This course provides the opportunity to offer new topics in the subject History of Art.

Introduces the artistic traditions of China, Korea, and Japan, from prehistoric times to the modern era. Surveys major monuments and the fundamental concepts behind their creation, and examines artistic form in relation to society, individuals, technology, and ideas.

During the medieval period, power and knowledge required the endorsement of clerics. Alongside secular courtiers they also cultivated creative expressions of their erudition, revealing the medieval interpenetration of art, science and religion. The artworks surveyed in this course provide lasting records of critically creative confrontations between the scientific and spiritual traditions linked to medieval Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

The vase painting, sculpture, architecture, and other arts of the Greeks, from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic periods. Works are studies in their social, political, and religious contexts with a special focus on archaeology and material culture.

From the Romanesque churches along the Pilgrimage Routes to the new Gothic architecture at St. Denis outside Paris and on to late medieval artistic production in Prague, this course examines profound and visually arresting expressions of medieval piety, devotion, and power made by artists from roughly 1000-1500. Throughout our investigations, particular attention will be paid to the contributions of important medieval women.

Following an overview of Etruscan art, the course examines the development of Roman architecture, urbanism, sculpture and painting from the Republic to Constantine. A focus is Rome itself, but other archaeological sites, such as Pompeii, in Italy and throughout the empire are also considered. Themes, such as succession, the achievements of the emperor, the political and social role of art, and the dissolution of classical art, are traced.

Survey of Egyptian art and architecture (Predynastic-New Kingdom, 4000-1100 BC). The course introduces students to the great monuments and works of art, and to the beliefs that engendered them. While the focus is on pharaonic 'visual' culture, neglected 'others' (women, cross-gendered persons, foreigners, commoners) and their material/visual cultures are brought to attention to provide a nuanced understanding of Egyptian society and culture.

Explores alternative and historical photographic techniques and concepts. Specific course content varies according to faculty. (Spring only). Prerequisite: ARTS 2110.

Art in the 20th Century surveys visual art from 1900 to 2000 with an international perspective. Major questions and themes will be tracked across a range of media (sculpture, painting, printmaking, video art, performance art, etc), attending to the social, theoretical, and practical concerns structuring the making and reception of modern and contemporary art.

This course surveys visual art produced by artists of African descent in the United States from the late-nineteenth century to the present. Relationships between artistic practice, socio-political developments, and critical theory are stressed in an examination of a range of modern and contemporary practices, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance art.