Graduate Courses

Spring 2024

Leonardo da Vinci: Lives and Afterlives of a Premodern Artist
AS.010.616 (01)

Beginning in the present, the course will examine how popular constructions of “Da Vinci” are used to legitimate contemporary obsessions with art, genius, and technological innovation. We will examine how, since the 1500s, the biography and “character” of Leonardo has been produced, often in the absence of historical evidence, and the cultural and political interests that these productions serve. The primary focus of the course will be a revisionist approach to the writings and imagery of Leonardo, to be considered with regard to questions of artistic selfhood in the Renaissance, and of the artisan as author figure.

Credits: 3.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: Th 4:30PM - 7:00PM
Instructor: Campbell, Stephen
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/6
PosTag(s): HART-RENEM

On Weaving: Feminism, Ecology, Care
AS.010.618 (01)

How might a critical and material art history contribute to contemporary debates in theory? Feminist and queer theories, on the one hand, and ecological thought, on the other, have often turned to metaphors of weaving in their attempt to think antihierarchical forms of relationality. Against models of autonomous selfhood, weaving is evoked to foreground the material fact of our interdependence with human and other forms of life, and to articulate relations that are all too often discounted in western liberal cultures – along with the care work that goes into maintaining them. This seminar lends texture to metaphors of weaving by looking at material practices. We consider how the study of textile and fiber arts informs theoretical concerns, while also attending to the ways in which our reading of theory impacts our appreciation of artistic techniques and practices. The course will include two group excursions on Saturdays to the exhibition “Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, sponsored by the Faculty-Student Engagement and Enrichment Fund..

Credits: 3.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Schopp, Caroline Lillian
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 2/6
PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Obsessed with the Past: the Art and Architecture of Medieval Rome
AS.010.639 (01)

In antiquity, Rome became the capital of an empire, its growing status reflected in its sophisticated urban planning, its architecture, and the arts. While an abundance of studies explores the revival of this glorious past in the Renaissance, this seminar discusses various ways of the reception of antiquity during the medieval period. We address the practice of using spolia in medieval architecture, the appropriation of ancient pagan buildings for the performance of Christian cult practices, the continuation of making (cult)images and their veneration, the meaning and specific visuality of Latin script (paleography and epigraphy) in later medieval art. We discuss the revival and systematic study of ancient knowledge (f. ex. medicine, astronomy, and the liberal arts), in complex allegorical murals. As we aim to reconstruct the art and architecture of medieval Rome, this course discusses ideas and concepts behind different forms of re-building and picturing the past, as they intersect with the self-referential character of a city that is obsessed with its own history.

Credits: 3.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Zchomelidse, Nino
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 6/6
PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

The Passion and Resurrection from Middle Ages to Modernity: Image, Narrative, Drama, Film
AS.010.659 (01)

What makes the Gospel story of Jesus of Nazareth’s arrest, trial, execution, burial, and resurrection not only Christianity's defining narrative but one of the enduring “root paradigms” of western culture? This seminar takes a long-range look at the transformations in European religious consciousness surrounding the Passion narratives, and explores the myriad developments in story-telling, image-making, and play-acting they urged forward. Our historical survey moves from the earliest icons associated with the Holy Places in Jerusalem, through the artful fictions conjured in the realist tradition by painters such as Hieronymus Bosch and Peter Paul Rubens, to late medieval Passion plays, Passion meditation and cult-forms, and finally to the silver-screen phenomenon that includes Paolo Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (1964), Martin Scorcese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), and Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" (2004).

Credits: 3.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:30PM
Instructor: Merback, Mitchell
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/6
PosTag(s): HART-MED, HART-RENEM

Craft and Interaction in the Near East and Aegean during the Bronze and Iron Ages
AS.010.680 (01)

This graduate seminar investigates the intersection of crafting and cultural interaction among the regions of the Aegean, eastern Mediterranean and Near East from 3000-500 BCE (Bronze and Iron Ages).

Credits: 3.00
Level: Graduate
Days/Times: Th 1:30PM - 4:00PM
Instructor: Anderson, Emily S.K.; Feldman, Marian
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 9/12
PosTag(s): HART-ANC

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (01)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Campbell, Stephen
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (02)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Feldman, Marian
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (03)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Merback, Mitchell
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (04)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Schopp, Caroline Lillian
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (05)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Stager, Jennifer M S
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (07)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Liu, Yinxing
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (08)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Zchomelidse, Nino
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (09)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Hyman, Aaron M.
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (10)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Brown, Rebecca Mary
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Research/Problems
AS.010.802 (11)

This course is for students who wish or need special instruction in areas of art history not included in the currently offered course

Credits: 3.00 - 9.00
Level: Graduate Independent Academic Work
Days/Times:
Instructor: Rustem, Unver
Room:
Status: Open
Seats Available: 5/5
PosTag(s): n/a

Individual Work
AS.010.804 (01)