Undergraduate Courses

The courses listed below are provided by Student Information Services (SIS). This listing provides a snapshot of immediately available courses within this department and may not be complete. Course registration information can be found at https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/.

Please consult the online course catalog for cross-listed courses and full course information.

Column one has the course number and section. Other columns show the course title, days offered, instructor's name, room number, if the course is cross-referenced with another program, and a option to view additional course information in a pop-up window.

Introduction to Art History II
AS.010.102 (01)

This introductory course surveys major developments in the arts primarily in Europe and North America from the fourteenth century to the present day, looking in particular at painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and, starting in the twentieth century, new media. Topics to be considered include the landmark innovations of Renaissance artists and theorists; the drama of Baroque art; the impact of the Enlightenment on eighteenth-century art; artistic responses to the advent of modernity; and the emergence of abstraction, the avant-garde, and a range of new mediums during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the artistic practices and theories under consideration relate to their specific historical, intellectual, social, political, and geographical contexts, and we will also consider the roles that works of art and artists played in shaping many of those very same contexts.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AM
  • Instructor: Campbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Art History II
AS.010.102 (02)

This introductory course surveys major developments in the arts primarily in Europe and North America from the fourteenth century to the present day, looking in particular at painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and, starting in the twentieth century, new media. Topics to be considered include the landmark innovations of Renaissance artists and theorists; the drama of Baroque art; the impact of the Enlightenment on eighteenth-century art; artistic responses to the advent of modernity; and the emergence of abstraction, the avant-garde, and a range of new mediums during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the artistic practices and theories under consideration relate to their specific historical, intellectual, social, political, and geographical contexts, and we will also consider the roles that works of art and artists played in shaping many of those very same contexts.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AM
  • Instructor: Campbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Art History II
AS.010.102 (03)

This introductory course surveys major developments in the arts primarily in Europe and North America from the fourteenth century to the present day, looking in particular at painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and, starting in the twentieth century, new media. Topics to be considered include the landmark innovations of Renaissance artists and theorists; the drama of Baroque art; the impact of the Enlightenment on eighteenth-century art; artistic responses to the advent of modernity; and the emergence of abstraction, the avant-garde, and a range of new mediums during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the artistic practices and theories under consideration relate to their specific historical, intellectual, social, political, and geographical contexts, and we will also consider the roles that works of art and artists played in shaping many of those very same contexts.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
  • Instructor: Campbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 1/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Introduction to Art History II
AS.010.102 (04)

This introductory course surveys major developments in the arts primarily in Europe and North America from the fourteenth century to the present day, looking in particular at painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and, starting in the twentieth century, new media. Topics to be considered include the landmark innovations of Renaissance artists and theorists; the drama of Baroque art; the impact of the Enlightenment on eighteenth-century art; artistic responses to the advent of modernity; and the emergence of abstraction, the avant-garde, and a range of new mediums during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Throughout the semester, we will explore how the artistic practices and theories under consideration relate to their specific historical, intellectual, social, political, and geographical contexts, and we will also consider the roles that works of art and artists played in shaping many of those very same contexts.

  • Credits: 4.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PM
  • Instructor: Campbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Postwar Art, 1945-1989
AS.010.200 (01)

Critical survey of developments in the visual arts primarily in Europe and the United States from 1945 to the end of the Cold War, ranging from painting and sculpture to performance, photography, and video, with emphasis on the critical concepts and the aesthetic, social, and historical implications of new forms of artistic production and dissemination. Visits to the BMA and Special Collections, conditions permitting.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Warnock, Molly
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/15
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Writing Systems of the Ancient Americas
AS.010.302 (01)

This course explores writing as both technology and social process. It surveys several Indigenous writing and notational systems of the Americas, focusing in particular on Maya glyphic script. In this class, students will learn to “read” Maya script, interpret complex artistic programs and decipher numbers, dates and names of historical figures. The course will also discuss the ways in which archaeology can inform or unsettle written narratives, with implications for approaching contested histories today.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Rossi, Franco
  • Room:  
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 6/20
  • PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

Transformations of an Empire: Power, Religion, and the Arts in Medieval Rome
AS.010.303 (01)

This course investigates the impact of political, religious, and social change for the making of art and architecture in the city of Rome from Constantine the Great (ca. 274-337 CE) until 1308, when the papal court moved to Avignon. From being a thriving metropolis and the political center of an empire in a pagan, multi-ethnical society, Rome became a small town of a few thousand inhabitants dwelling in the ancient ruins under the spiritual leadership of a powerless Christian bishop and unprotected from the invasions of the migrating peoples from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Later transformations concern the rise to political power of the popes, achieved by the military alliance with the Frankish dynasty of Charlemagne around 800, and the controversy over the superiority of power between the German emperors and the Roman popes. How did the transformation from worldly to religious power affect the architecture of public buildings in the city? What strategies were developed to visually promote the new religious leaders of the city, the popes, and the new Christian God? How did the new status of Rome as one of the most important Christian pilgrim sites with its countless bodies of Early Christian martyrs in the catacombs outside the city influence urban development? And finally, what impact did the economical ups and downs in these periods of transition have for the arts? As we try to reconstruct the ‘image’ and the appearance of medieval Rome, this course discusses ideas and concepts behind different forms of leadership, both political and religious, as they intersect with the power of the arts and the self-referential character of a city that is obsessed with its own past.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Zchomelidse, Nino
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 3/15
  • PosTag(s): HART-MED

Blood, Gold, and Souls: The Arts of the Spanish Empire
AS.010.325 (01)

From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, visual forms and practices linked such far-flung places as Mexico City and Naples, Manila and Lima, Cuzco and Antwerp, Quito and Madrid: all cities in the Spanish Empire. This course is conceived as a voyage, moving city by city to explore objects that connected Spain’s vast holdings. We will investigate how the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church used visual strategies to consolidate political power and instill religious faith across the world; and, alternatively, we will consider how local conditions, concerns, and resistance reshaped those efforts. This course surveys a diverse range of artistic production: religious paintings and sculptures; maps used for imperial surveillance; luxury goods crafted from shimmering feathers, ceramics, ivory, and precious metals; urban design and architecture from the ports of Europe to the highland outposts of the Andes; ephemeral cityscapes for civic performances. In examining such materials, students will be introduced to the art historical methods and theoretical concerns used to study a wide diversity of objects within an imperial frame.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Lower Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 3:00PM - 4:15PM
  • Instructor: Hyman, Aaron M.
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/25
  • PosTag(s): HART-RENBAR

Speaking of Color
AS.010.348 (01)

A critical survey of modernism through the lens of color, drawing upon a broad array of writings by artists, art critics and art historians, critical theorists, and philosophers. At issue here is the inherent relationality of colored phenomena. How, we will ask, has writing about color served to allegorize broader conceptions of knowledge formation, subjectivity, and collectivity under modernism? How has color been assigned to or associated rhetorically with various social and political others? And what kind of work has color been asked to do in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; postcolonial theory; and even ecocriticism? Among our readings: Goethe, Le Corbusier, Duchamp, Wittgenstein, Kristeva, Cavell, Morton, Taussig.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: T 4:00PM - 6:30PM
  • Instructor: Warnock, Molly
  • Room:  
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/8
  • PosTag(s): HART-MODERN

Art and Interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean from 2000 to 500 BCE
AS.010.349 (01)

The arts of Egypt, Greece and the Near East are typically taught separately from one another. However, the Mediterranean Sea has always served as a connector, and the diverse cultures of these areas were in close contact with one another for much of their histories. From 2000 to 500 BCE (the Middle/Late Bronze and Iron Ages), these interactions were particularly dynamic, resulting in a diversity of arts including wall frescoes, precious jewelry, and elaborate furnishings and weaponry. This course examines the arts of the interactions among Egyptians, Near Easterners, Greeks and others. It focuses special attention on the role of artistic products in intercultural relations, including trade, diplomacy, war, imperialism, and colonization.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: MW 12:00PM - 1:15PM
  • Instructor: Feldman, Marian
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 16/19
  • PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

Native American Art
AS.010.366 (01)

The works of Native American artists are examined and discussed in their respective social and historical contexts. Such works include Hopewell stone sculpture, Mimbres pictorial painting, and Tlingit guardian figures. We examine the concept of sacred landscape through analysis of monumental earthworks and effigy mounds, Anasazi architecture, and rock art. In conjunction with the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), and Johns Hopkins Special Collections, students will have access to collections for study.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 10:30AM - 11:45AM
  • Instructor: Deleonardis, Lisa
  • Room: Bloomberg 272
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/25
  • PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

The Stone and the Thread
AS.010.389 (01)

Advanced inquiry into imperial Inka architecture and fiber arts.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: TTh 1:30PM - 2:45PM
  • Instructor: Deleonardis, Lisa
  • Room: Gilman 50
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 14/25
  • PosTag(s): HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH

Historical and Conceptual Bases of Art History
AS.010.413 (01)

This course introduces students to the principal methods and theories of art history. Students will work through readings foundational for the discipline, texts that define key methodological consolidations in the twentieth century, and more recent (e.g. feminist, visual studies, global, post-colonial, and/or ecological) critiques and rethinking. Specific texts will vary by instructor, but the course seeks—in any instantiation—to include a plurality of perspectives.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Lakey, Christopher
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 2/10
  • PosTag(s): HART-THRY

The Cartographic Imaginary: Maps, Charts, and the Navigation of the Early Modern Globe
AS.010.414 (01)

In the early modern world, people traveled further and more routinely than ever before. This course looks at the tools used to facilitate such endeavors—from maps to navigational charts, from atlases to astrolabes. However, beyond mere logistical instruments for imperial expansion, colonial settlement, and commercial trade, these objects and pictures structured new ways of thinking about and imagining the world and its spaces. An armchair traveler in Amsterdam could envision a journey to and travel within a place like modern-day Indonesia; a Spaniard living in the highlands of present-day Bolivia could imagine, in period terms, “all the cities of the universe and more.” This course attends to excavating the representational economies forged from the mass-production and wide circulation of navigational objects and pictorialized territories. Though the focus will be on the early modern period, we will read broadly and engage a wide range of theories; and students are encouraged to use the tools we develop in class to research representation from any time and place.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: Th 4:00PM - 6:30PM
  • Instructor: Hyman, Aaron M.
  • Room: Gilman 50
  • Status: Waitlist Only
  • Seats Available: 0/10
  • PosTag(s): HART-RENBAR

The Art of Gothic Europe (1200-1500)
AS.010.460 (01)

This seminar investigates the change in artistic production from the early Middle Ages to the Gothic period through the lens of economic, intellectual, and scientific foundations. Seminars will focus on major artistic centers, such as Paris, London, Milan, Florence, Venice, Prague, and Cologne, as well as more focused topics such as private manuscript production, the rise of painter’s perspective, and the art of the courts.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: T 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Lakey, Christopher
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 5/10
  • PosTag(s): HART-MED

Classics Research Lab: The Baltimore Casts Project
AS.040.426 (01)

Classics Research Lab: The Baltimore Casts Project will continue work begun in Fall 2020 researching a remarkable collection of plaster casts of classical Greek and Roman sculptures, created ca. 1879 for the Peabody Institute’s art gallery. Such cast collections were a highly valued cultural resource in Europe and North America, produced for major museums, academic institutions and wealthy individuals. Because of the technical process of the cast formation, based directly upon the ancient sculptural surface, cast collections brought contact with the actual ancient artifacts into temporally and spatially distant contexts—including the burgeoning urban space of 19th century Baltimore. In Spring 2021, the Lab will continue archival/field research on the cast collection’s context, content, formation, and usage by the people of Baltimore, and its eventual disbanding. We will also begin construction of the virtual exhibition that reassembles the collection’s member objects, charting their biographies and current locations. A major dimension of the lab’s research is contextualizing the casts in Baltimore of the mid 19th to mid-20th centuries, considering different forms of access and restriction to ancient culture that were forming throughout the city and its diverse population, including who truly had access to the cast collection in Mount Vernon, and in which capacities.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: M 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Anderson, Emily S.K.
  • Room: Ames 234
  • Status: Approval Required
  • Seats Available: 6/12
  • PosTag(s): n/a

Seminar in Research Methods in Near Eastern Studies: Investigating Gender and Sexuality in Mesopotamian Art
AS.130.420 (01)

This writing intensive seminar examines how artistic products expressed and constructed gender identities and notions of sexuality in ancient Mesopotamia from the 4th millennium to the Hellenistic period. Using a variety of case studies, students will develop skills in specific research areas such as critical reading, analysis, and interpretation that will lead to a final research paper.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: W 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Feldman, Marian
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 4/6
  • PosTag(s): ARCH-ARCH

Critical Issues in Art Conservation
AS.389.340 (01)

The course examines recent controversies in the conservation of major global art works and sites, raising questions concerning the basic theoretical assumptions, practical methods and ethical implications of art conservation. Cross-Listed with History of Art and Anthropology

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: F 1:30PM - 4:00PM
  • Instructor: Balachandran, Sanchita
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 16/25
  • PosTag(s): ARCH-ARCH

Visualizing Africa
AS.389.405 (01)

Examines the history of African art in the Euro-American world, focusing on the ways that Western institutions have used African artworks to construct narratives about Africa and its billion residents.

  • Credits: 3.00
  • Level: Upper Level Undergraduate
  • Days/Times: T 6:30PM - 9:00PM
  • Instructor: Tervala, Kevin Dixon
  • Room:  
  • Status: Open
  • Seats Available: 6/15
  • PosTag(s): INST-GLOBAL

Course # (Section) Title Day/Times Instructor Room PosTag(s) Info
AS.010.102 (01)Introduction to Art History IIMW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 10:00AM - 10:50AMCampbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver 
AS.010.102 (02)Introduction to Art History IIMW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 11:00AM - 11:50AMCampbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver 
AS.010.102 (03)Introduction to Art History IIMW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PMCampbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver 
AS.010.102 (04)Introduction to Art History IIMW 12:00PM - 1:15PM, F 12:00PM - 12:50PMCampbell, Stephen, Rustem, Unver 
AS.010.200 (01)Postwar Art, 1945-1989TTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMWarnock, Molly HART-MODERN
AS.010.302 (01)Writing Systems of the Ancient AmericasTTh 12:00PM - 1:15PMRossi, Franco HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH
AS.010.303 (01)Transformations of an Empire: Power, Religion, and the Arts in Medieval RomeMW 12:00PM - 1:15PMZchomelidse, Nino HART-MED
AS.010.325 (01)Blood, Gold, and Souls: The Arts of the Spanish EmpireMW 3:00PM - 4:15PMHyman, Aaron M. HART-RENBAR
AS.010.348 (01)Speaking of ColorT 4:00PM - 6:30PMWarnock, Molly HART-MODERN
AS.010.349 (01)Art and Interactions in the Eastern Mediterranean from 2000 to 500 BCEMW 12:00PM - 1:15PMFeldman, Marian HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH
AS.010.366 (01)Native American ArtTTh 10:30AM - 11:45AMDeleonardis, LisaBloomberg 272HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH
AS.010.389 (01)The Stone and the ThreadTTh 1:30PM - 2:45PMDeleonardis, LisaGilman 50HART-ANC, ARCH-ARCH
AS.010.413 (01)Historical and Conceptual Bases of Art HistoryM 1:30PM - 4:00PMLakey, Christopher HART-THRY
AS.010.414 (01)The Cartographic Imaginary: Maps, Charts, and the Navigation of the Early Modern GlobeTh 4:00PM - 6:30PMHyman, Aaron M.Gilman 50HART-RENBAR
AS.010.460 (01)The Art of Gothic Europe (1200-1500)T 1:30PM - 4:00PMLakey, Christopher HART-MED
AS.040.426 (01)Classics Research Lab: The Baltimore Casts ProjectM 1:30PM - 4:00PMAnderson, Emily S.K.Ames 234
AS.130.420 (01)Seminar in Research Methods in Near Eastern Studies: Investigating Gender and Sexuality in Mesopotamian ArtW 1:30PM - 4:00PMFeldman, Marian ARCH-ARCH
AS.389.340 (01)Critical Issues in Art ConservationF 1:30PM - 4:00PMBalachandran, Sanchita ARCH-ARCH
AS.389.405 (01)Visualizing AfricaT 6:30PM - 9:00PMTervala, Kevin Dixon INST-GLOBAL