Art and Archaeology

Academic Year: 
2020-21
Department for Program: 
Art and Archaeology
Address: 
McCormick Hall
Phone: 
609-258-5678
Website: 
Department of Art and Archaeology
Program offerings: 
Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Studies
Andy Watsky
Graduate Program Administrator
Diane Schulte

Overview

The graduate curriculum in the history of art at Princeton University is one of the oldest in the country, and for many decades the department has played a leading role in training teachers, scholars, and curators in this area. At Princeton, graduate work in this discipline has certain special advantages. Because the number of graduate students is limited, all courses are small, intimate seminars in which there is maximum opportunity for free and informal discussion. The graduate courses given by members of the department are, from time to time, supplemented by courses or lectures given by members of the Institute for Advanced Study or invited scholars. Graduate study is carried out within one of seven broad fields: 1) Ancient, 2) Byzantine and Medieval, 3) Renaissance and Baroque, 4) Modern and Contemporary, 5) East Asian, 6) Islamic and 7) African.

Graduate studies in art and archaeology are designed to prepare students to become creative scholars and teachers in the history of art. A student wishing to begin graduate work in the department should have had a sound liberal education as an undergraduate, with courses in history, literature, at least two foreign languages and preferably, although not necessarily, a major in the history of art. During the first year of graduate study, students who have had limited undergraduate preparation in the history of art are expected to remedy any deficiency by doing individual reading and taking pertinent undergraduate courses, which may be adjusted to the graduate level by means of special preceptorials, readings, and reports. A single student or a small group may initiate a reading course on a topic of agreed interest supervised by a member of the faculty.

Applicants who already hold a master’s degree have a distinct advantage in their preparation; however, because Princeton has no course credit system, specific advanced credit for prior work in the field cannot be offered. Applicants for graduate study in the department are admitted only as candidates for the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). Please note that the department considers the subfield indicated at the time of application, and to which a student is admitted, to be binding. Transfer among subfields is in most cases not possible.

Students have the opportunity to work with objects in the collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and to help organize exhibitions. They also have their own active organization that meets frequently and sponsors a series of lectures by art historians from other colleges and universities.

Applying

Application Deadline: 
December 1 - 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time
Program Length: 
5 years
Application Fee: 
$95
Application Requirements: 
Statement of Academic Purpose
Resume/Curriculum Vitae
Recommendation Letters
Transcripts
Fall Semester Grades
English Language Tests
GRE : 
General Test optional/not required
Additional Departmental Requirements: 

Sample of written work. Applicants are required to select a subplan when applying.

Optional: Applicants may submit a statement with their application, briefly describing how their academic interests, background, or life experiences would advance Princeton’s commitment to diversity within the Graduate School and to training individuals in an increasingly diverse society.  Please submit a succinct statement of no more than 500 words.

Ph.D.

Ph.D. Requirements: 
Courses:

The graduate program in Art and Archaeology is a five-year program. This five-year period is referred to as “regular enrollment.” Graduate study is carried out within one of seven broad fields: 1) Ancient, 2) Byzantine and Medieval, 3) Renaissance and Baroque, 4) Modern and Contemporary, 5) East Asian, 6) Islamic and 7) African. 

Students in the Ancient field and the East Asian field will take a total of 15 courses. In the Ancient field, these 15 courses must include all Ancient art/archeology courses offered in four of the first five terms of a student's enrollment. Some of these Ancient courses may be audited, with the approval of the student's adviser. The 15 courses must also include: ART 502 (a no-credit course), ART 500, and one non-Western course. Those working in Greek and Roman fields will take both Greek and Roman History Proseminars (offered in Classics); and at least one 300-level literature course in Classics (i.e., a text-based course in either Greek or Latin literature). 

All other students will normally take four full semesters of coursework totaling 12 courses. One half of all courses must be at the 400-level or higher. If a graduate student chooses to take a 200- or 300-level course within the department, the course will be designated as a graduate reading course (700-level). If a student chooses to take a 200-level course outside of the department, the student must show that they are performing at the graduate level. Students are expected to take courses with each faculty member within their particular field of specialization. Students in all fields are required to take ART 500. In their first two years in the program, all graduate students, in all areas of study, are required to register for and participate (*/No Credit) in the Graduate Seminar (ART 502). This will meet on the mornings following talks given by speakers in the department's lecture series. These seminars will focus on topics (and/or readings) chosen by our invited lecturers. Attendance at both the lectures and the seminars is a requirement. Students are encouraged to consult with their advisers in selecting classes in other departments or at other institutions.

Language(s):

Students in all fields except Ancient and East Asian must satisfy the department’s language requirements by passing a reading proficiency exam as soon as possible after enrolling, standing for at least one exam early in the first term, and completing all language requirements before taking the general examination. Students will be expected to take one of the exams offered by the Department of German and the Department of French and Italian each fall semester; other relevant language exams are arranged through the department. The graduate secretary will inform students when the language tests will be held. An examination from another institution does not fulfill the Princeton requirement.

Those who fail to pass this exam (and only those) may petition to take a comparable exam offered by the department in the spring. The successful completion of summer language courses taught on the Princeton campus will also count for the language requirement.

Ancient
Modern Languages: Candidates for the Ph.D. in Ancient art and archeology are required to demonstrate reading knowledge of German as well as another modern language appropriate to the student's special field. Language examinations shall be arranged by the department, or may be satisfied, in certain instances, by coursework. As a general rule, elementary language courses will not count toward the 15 mandatory courses.

Ancient Languages: Students are expected to acquire proficiency in ancient languages. Those working in Egyptian are expected to have proficiency in Middle Egyptian, along with another area (i.e. Old or Late Egyptian, hieratic or Demotic) as it is relevant to their dissertation research. Those working in Greek or Roman art are required to pass sight exams in both Greek and Latin (administered by Classics) or to satisfy the proficiency requirement by coursework (a 300 level course).

East Asian
A candidate for the Ph.D. in Chinese art and archaeology is required to show proficiency in classical and modern Chinese, and a reading knowledge of Japanese. A candidate for the Ph.D. in Japanese art and archaeology is required to demonstrate proficiency in classical Japanese and/or kanbun, as appropriate to the candidate's specialization, and modern Japanese, and a reading knowledge of Chinese or a European language.

Islamic
Arabic, a second Middle Eastern language, and French or German.  Elementary language classes do not count toward the 15 required courses.

African
An African research language and French or German, to be determined in consultation with adviser. Elementary language classes do not count toward the 12 required courses.

All Other Fields
German and one other language, normally a Romance language. Elementary language classes do not count toward the twelve required courses.

General Exam:

The general examination is designed to ascertain a student’s general knowledge of the subject. Students in the Ancient and East Asian fields normally take the general examination at the end of the third year. Students in all other fields normally take the general examination at the end of the second or the beginning of the third year. Before scheduling of the examination may take place, students must have finalized all incomplete courses and language requirements.

Examinations are normally held during a stated 21-day period in October or January, or during a five-week period in April and May. A student’s examination committee consists of three or more members, at least two of whom shall normally hold the rank of assistant professor or higher on the faculty of Princeton University. Any external examiners must be of comparable standing in the scholarly community.  Examination committees in Ancient, East Asian, and African normally include faculty from other departments. For all others, examination committees are normally composed of departmental faculty members. For additional descriptions of the general examination in the Ancient and East Asian fields, see below. For all others, the general examination consists of one six-hour written and a two- to three-hour oral sessions. If a student fails the general examination, they may be recommended to stand for re-examination within a year. If unsuccessful the second time, degree candidacy automatically terminates.

Ancient
Typically, students in the Ancient field spend the first two and a half years in coursework. General exams are taken in the latter half of the third year. The general examination tests the candidate by means of an eight-hour written exam in Ancient art and archeology, and a four-hour written exam devoted to the general area of the dissertation. These are followed by a two-hour oral examination covering materials related to both written exams.

East Asian
The general examination, which normally takes place no later than May of the third year, is set jointly by the two departments. It is designed to test the candidate’s ability to integrate general, topical, and area knowledge in related fields chosen from the two departments (Art and Archaeology and East Asian Studies). It consists of a first-day examination in the general field of Chinese and Japanese art history and archaeology, with approximately six hours of writing in response to questions submitted by Department of Art and Archaeology faculty; a second-day examination in the field of the student’s dissertation, with questions and length to be determined by the student’s principal adviser; and a third-day examination in a related area of East Asian Studies given by a faculty member in the East Asian Studies program with whom the student has studied, with the faculty member determining the questions and length.

Qualifying for the M.A.:

The Master of Arts (M.A.) degree is normally an incidental degree on the way to full Ph.D. candidacy and is earned after a student successfully completes all course and language requirements, and passes a portion of the general examination: for students in Western art and African art, the written portion of generals; for East Asian art, the general and East Asian studies fields; and for classical archaeology, the eight-hour written general field. It may also be awarded to students who, for various reasons, leave the Ph.D. program, provided that these requirements have been met.

Teaching:

Teaching is viewed as an integral part of a distinguished graduate program, and students are encouraged to acquire teaching experience as teaching assistants. Students in their first year of graduate work, however, are not ordinarily allowed to teach by the Graduate School. Students who are approved by the department chair and the director of graduate studies to precept prior to the general examination are offered a one-time reduction in their course load equivalent to one seminar.

Dissertation and FPO:

The Ph.D. is awarded after the candidate’s doctoral dissertation has been accepted and the final public oral examination sustained.

Faculty

Chair

  • Rachael Z. DeLue

Director of Graduate Studies

  • Andrew M. Watsky

Director of Undergraduate Studies

  • Nathan T. Arrington

Professor

  • Charlie Barber
  • Rachael Z. DeLue
  • Hal Foster
  • Thomas D. Kaufmann
  • Michael Koortbojian
  • Anne McCauley
  • Chika O. Okeke-Agulu
  • Andrew M. Watsky

Associate Professor

  • Bridget A. Alsdorf
  • Nathan T. Arrington
  • Brigid Doherty
  • Irene V. Small
  • Cheng-hua Wang
  • Carolyn Yerkes

Assistant Professor

  • Basile C. Baudez
  • Patricia Blessing
  • Anna Arabindan Kesson
  • Beatrice E. Kitzinger
  • Carolina Mangone
  • Deborah A. Vischak

Associated Faculty

  • Leonard Barkan, Comparative Literature
  • Anthony T. Grafton, History
  • Michael W. Jennings, German
  • Spyros Papapetros, Architecture
  • Susan A. Stewart, English

Lecturer with Rank of Professor

  • James C. Steward

Lecturer

  • Ronni Baer
  • Caroline I. Harris
  • Bryan R. Just
  • Janet E. Kay
  • AnnMarie Perl
  • Veronica M. White

Visiting Lecturer with Rank of Professor

  • Yve-Alain H. Bois
For a full list of faculty members and fellows please visit the department or program website.

Courses

Permanent Courses

Courses listed below are graduate-level courses that have been approved by the program’s faculty as well as the Curriculum Subcommittee of the Faculty Committee on the Graduate School as permanent course offerings. Permanent courses may be offered by the department or program on an ongoing basis, depending on curricular needs, scheduling requirements, and student interest. Not listed below are undergraduate courses and one-time-only graduate courses, which may be found for a specific term through the Registrar’s website. Also not listed are graduate-level independent reading and research courses, which may be approved by the Graduate School for individual students.

ARC 525 Mapping the City: Cities and Cinema (also
ART 524
) This course examines the relationship between two forms of mapping the city: cinematic representations of urban space and architectural representations of urban form. It questions how shifts in urban form and plans for development or reconstruction give rise to cinematic representations. Required viewing of films every week in addition to required readings. Project on the general theme of mapping the city through cinema utilizing materials from films, urban texts, and readings.
ARC 548 Histories and Theories of 19th-Century Architecture (also
ART 585
) The seminar studies selected architectural projects, buildings, and writings from the nineteenth and late-eighteenth centuries in the context of their critical and historical reception, and their active influence on the theory of modern and contemporary design. Each year the seminar focuses on a specific topic, such as the relation between architecture and geology, ecology and material science, or the building projects and theoretical writings of an individual nineteenth-century architect examined in conjunction with the histories of art, culture, and science of the same period.
ARC 549 History and Theories of Architecture: 20th Century (also
ART 586
) An overview of the major themes running through modern architecture in the twentieth century. The seminar is based on a close reading of selected buildings and texts both by prominent and less prominent figures of the modern movement and its aftermath. Special emphasis is given to the historiography and the history of reception of modern architecture, as well as the cultural, aesthetic and scientific theories that have informed modern architectural debates, including organicism, vitalism, functionalism, structuralism, historicism and their opposites.
ARC 571 Research in Architecture (also
ART 581
/
MOD 573
) A research seminar in selected areas of aesthetics, art criticism, and architectural theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries on the notion of representation in art and architecture. This seminar is given to students in the doctoral program at the School of Architecture and to doctoral candidates in other departments.
ARC 572 Research in Architecture (Proseminar) (also
ART 582
) A research seminar in selected areas of aesthetics, art criticism, and architectural theory from the 18th to the 20th centuries on the notion of representation in art and architecture. This seminar is given to students in the doctoral program at the School of Architecture and to doctoral candidates in other departments.
ARC 576 Advanced Topics in Modern Architecture (also
MOD 502
/
ART 598
) Explores the critical transformation in the relationship between interior and exterior space in modern architecture, which is most evident in domestic space. Domestic space ceases to be simply bounded space in opposition to the outside, whether physical or social. An analysis of modern houses is used as a frame to register contemporary displacements of the relationship between public and private space, instigated by the emerging reality of the technologies of communicaton, including newspaper, telephone, radio, film, and television.
ARC 594 Topics in Architecture (also
MOD 504
/
HUM 593
/
ART 584
) This course covers various topics related to the history and theory of architecture.
ART 500 Proseminar in the History of Art A course that introduces students to questions and approaches (current and historical) that have shaped and that continue to shape the study of the History of Art.
ART 501 Introduction to Historiography Selected topics in the literature of art and architecture in Europe and the Americas from antiquity to the present.
ART 502A The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 502B The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 502C The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C, or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 502D The Graduate Seminar This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.
ART 512 Death in Greece: Archaeological Perspectives (also
CLA 516
/
HLS 524
) Chronological and thematic survey of the major funeral monuments, assemblages, and cemeteries of ancient Greece, from the Late Protogeometric to the Hellenistic periods. Course examines how material culture at the grave memorialized the deceased, comforted the living, and negotiated status. Students evaluate grave goods, tomb rituals, grave markers, cemetery layout, and the treatment of the body in their historical, social, and political contexts. Topics include: memory, gender, family, mortuary variability, the afterlife, the senses, ethnicity, and the dialectic presence/absence. Close work with objects from the PUAM collection.
ART 513 Seminar in Roman Art (also
CLA 518
) The seminar pursues research on a varying set of topics (differing every year) on ancient Roman art and architecture.
ART 514 Masculinity & Modern Art (also
GSS 514
) In this seminar we examine representations of masculinity in modern European and American art, exploring how the complexity of gender appears in art and its reception. How did masculinity contribute to artists¿ formal and conceptual concerns, from revolutionary France to postwar New York? Topics include the masculine body, artistic brotherhoods, homoeroticism, historical trauma, the gendered dynamics of the studio, the politics of virility, and psychoanalytic approaches to art history. Readings open onto broader issues of gender, sexuality, and aesthetics, and bring feminist and queer critical approaches to the table.
ART 515 Decolonizing Art History Art history's disciplinary origins are inextricable from European colonialism and imperialism, and often work to uphold racialized concepts of development, civilization, style. The contemporary practice of art history demands that we acknowledge these origins while imagining a decolonized art history for the present. Drawing from decolonial paradigms, recent scholarship, and foundational texts of critical race studies, we work to analyze and actively reconfigure conventions of field formation, research, and format. In keeping with the political imperative of praxis, students workshop research topics and problems individually and collectively.
ART 519 Greece and the Near East before the Persian Wars (also
CLA 523
/
HLS 519
) A study of the origins, nature, and impact of Greek contact with the Near East in the Iron Age. Course examines chronology; regional variation and distribution; technology and innovation; differences across media; modes of communication and exchange; patterns of consumption and display; and the social function of the "exotic." Analyzed with a view to changes and developments in settlement and society, particularly migration, colonization, social stratification, and the rise of the polis.
ART 520 Social Identities in Ancient Egypt (also
CLA 525
/
NES 501
) Ancient Egyptians, like all people, had multiple, intersecting aspects to their identity that were linked profoundly to their social communities. What kinds of objects, images, and material traditions linked ancient people together? What material forms acted as crucial modes of communication within communities and among them? We examine a wide range of material culture considering various sections of society, and we then look in-depth at several ancient sites to examine how these various groups intersected in shared spaces and across time.
ART 528 Memories of the Ancient Past The cultures of ancient Egypt and the ancient Middle East have been essential touchstones for Western and Middle Eastern cultures, as sources of identity, inspiration, competition, or the exotic other. This seminar considers how cultures throughout western history have looked at ancient Egypt and the Middle East, centering the roles of memory and materiality. Students develop independent research projects on this theme considering any time period, up to and including current events.
ART 529 Ancient Egyptian Kingship in Image, Architecture & Performance (also
CLA 528
/
AAS 529
) The institution of kingship was central to the ancient Egyptian worldview. Kings and their administrations sought to express the complex nature of a strong leader with access to the gods and secret knowledge, exceptional skill as a warrior and diplomat, and unrivaled power over and sacrifice to his people by using both mystery and overwhelming display. In this seminar we consider the nature of Egyptian kingship and how a vast body of material and visual culture shaped and expressed this essential concept from its origins in the beginning of the 4th millennium to the era of Roman rulers.
ART 535 Problems in Late Antique and Byzantine Art and Architecture (also
HLS 535
) Problems in art and architecture of the Eastern Roman Empire and culturally related areas from 300 to 1453.
ART 537 Seminar in Medieval Art (also
MED 500
) Intensive seminar on selective topics in Medieval art and theory from 400 to 1400.
ART 540 Color and Technology in the Arts Course addresses relationship between color and technology in the arts. It questions the proprieties of color materiality, nature of pigments and their usage. Quest for natural and synthetic colors emerging from laboratory research by alchemists and chemists. Hazardous scientific discoveries impacting the artistic field. Economic implications of color discovery and patenting. Color trends indicating social changes. Links between light and vision theory and applications in the arts. Recreation of artistic technology as a community self identification. Global exchange of color technology. Problems in conservation and display of colored objects.
ART 541 Seminar in Renaissance Art The seminar examines in detail selected thematic topics in Italian painting and sculpture.
ART 542 Art and Society in Renaissance Italy Seminar on selected topics in Italian art from 1300 to 1600, with special emphasis given to its social, religious, and cultural context. Problems of method in dealing with the contextual study of works of art are considered.
ART 545 The Geography of Art: World Art History Art has a place as well as a time. This course examines the geography of art, primarily in the early modern era. Examples are chosen from Europe and the Americas. A theoretical, historiographic, and historical investigation of issues, including ethnic and national identity, metropoles, regionalism, provincialism, peripheries, and artistic interchange, is explored.
ART 547 Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Architecture (also
ARC 552
) Advanced research in the history of architecture from 1400 to 1750. Topics vary, with the focus each year placed on important European centers and architects and on issues related to architectural theory and practice.
ART 548 The Color of Monochrome Sculpture This seminar examines the illusionistic effects that Baroque sculptors of marble, bronze and clay employed to rival the deceptiveness of painting. By studying sculptural ensembles by Bernini and his contemporaries in contrast to the works of earlier sculptors like Michelangelo and against paintings in the tradition of Titian, we explore the value and limits of painterly models for making and viewing sculpture. Our investigation also considers the limits of comparisons to painting and studies the strategies sculptors adopted to undermine illusionism and to assert an autonomous sculptural paradigm.
ART 553 Seminar in Central European Art (also
GER 553
) Topics in the art and culture of the central European region from 1500 to 1800.
ART 560 Art and the British Empire (also
AAS 560
) This seminar proceeds through a series of thematic and case studies ranging from Britain's early colonial expansion to the legacies of empire in contemporary art and museum practice. Topics include science and ethnography; the colonial picturesque; curiosity and collecting; slavery and visual representation; art and nationalism and readings are drawn from a range of disciplines.
ART 561 Painting and Literature in Nineteenth-Century France and England (also
ENG 549
/
FRE 561
) Course explores the dynamic interplay between painting, poetry, and fiction in 19th-century France and England. The focus is twofold: painters and paintings as protagonists in novels and short stories, and paintings inspired by literature. Themes include problems of narrative, translation, and illustration; changing theories of the relative strengths of painting and literature as artistic media; realism and the importance of descriptive detail; the representation of the artist as a social (or anti-social) actor; the representation of women as artists and models; and the artist's studio as a literary trope.
ART 562 Seminar in American Art Study of a particular artist, subject, medium, or movement in American art, primarily in the 19th century and ordinarily organized around significant holdings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Possible topics include landscape and still-life painting, Homer and Eakins, and American drawings and watercolors.
ART 564 Seminar in 19th-Century Art Seminar will focus on a specific aspect of art, history, theory, and criticism in Europe between 1789 and 1913. Possible topics include art and revolution, nationalism and the arts, orientalism and primitivism, and theories of modernism.
ART 565 Seminar in Modernist Art and Theory The seminar focuses on the study of a particular problem in modernism. Possible topics include the advent of modernist abstraction, the different uses of advant-garde devices of collage and photomontage, the readymade and the construction, art and technology, art and the unconscious, art and political revolution, and antimodernism.
ART 566 Seminar in Contemporary Art and Theory The seminar focuses on the study of a particular problem in contemporary art and theory. Possible topics include the definition of postwar painting, the rise of neo-avant-gardes in the 1950s, the expanded field of art in the 1960s, the advent of new mediums (e.g., performance and video) in the 1970s, and the question of postmodernism in the 1980s.
ART 567 Seminar in History of Photography (also
MOD 567
) The seminar is concerned with the work of a single European or American photographer or with a significant movement in the 20th century.
ART 569 State of the Field: Historiography of Chinese Painting (also
EAS 569
) The course focuses on the intellectual stock of the field of Chinese painting. It offers an opportunity to rethink the topics and issues that important studies in the field have addressed. The goal of the seminar is to guide the Ph.D. students on how to tackle these topics and issues raised by previous scholarship.
ART 572 Chinese Painting in the Collection of PUAM (also
EAS 573
) This seminar teaches PhD students how to develop research topics and exhibition themes from their first hand experiences with actual art objects. It makes extensive use of PUAM's excellent collection of Chinese art, which includes diverse genres and categories of paintings that span more than one thousand years. The course also incorporates new scholarly trends that tackle how to interact with art objects and contemplate their visuality and materiality.
ART 574 Seminar in Japanese Art and Archaeology Museum seminar in the Japanese field, including problems in the connoisseurship of paintings, calligraphies, sculptures, and other categories of art objects.
ART 575 Antiquarianism in Chinese Art (also
EAS 571
) Scholars have long recognized the importance of the theme of antiquarianism in Chinese art. However, recent scholarly interest in the issues associated with copying, replication and multiple temporalities in art provides new perspectives on and approaches to this old theme and greatly enriches related discussions on it. This seminar takes a new look at the recurring tendency of antiquarianism in Chinese art by engaging with four important mediums (painting, calligraphy, bronzes and ceramics) and their frequent incidents of transmediality.
ART 580 Islam and Modern Art The course is dedicated to encounters between 'Islamic Art' and culture on one hand and Western modernity on the other. It reconstructs the historical and theoretical framework of this encounter and studies the following artistic realms: calligraphy and ornament (graffiti -pentagonal tiling and the motif 'woman in ornament'); architecture and contemporary museum presentation of 'Islamic Art', modern painting and Islamic culture (Klee, Matisse); contemporary artists with Iranian or Arabic background; and photography and film (women photographers from Iran and the Arab world and Iranian filmmakers).
ART 583 Textile Architecture (also
ARC 583
) This seminar examines the theoretical and practical intersections between architecture and woven materials across time, focusing on three key moments: the imagined origins of architecture in a non-Western, a-historical past: textiles' place in transforming built architecture; and twentieth-century experiments in which the figure of cloth allowed for expressing ideas that often exceeded what standing material realities were then possible for architects.
ART 589 Seminar in 19th-Century Photography Just as there was initially no one process that was identified as what we call "photography" today, there was no one moment of "invention" or clear idea of what making pictures with light might accomplish. At a time when it has become fashionable to speak of the "death of photography," this seminar returns to the earliest experiments with light, silver salts, and cameras between 1789 and 1848 in order to reconsider what photography was, why it embodied the ideals of "modernity," and how it can be located within practices ranging from drawing, printmaking, magic, optical amusements, art, natural philosophy, and industrial production.
ART 599 The Greek House (also
CLA 597
/
PAW 599
/
HLS 599
) A study of the archaeology of the Greek house (Early Archaic huts through Hellenistic palaces). Emphasis on the close reading of archaeological sites and assemblages and the integration of literary with material evidence. Topics include the discovery of houses, the identification of farms, the integration of the house with urban plans and natural landscapes, the organization and use of space, gender, domestic economies, and religious practice. Attention devoted to social, political, and regional dynamics; to the concept of the "private" in ancient Greece; and to questioning the heuristic value of the term "house".
CEE 538 Holistic Analysis of Heritage Structures (also
ART 538
) Heritage structures represent an important cultural legacy. First, this course identifies particularities relative to structural analysis of heritage structures; it correlates the space and time (where and when the structure was built, used, upgraded, damaged, repaired), with construction materials, techniques, and contemporary architectural forms. Second, the course presents the methods of structural analysis that take into account the identified particularities, that are efficient in finding solutions, and that are simple and intuitive in terms of application and interpretation.
CLA 548 Problems in Ancient History (also
HLS 548
/
PAW 548
/
ART 532
) Study of a topic involving both ancient Greece and ancient Rome, such as imperialism or slavery, from a comparative perspective.
EAS 514 Special Topics in Chinese History (also
ART 570
) Selected problems on the historiography of the early, medieval, or late empires with a focus on literati thought, religion, or literature in historical context. Working knowledge of classical Chinese strongly recommended.
ENG 572 Introduction to Critical Theory (also
ART 516
/
COM 576
/
HUM 572
/
MOD 572
) The ethical, historical, and political dimensions of Jacques Derrida's thought and writings.
GER 520 Topics in Literary and Cultural Theory (also
ART 588
) Course treats a wide range of theoretical and historical issues concerning the interpretation of literary and cultural materials. Topics include psychoanalytic approaches to literature, the Frankfurt School and its legacy, feminist theory, German-Jewish Acculturation, relations between literature and the other arts, theories of literary reception, and fascism and culture.
SLA 547 Worlds of Form: Russian Formalism and Constructivism (also
ART 511
) The seminar examines the ways Russian formalists and constructivists problematized the role and importance of form in their writing. We explore systemic views, paying especial attention to the role of structure (and deconstruction); we investigate the links between materiality and form, and, finally, we see how form, texture, and system - are localized in particular artistic or historical contexts. This is an interdisciplinary seminar, and during the semester we move back and from literature to cinema, and from architecture to painting.