

ARTH 647. Introduction to Critical and Curatorial Studies I

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: An introduction to curatorial practice of the last 30 years. Focusing on the curator's increasingly prominent role in the reception and synthesis of contemporary art, the course explores developments in exhibition design in terms of art production, international exchange, globalization, and critical theory.
• Note: Cross-listed with CCS 647.
• Note: A student may only receive credit for only one of the following courses: ARTH 547, CCS 547, ARTH 647, CCS 647.

ARTH 648. Critical and Curatorial Studies II

• Prerequisite(s): ARTH 547, or CCS 547, or ARTH 647, or CCS 647, or consent of instructor.
• Description: This seminar is structured as a curatorial practicum. Students work with the professor to develop and produce an exhibition from the university's print collection. Throughout the semester, weekly readings and presentations focus on contemporary exhibition practice as well as on the theoretical and critical concerns undergirding the student's developing exhibition.
• Note: Cross-listed with CCS 648.
• Note: A student may receive credit for only one of the following courses: ARTH 548, ARTH 648, CCS 548 and CCS 648.
• Note: Formerly taught as Museum Methods II.

ARTH 651. Topics in Ancient Art

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in ancient art and architecture.

ARTH 661. Topics in Medieval Art

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in medieval art and architecture.

ARTH 671. Special Topics in Renaissance Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in art and architecture of the Renaissance. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 1 - Pre-1750 requirement.

ARTH 681. Topics in Baroque Art

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in art and architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries.

ARTH 693. Topics in Modern Architecture

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in modern architecture.

ARTH 695. Special Topics in American Art

• Term Typically Offered: Occasionally Offered
• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced study on selected topics in American art and architecture. May be taken under different subtitles to a maximum of 12 hours.
• Note: May be used to satisfy the Period/Area 2 - after-1750 requirement.

ARTH 699. Topics in Urban History

• Prerequisite(s): Consent of instructor.
• Description: Advanced research in urban history from an architectural standpoint.

ARTH 743. Directed Reading for Comprehensive Exams (Major)

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail
• Prerequisite(s): Completion of coursework for the PhD. To be taken by doctoral students who have completed all coursework and are preparing for the major comprehensive exam.
• Description:
• Note: May be repeated up to 12 hours but only 2 hours count towards degree requirements.

ARTH 744. Directed Readings for Comprehensive Exams (Minor)

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail
• Prerequisite(s): Completion of all coursework for the PhD. To be taken by doctoral students who have completed all coursework and are preparing for the minor comprehensive exam.
• Description:
• Note: May be repeated up to 9 hours but only 1 hour counts toward degree requirements.

ARTH 745. Dissertation Research

• Grading Basis: Pass/Fail
• Prerequisite(s): Permission of dissertation director.