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: Waitlist Only
Seats Available: 0/8
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: 1/10
PosTag(s): HART-ANC

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 (Mitchell)
Room: Gilman 177
Status: Open
Seats Available: 4/12
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: 2/4
PosTag(s): n/a

Special Rsrch & Problems
AS.010.801 (01)