Graduate Courses

Fall 2021

The Epistemology of Photography
AS.010.607 (01)

This seminar will ask how photography produces ways of knowing: how does photography’s reality-effect shape its dissemination and absorption? Is photography’s emergence during the colonial era coincidental or catalytic? How is memory (re)constituted in a photography-saturated world? What kinds of histories does photography encourage and discourage? Is a photograph an object? We will read across disciplines (literature, anthropology, history, history of art, political science, theory) to investigate the epistemology of photography and the photograph.

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: M 4:30PM - 7:00PM
Instructor: Brown, Rebecca Mary
Room: Gilman 119
Status: Open
Seats Available: 7/8
PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Seminar in Near Eastern Art:
AS.010.611 (01)

TBA

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 3:30PM
Instructor: Feldman, Marian
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 10/10
PosTag(s): HART-ANC

Image and relic: aesthetics, materiality, and function of late medieval reliquaries and paintings
AS.010.628 (01)

This seminar investigates the complex relationships between image and relic in the later Middle Ages. While the relic was usually hidden from view in lavishly decorated containers made before 1200, visual access to the relic was key for the conception of later medieval and early modern reliquaries. We will address aesthetic and material aspects of reliquaries, with a focus on translucent qualities of enamel, rock crystal, and reversed glass. Another emphasis is set on late medieval paintings with relic depositories, either in the frame or hidden in the wooden panel itself. We will discuss formal qualities of reliquaries, techniques of their making, iconography and questions about their authenticity. Those issues will be investigated by raising also larger theoretical and historiographic questions.

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: M 3:30PM - 5:30PM
Instructor: Zchomelidse, Nino
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 10/10
PosTag(s): n/a

Formless / Nameless / Abstract in Premodern Art and Architecture
AS.010.630 (01)

This seminar explores recent approaches to the great domain of abstraction before modernity: non-figurative surfaces and depths, patterned and unpatterned ornament, chance and potential images, the revelation of "Nature's painting" in raw matter (marbles, gemstones, burled wood, mother of pearl, feathers, polished metals), and their virtuoso simulation in the painter's art. How should art historical writing negotiate the uncertain zone(s) between formlessness and figuration, materiality and ornamentation, thing-ness and representation, metamorphosis and intermediality, presence and meaning? What adjacent disciplines (history of science, anthropology, comparative religion, theology) should be enlisted for the work of interpretation? Authors include Baltrušaitis, Didi-Huberman, Gamboni, Jeanneret, Krüger, Bynum, Vandenbroeck, Barry, Weddigan, Fricke and others. Student research projects in any chronological subfield or geographical area -- from the ancient world to the Enlightenment -- will be encouraged.

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: W 4:00PM - 6:00PM
Instructor: Merback, Mitchell
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 12/12
PosTag(s): n/a

Death and the State: Archaeologies of Governance in the Americas
AS.010.635 (01)

This seminar explores the relationship between death and governance, with a focus on the archaeology and art history of the Americas. Our readings will examine key social and anthropological theories of death, questioning whether and how they might apply to the archaeological record through in-class archaeological case studies. Themes include interactions with ancestors and spirits, records of political struggles and war, questions about race and ethnicity, incidents of mass killings, debates on power and sovereignty, crime and punishment, and the archaeology of institutional care, science and medicine.

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: W 4:30PM - 7:00PM
Instructor: Rossi, Franco
Room: Gilman 50
Status: Open
Seats Available: 20/20
PosTag(s): n/a

The Double: Identity and Difference in Art Since 1900
AS.010.661 (01)

"Doubling" is a grammar of resemblance and difference: in works of doubling a presentation of two shapes, images or bodies, often in a symmetrical format, forces us to compare them --to perceive how they are alike and unalike. The art of doubling causes us to “see double” and to see ourselves in the act of seeing; it forces us to perceive the differences between things and bodies, catalyzing a reflection on identity. Doubling is a recurring theme of modern and contemporary art, apparent in painting, sculpture, photography, video, film, and performance. While few artists are strictly “doublers,” many practitioners have embraced tactics of repetition and reversal, staged perceptual contradictions, or explored doubled and divided selves (Doppelgängers, shadows, twins, and pairs); the course will aim to understand why. The class is organized in anticipation of an exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Art in May 2022.

Credits: 0.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
Instructor: Meyer, James
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/4
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Rsrch & Problems
AS.010.801 (01)