- Introduction
- About Amherst College
- Admission & Financial Aid
- Regulations & Requirements
- Amherst College Courses
- Five College Programs & Certificates
- Honors & Fellowships
Introduction
Introduction
BackArt and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
About Amherst College
About Amherst College
BackArt and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Admission & Financial Aid
Admission & Financial Aid
BackArt and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Regulations & Requirements
Regulations & Requirements
Back- General Regulations
- Terms and Vacations
- Conduct
- Attendance at College Exercises
- Records and Reports
- Pass/Fail Option
- Examinations and Extensions
- Withdrawals
- Readmission
- Deficiencies
- Housing and Meal Plans
- Degree Requirements
- Course Requirements
- The Liberal Studies Curriculum
- The Major Requirement
- Departmental Majors
- Interdisciplinary Majors
- Comprehensive Requirement
- Degree with Honors
- Independent Scholar Program
- Field Study
- Five College Courses
- Academic Credit from Other Institutions
- Cooperative Doctor of Philosophy
- Engineering Exchange Program with Dartmouth
Art and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Amherst College Courses
Amherst College Courses
Back- American Studies
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Architectural Studies
- Art and the History of Art
- Asian Languages and Civilizations
- Biochemistry and Biophysics
- Biology
- Black Studies
- Chemistry
- Classics
- Colloquia
- Computer Science
- Creative Writing
- Economics
- Educational Studies
- English
- Environmental Studies
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- Film and Media Studies
- First Year Seminar
- French
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- German
- History
- Latinx and Latin American Studies
- Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought
- Mathematics and Statistics
- Mellon Seminar
- Music
- Neuroscience
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- Physics and Astronomy
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Religion
- Russian
- Sexuality Wmn's & Gndr Studies
- Spanish
- Theater and Dance
- Courses of Instruction
- 01- Bruss Seminar
- 02- Kenan Colloquium
- 03- Linguistics
- 04- Mellon Seminar
- 05- Physical Education
- 06- Premedical Studies
- 07- Teaching
- 08- Five College Dance
Art and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Five College Programs & Certificates
Five College Programs & Certificates
Back- Five College Courses
- African Studies Certificate
- Asian Pacific American Studies Certificate
- Biomathematics
- Buddhist Studies Certificate
- Coastal and Marine Sciences Certificate
- Culture Health Science Certificate
- Ethnomusicology Certificate
- International Relations Certificate
- Latin American Caribbean Latino Studies Certificate
- Logic Certificate
- Middle Eastern Studies Certificate
- Native American and Indigenous Studies Certificate
- Queer and Sexuality Studies Certificate
- Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice Certificate
- Russian East European Eurasian Studies Certificate
- Sustainability Studies Certificate
Art and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
Honors & Fellowships
Honors & Fellowships
BackArt and the History of Art
Professors Abiodun, Clark, Courtright, Kimball†, Morse, Staller, and Sweeney‡; Associate Professor Arboleda, Levine*, and Rice*; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman†; Assistant Professors Carey, House†, Monge†, and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler (Chair); Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; CHI Fellow and Visiting Lecturer Yu; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The Department of Art and the History of Art offers students a singular means within the College to develop artistic awareness, historical understanding, critical faculties and practice in the visual arts. Students across the College may accomplish these objectives by taking introductory to advanced courses in art history and studio practice. To identify and serve individual interests and goals, the department major is organized into two distinct programs: The History of Art and The Practice of Art:
History of Art Concentration: Professors Abiodun, Courtright, Morse and Staller; Associate Professor Arboleda and Rice; Assistant Professors Carey and Vicario; Visiting Professor Koehler.
An intensive and structured engagement with the visual heritage of many cultures throughout the centuries, this curriculum requires not only the study of art history as a way to acquire deep and broad visual understanding, but also a self‑conscious focus on the contexts and meanings of art. By encountering the architecture, painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and material culture created within a variety of historical frameworks, students will deepen their understanding of political, religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and social currents that defined those times as well. As a consequence, students will face art and issues that challenge preconceptions of our own era.
Course Requirements: The concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project). With the help of a department advisor, each student will devise a program of study and a sequence of courses that must include:
• One introductory course in the history of art
• Two courses in the arts of Africa, Asia, or the Middle East
• One course in European art before 1800
• One course in European or American art after 1800
• Two upper‑level courses or seminars with research papers, one of which may be a course outside the department with a focus on visual arts in the student's research paper
• One Studio elective (preferably before Senior Year)
• One additional Studio or related elective
Many of our courses could count for two of these requirements. For example, an upper‑level course in European art before 1800 with a required research paper will fulfill two of the requirements. An introductory course in the arts of Asia will fulfill two of the requirements as well.
Honors: Candidates for honors in this concentration will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during their senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April.
Comprehensive Exam: Majors in the History of Art must satisfy a comprehensive assessment by participating in an undergraduate student conference in the final semester of the senior year. Each student will be expected to prepare a brief presentation that will demonstrate how a text of their choice could expand and develop one of the research projects completed to satisfy their requirements for the major. It should elucidate the link between their work and future goals. Students seeking department honors will be expected to present on their senior thesis.
Practice of Art Concentration: Professors Clark, Kimball, and Sweeney; Associate Professor Arboleda and Levine; Senior Resident Artists Garand and Gloman; Assistant Professors House and Monge; Visiting Professor Koehler; Visiting Assistant Professor Drummer; Visiting Lecturers Bestard, Chase, Culhane, Greene, Helander, Jahns, and Phipps; Artist-in-Residence Breiding.
The concentration in the Practice of Art enables students to become fluent in the discipline of the practice of visual arts. Students will develop critical and analytical thinking as well as the discipline's techniques and methods as a means to explore artistic, intellectual and human experience. Students will build towards creating a personal vision beginning with primary studies in drawing and introductory art history, proceeding on to courses using a broad range of media, and culminating in advanced studio studies of a more self directed nature. Working with their advisor, students will be encouraged to nurture the strong interdisciplinary opportunities found both at Amherst and the other institutions in the valley.
Course Requirements: The Practice of Art concentration consists of a minimum of 10 courses (12 with honors project):
• Three introductory level studio courses
• Five additional studio courses, at least 2 of which must be at the intermediate or advanced levels, chosen in close consultation with advisor
• One course in contemporary Art History
• One additional course in art history
In consultation with their advisors, students in this concentration will be encouraged to take additional courses both in art history and other disciplines. These courses should be broadly related to their artistic interests outside of the studio concentration, enriching their interdisciplinary understanding and engagement within a liberal arts curriculum. This expectation will be especially high for honors thesis candidates.
Honors: Candidates for honors will, with departmental permission, take ARHA 498-499 during the senior year. Students must apply and be accepted at the end of their third year, usually the last week in April. In designing their year‑long projects, students will be encouraged to explore the interdisciplinary implications and opportunities inherent in their artistic directions. Thesis students will also be required to develop a statement that ultimately places their body of work within a historical and cultural artistic discourse. There will be an exhibition of the bodies of work representing the honors theses in the Eli Marsh Gallery, Fayerweather Hall, in May.
Comprehensive Examination: Required of all studio concentration majors, except thesis students. This work should be done in consultation with your advisor. You should meet with them before Thanksgiving break.
Creation in the senior year of an ambitious independent work/s of art. This project is designed and created independently by the student, can be in any medium or combination of mediums, and may also be interdisciplinary in nature. Students will also develop a concise, written statement that addresses their conceptual concerns, process, choice of materials and media. It should cite influences as well as place the work within a historical and artistic context. The written statement and the work/s of art are due on Monday of the 6th week of the student's final semester. On that day students are expected to hang the work for a week‑long group exhibition to be reviewed by the Studio Faculty. A .pdf (Adobe format) or .doc/docx (Word format) of the written component is due as an attachment by email to the Department Coordinator ‑ finearts@amherst.edu on the same Monday.
* On leave 2022-23.† On leave fall semester 2022-23.‡ On leave spring semester 2022-23.
101 The Language of Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 101 and ARHA 101) This introductory course focuses on the tools used to communicate and discuss ideas in architectural practice and theory. We study both the practical, from sketching to parallel drawing, to the theoretical, from historical to critical perspectives. Connecting both, we cover the formal analysis elements necessary to “read” and critique built works. Class activities include field trips, guest presentations, sketching and drawing, small design exercises, discussion of readings, and short written responses. Through these activities, at the end of the semester the student will understand in general terms what the dealings and challenges of architecture as a discipline are.
Limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
102 Practice of Art
An introduction to two- and three-dimensional studio disciplines through hands-on engagement with materials supplemented by lectures, demonstrations and readings. Students will work through a variety of projects exploring drawing, sculpture, painting and hybrid forms. Work will be developed based on direct observation, memory, imagination and improvisation. Formal and conceptual concerns will be an integral aspect of the development of studio work. Historical and contemporary references will be used throughout the course to enhance and increase the student’s understanding of the visual vocabulary of art. Class time will be a balance of lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions and critiques. Weekly homework assignments will consist of studio work and critical readings. No prior studio experience needed.
Not open to students who have taken ARHA 111 or 215. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer Douglas Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
105 Space and Design: Introduction to Studio Architecture
(Offered as ARCH 105 and ARHA 105) This hands-on design studio will foster innovation as it guides students through the development of conceptual architecture. Through a series of experimental projects that build on each other, students will develop their own design language and experiment with architecture at several scales - from a space for sitting to a dynamic built structure and its integration into a site. We will work through photography and light studies, both hand-drafted and computer aided drawings, as well as physical model-making to understand space and to explore the representation of plan, section, and elevations as well as diagramming and concept models. Guest critics will attend a review, and students will present their work to design professionals and professors.
No prior architecture experience is necessary, but a willingness to experiment and a desire to learn through making are essential.
This course may be taken either before or after ARCH 209, Space + Design: Sustainable Innovation Studio
Admissions with consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester: Visiting Instructor Gretchen Rabinkin.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2022
110 Color Study
(Offered as ARHA 110 and CHEM 110.) This interdisciplinary course is focused on exploring color through the lenses of science, culture and art. We will study how we perceive color down to the molecular level and how it impacts us as viewers. The course will seek to develop a broad, shared, set of topics that will allow students to weave together scientific and artistic concepts, rather than isolate them. As it is possible to approach color from many different disciplines, we encourage any interested student, regardless of academic focus, to register. A core goal of the course is to encourage a holistic discussion of the topic. Students will be asked to write about their observations of color through art and will have the opportunity to make their own original pieces. In addition, class activities will include lectures, invited speakers, discussion, and a final project.
Limited to 18 students. Professor Durr and Professor Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
111 Drawing I
An introductory course in the fundamentals of drawing. This course will be based in experience and observation, exploring various techniques and media in order to understand the basic formal vocabularies and conceptual issues in drawing; subject matter will include still life, landscape, interior, and figure. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, final portfolio. Two three-hour sessions per week.
Limited to 12 students. Fall and Spring semesters. In the fall semester, 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. New Sculpture Professor Hire
In the Spring semester, there is a limit of 10 students and 4 seats are reserved for first-year students. Senior Resident Artist David Gloman and Professor Lucia Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
113, 146 Art From the Realm of Dreams
(Offered as ARHA 146, EUST 146, and SWAGS 113.) We will consider the multifarious and resplendent ways dreams have been given form across centuries, cultures, and media. Our paintings, prints, films, and texts will include those by Goya, Jung, Freud, van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Frankenheimer, Kurosawa and others.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
121 In Black and White: Race and Photography
This introductory course will explore historical developments in the medium of black and white photography from its inception in the mid-nineteenth century to the present moment. We will look at this trajectory to examine how photography has been utilized to materialize thoughts on race as well as intervene in racial politics. How is it that a picture can prompt someone to participate in racist ideology? Conversely, how does a photograph become instrumental to social justice? Responding to these questions requires not just an historical study of black and white photography but also a critical inquiry into the formal qualities of this medium and its capacity to enact material change. Together, we will think about and complicate the truth value of photography by performing analyses of historical documents, anthropological portraits, and works by photographers such as Arthur P. Bedou, Seydou Keïta, Carrie Mae Weems, and Dawoud Bey. Students will develop visual literacy skills through close looking as well as research skills needed for the analysis of historical documents and artistic works. Assessment will be based on weekly responses to readings, discussion participation, and either a written or creative final project.
Fall Semester. Professor Janice Yu.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
123, 149 Survey of African Art
(Offered as ARHA 149 and BLST 123 [A]) An introduction to the ancient and traditional arts of Africa. Special attention will be given to the archaeological importance of the rock art paintings found in such disparate areas as the Sahara and South Africa, achievements in the architectural and sculptural art in clay of the early people in the area now called Zimbabwe and the aesthetic qualities of the terracotta and bronze sculptures of the Nok, Igbo-Ukwe, Ife and Benin cultures in West Africa, which date from the second century B.C.E. to the sixteenth century C.E. The study will also pursue a general socio-cultural survey of traditional arts of the major ethnic groups of Africa.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
135 Renaissance to Revolution: Early Modern European Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 135, ARCH 135, and EUST 135) This course, a gateway class for the study of art history, introduces the ways that artists and architects imaginatively invented visual language to interpret the world for contemporary patrons, viewers, and citizens in early modern Europe. Painters, printmakers, sculptors and architects in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands created new ways of seeing empirical phenomena and interpreting them, by means of both ancient and new principles of art, science and philosophy and through powerful engagement with the senses. They produced godlike illusions of nature, from grand frescoes bursting from the walls of papal residences to spectacular gardens covering noble estates in Baroque France and colonializing England. They fundamentally altered the design of major cities such as Rome and Paris so that the visitor encountered an entirely new urban experience than ever before. Along the way, they learned from one another’s example, but, prizing innovation, sought fiercely to surpass previous generations, and argued at length about values in art. They contributed to fashioning an ideal picture of empire and society and conjured the dazzling wealth and power of those who paid them. But as time passed, some came to ironize the social order mightily, and some elevated beggars, farmers, servants, so-called fools, and bourgeois women leading seemingly mundane domestic lives as much as others praised the prosperous few. Finally, artists actively participated in the overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution and yet also passionately critiqued the violence of war it engendered. Throughout, the course will investigate how concepts of progress, civilization, the state, religion, race, gender, and the individual came to be defined through art.
The goals of the course are:• above all, to achieve the skill of close looking to gain visual understanding;• also, to identify artistic innovations that characterize European art and architecture from the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution;• to understand how images are unique forms of expression that help us to understand historical phenomena;• to situate the works of art historically, by examining the intellectual, political, religious, and social currents that contributed to their creation; • to read texts about the period critically and analytically.No previous experience with art or art history is necessary.
Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2024
138, 313 Visual Arts and Orature in Africa
(Offered as BLST 313 [A] and ARHA 138) In the traditionally non-literate societies of Africa, verbal and visual arts constitute two systems of communication. The performance of verbal art and the display of visual art are governed by social and cultural rules. We will examine the epistemological process of understanding cultural symbols, of visualizing narratives, or proverbs, and of verbalizing sculptures or designs. Focusing on the Yoruba people of West Africa, the course will attempt to interpret the language of their verbal and visual arts and their interrelations in terms of cultural cosmologies, artistic performances, and historical changes in perception and meaning. We will explore new perspectives in the critical analysis of African verbal and visual arts, and their interdependence as they support each other through mutual references and allusions. In addition to visiting the Mead Art Museum to see African works, students will be required to listen to audio-recordings and engage selected visual images to enhance their understanding of the interrelationship of arts in Africa.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
148 Arts of Japan
(Offered as ARHA 148 and ASLC 148) A survey of the history of Japanese art from neolithic times to the present. Topics will include Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, monochromatic ink painting and the arts related to the Zen sect, the prints and paintings of the Floating World and contemporary artists and designers such as Ando Tadao and Miyake Issey. The class will focus on the ways Japan adopts and adapts foreign cultural traditions. There will be field trips to look at works in museums and private collections in the region.
Fall semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2017, Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
155 Introduction to Contemporary Art
This introductory course explores art produced between 1960 and the present. We will take a transnational approach, from the emergence of Pop art as an international phenomenon in the 1960s to the mushrooming cloud of biennials in the twenty-first century. The course will sometimes look at art’s intersection with architecture, film, and visual culture more broadly. We will keep in mind the following questions: How have new technologies, civil rights movements, emergent subjectivities, new forms of theoretical inquiry, and processes of globalization shaped the work of art? How have artists critiqued both institutions and the art historical canon? How does contemporary art both participate in and stand apart from the world in which and for which it was made?
Limited to 40 students. Fall semester. Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
157, 193 The Postcolonial City
(Offered as ARHA 157, ARCH 157, and BLST 193 [D]) This course engages the buildings, cities, and landscapes of the former colonies of Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. Beginning with the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the non-European territories, which once comprised the lucrative possessions of modern European empires, quickly became independent states charged with developing infrastructure, erecting national monuments, and handling the influx of laborers drawn to the metropolises formed as sleepy colonial towns grew into bustling postcolonial cities. This class will examine the buildings, urban spaces, rural landscapes, and national capitals that emerged in response to these political histories. We will approach a number of issues, such as the architecture of national independence monuments, the preservation of buildings linked to the colonial past, the growth of new urban centers in Africa and India after independence, architecture and regimes of postcolonial oppression, the built environments of tourism in the independent Caribbean, and artists’ responses to all of these events. Some of the places that we will address include: Johannesburg, South Africa; Chandigarh, India; Negril, Jamaica; Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; and Lilongwe, Malawi. Our goal will be to determine what, if any, continuities linked the buildings, landscapes, and spaces of post-independence Africa, India, and the Caribbean in the twentieth century. Over the course of the semester, students will gain skills in analyzing buildings, town plans, and other visual materials. Also, this class will aid students in developing their writing skills, particularly, their ability to write about architecture and urban space.
Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024
159 Modernity and the Avant-Gardes, 1890–1945
(Offered as ARHA 159 and ARCH 159) This course is an examination of the emergence, development, and dissolution of European modernist art, architecture and design. The course begins with the innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, created in consort with the growth of modern urbanism, colonialist politics, and psychological experimentation. Distinctions between the terms modernity, modernism, and the avant-garde will be explored as we unpack the complex equations between art, politics, and social change in the first half of the twentieth century. Covering selected groups (such as Expressionism, Cubism, Dadaism, Surrealism, l'Esprit Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Constructivism), this course will consider themes such as mechanical reproduction, nihilism, nationalism, consumerism, and primitivism as they are disclosed in the making and reception of modernist art and architecture.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2021, Fall 2023
162 Water as Leitmotif: Queer Kinship and Performance for the Camera
This interdisciplinary introductory course focuses on water as a poetic and political space of exploration. Through the discussion of critical and creative texts, visual and cinematic analysis, and a direct engagement with water, we will examine water as a material for making, a healing practice, a site of ecological consciousness, a messy and contaminated place, and a medium/form of physical and psychic reorientation. The course content is informed by queer- and feminist-making practices, as well as contemporary environmental thought and aesthetics. Together we will speculate on new practices of intimacy, kinship, and care-based relations through the lens of water and fluidity. Throughout the semester, students will make individual works using varying media including: drawing, performance, photography and video.
Fall Semester. Limited to 14 students. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
163 The Slanted Horizon
This intermediate production class will use DIY techniques and mundane objects and materials as tools to build sculptures (ready-mades), and installations that will later be used as costumes and stage-sets for performance and photographic/video documentation. Using queer theory, critical race studies, science-fiction and literature references, we will attempt to think through and question the very notion of the horizon as construct and indicator of stable ground to collaboratively create a piece for a gallery exhibition. We will ask ourselves: What does ecological philosophy currently look like, and (how) will it translate after the “end of the world”? This class will search for, invent, and queer Hyperobjects - entities of vast temporal/spatial dimensions that defeat traditional ideas of what a thing, object, or photograph/documentation is and collectively create “the slanted horizon."
Spring semester 2023. Visiting Artist in Residence Ohan Breiding
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023180, 211 Contemporary Native American Art
(Offered as ARHA 180 and AMST 211) This course will examine works of art created by Native American artists, including painting, sculpture, photography, and performance and installation art, from the late nineteenth century to today. Students will study important movements and consider individual artists who worked primarily as painters, including the Iroquois realists of the late nineteenth century; the Studio School of Southwestern artists, printmakers, and illustrators; the Kiowa Six and their important role in creating modern Native American murals; abstract expressionists like Kay Walkingstick (Cherokee); Pop artists like Fritz Scholder (Luiseno) and Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu); and Conceptual artists such as Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne). Major Native American contemporary photographers include Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke (Crow)), Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole-Diné), and Horace Poolaw (Kiowa). The course will also consider sculptors working in realistic (Alan Houser, Blackbear Bosin) and abstract styles (Rick Bartow, Tammy Garcia); performance artists like James Luna and Rebecca Belmore; important emerging artists like the interdisciplinary activist/arts collective Postcommodity; and Angel de Cora, the first Native American graduate of Smith College.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Couch.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
202 Architectural Anthropology
(Offered as ARCH 202 and ARHA 202) This seminar explores the emerging interdisciplinary field that combines the theory and practice of architecture and anthropology. We compare and contrast these two disciplines’ canonical methods, their ethical stances, and their primary subject matters (i.e., buildings and people). With that, we reflect upon the challenges of ethnoarchitecture as a new discipline, emphasizing the challenges of carrying out architectural research and/or construction work among people from cultural backgrounds different than the architect’s own. In general, this course invites critical thinking about the theory and practice of architecture, especially when it confronts issues of difference, including ethno-cultural and social class differences.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone; previous instruction in architectural studies, area or ethnic studies, or social studies can be beneficial but is not mandatory.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023204 Housing, Urbanization, and Development
(Offered as ARCH 204, ARHA 204, and LLAS 204) This course studies the theory, policy, and practice of low-income housing in marginalized communities worldwide. We study central concepts in housing theory, key issues regarding low-income housing, different approaches to address these issues, and political debates around housing the poor. We use a comparative focus, going back and forth between the cases of the United States and the so-called developing world. By doing this, we engage in a “theory from without” exercise: We attempt to understand the housing problem in the United States from the perspective of the developing world, and vice versa. We study our subject through illustrated lectures, seminar discussions, documentary films, visual analysis exercises, and a field trip.
Limited to 20 students. Spring Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022
205 Sustainable Design: Principles, Practice, Critique
(Offered as ARCH 205 and ARHA 205) This theory seminar aims to provide students with a strong basis for a deep engagement with the practice of sustainability in architectural design. The studied material covers both canonical literature on green design and social science-based critical theory. We start by exploring the key tenets of the sustainable design discourse, and how these tenets materialize in practice. Then, we examine sustainable design in relation to issues such as inequality and marginality. As we do this, we locate sustainability within the larger environmental movement, studying in detail some of the main approaches and standards of sustainable design, the attempts to improve this practice over time, and the specific challenges confronting these attempts. In addition to reading discussions, we study our subject through student presentations and written responses, a field trip, and two graphic design exercises.
Recommended prior coursework: The course is open to everyone, but students would benefit from having a previous engagement with a course in architectural design, architectural history and/or theory, introduction to architectural studies, or environmental studies.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Arboleda.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
213 Printmaking I: The Handprinted Image
An introduction to intaglio and relief processes including drypoint, engraving, etching, aquatint, monoprints, woodcut and linocut. The development of imagery incorporating conceptual concerns in conjunction with specific techniques will be a crucial element in the progression of prints. Historical and contemporary references will be discussed to further enhance understanding of various techniques. Critiques will be held regularly with each assignment; critical analysis of prints utilizing correct printmaking terminology is expected. A final project of portfolio making and a portfolio exchange of an editioned print are required.
Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
214 Sculpture I
An exploration of three-dimensional concepts, form, expression and aesthetics. In a series of directed projects students will encounter a range of materials and technical processes including construction, modeling and carving. Projects will include conceptual and critical strategies integrated with material concerns. By the end of the course students will have developed a strong understanding of basic principles of contemporary sculpture and acquired the skills and technical knowledge of materials to create accomplished works of three-dimensional expression. Students will develop an awareness of conceptual and critical issues in current and historical sculptural practice, establishing a foundation for continued training and self-directed work in sculpture and other artistic disciplines.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Fall semester 2022. New Sculpture Professor Hire
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
215 Painting I
An introduction to the fundamentals of the pictorial organization of painting. Form, space, color, and pattern, abstracted from nature, are explored through the discipline of drawing by means of paint manipulation. Slide lectures, demonstrations, individual and group critiques are regular components of the studio sessions. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 102 or 111 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 8 students. Fall: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps. Spring: Visiting Lecturer Gabriel Phipps.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
216 Frida and Diego
(Offered as HIST 216 [LA/TC/TE/TR/TS], LLAS 216 [LA, Humanities] and ARHA 216) This course examines the art, lives, and times of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, two of Mexico’s most famous artists. Through discussion, lectures, readings, and visual analysis we will consider the historical and artistic roots of their radical aesthetics as well as the ideals and struggles that shaped their lives. During their era, Kahlo was overshadowed by her husband Rivera, but in recent decades her fame has eclipsed his. To make sense of this we will address the changing meaning of their art over time, especially in relation to markets, social movements, and gender and sexual identities. By the end of the semester, students will have a strong understanding of these two artists and their work, as well as the contexts in which they lived and in which their art continues to circulate, including early twentieth-century Modernism, the Mexican Revolution, indigenismo, the Chicano Movement, and recent efforts toward ethnic and gender inclusion. No prerequisites, open to all years and majors.
Fall semester. Professor Lopez.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2022
218 Photography I
An introduction to black-and-white still photography. The basic elements of photographic technique will be taught as a means to explore both general pictorial structure and photography’s own unique visual language. Emphasis will be centered less on technical concerns and more on investigating how images can become vessels for both ideas and deeply human emotions. Weekly assignments, weekly critiques, readings, and slide lectures about the work of artist-photographers, one short paper, and a final portfolio involving an independent project of choice. Two three-hour meetings per week.
Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, January 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
219 Venice, Perfect City (476-1797)
(Offered as HIST 219 [EU/TC/TE/C/P] and ARHA 219) When the Roman Empire imploded in 476, refugees from the Italian mainland settled on a few disconnected islands sheltered from the open Adriatic Sea by a lagoon. Within a few centuries, they created one of the most unlikely, beautiful, and long-lasting European cities ever to have been built. The cooperative spirit with which early medieval Venetians were able to create an urban environment built on seawater found its expression in the political and societal structures they formed to govern their city, republic, and, eventually, empire. In this course, we will discuss key events in the history of this extraordinary city, whose autonomy and self-government lasted until Napoleon invaded it in 1797. Topics include: Africans in Venice; art, architecture, and urban planning; the formation of an aristocratic but republican constitution; the emergence of civic institutions, poor relief, and neighborhood organizations; the history of the Ghetto and its Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Italian communities; Venetian sea-trade and the conquest of the Levantine Empire; the Venetian Renaissance; ties with Byzantium, the Mamluk and Ottoman Empires; convent culture; proto-feminism; Enlightenment. These topics will be discussed in the wider context of historical developments in the European and Mediterranean Middle Ages and early modern period. Two meetings per week.
Spring semester. Professor Sperling.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021
221 Foundations in Video Production
(Offered as ARHA 221 and FAMS 221) This introductory course is designed for students with no prior experience in video production. The aim is both technical and creative. We will begin with the literal foundation of the moving image—the frame—before moving through shot and scene construction, lighting, sound-image concepts, and final edit. In addition to instruction in production equipment and facilities, the course will also explore cinematic form and structure through weekly readings, screenings and discussion. Each student will work on a series of production exercises and a final video assignment.
Limited to 12 students with instructor's permission. Fall semester. Visiting Professor Emily Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2014, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
222 Drawing II
A course appropriate for students with prior experience in basic principles of visual organization, who wish to investigate further aspects of pictorial construction abstracting from forms including the figure, landscape and organic still life. There will be weekly drawing assignments and critiques, in addition to a final project of a life size self portrait.
Limited to 12 students. Fall semester. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
228 Image & Text
The combination of language with visual information offers a rich range of possibilities. In this course we will investigate strategies of interweaving image and text to create works that draw upon the qualities of each to produce hybrid forms. The class will look at a variety of sources and respond to them in a series of hands-on studio projects. These sources include maps, diagrams, calligraphy, illustrations and manuscripts, as well as work from the history of art and literature. The projects can involve drawing, printing, erasures, book-making, writing, digital media and photography to produce works that deploy image and text to express narrative, poetic, political or informational content. Students from a range of diciplines and interests are encouraged to participate.
No prior studio experience is required. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Visiting Lecturer Culhane.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
232 Cartographic Cultures: Making Maps, Building Worlds
(Offered as ARHA 232 and ARCH 232) This course traces the history of modern cartography from the integration of indigenous map-making techniques into colonial Latin American land surveys in the sixteenth century to the use of GIS software by militaries and corporations to create detailed images of foreign and domestic territories in the twenty-first century. Along the way, we will study the political and economic impetus that drove governments, militaries, municipalities, and private entities to create renderings of the land on which we live. We will also investigate the technological history of map-making as we consider the extent to which innovations in modern science have influenced the production of maps. This course will challenge the presumption that maps are factual portrayals of physical space. It will also question how divergent forms of culturally based knowledge as well as economic constraints and corporate rivalries have historically influenced map-making and subsequently shaped our understanding of territories near and far. We will think through these issues while investigating a number of major topics in the history of modern cartography: map-making and indigenous expertise in the Americas prior to and during European intervention; colonial cartography in the Americas, Asia, and Africa; the explosion of the map-making industry in eighteenth and nineteenth-century England and France; the mapping of oceans and other remote landscapes during this time; the twentieth-century genre of pictorial maps in the United States; cartography and modern warfare; and artists’ responses to these histories. Through written assignments and a final creative project, students will build their writing and research skills while gaining knowledge of the methods that scholars employ when reading a wide variety of maps. Moreover, in approaching contemporary debates in the field of cartography, this course will introduce students to landscape studies.
Limited to 34 students. Spring semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2019, Fall 2020
234 Hand and Lens: Drawing From Photographic Sources
In this class we will investigate the relationships between drawing and photography and explore approaches to generating hand-drawn images from photographic sources. Through a series of studio projects we will question similarities and differences between these fundamental two-dimensional forms and consider strategies to create original, compelling images. We will look at the origins and technical specifics of each form through the viewing and analysis of contemporary and historical images, as well as through readings in criticism and theory. Themes explored will include: flatness and perspective, freezing time, photography as surrogate memory, image and scale, multiples, narrative, the role of the hand and the authority of the image. We will use an array of drawing media, including pencil, charcoal and ink.
Experience in drawing and/or photography is required. Spring semester 2023. Visiting Lecturer in Art Douglas Culhane
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
236 Ruins, Rubble and Rupture
(Offered as ARHA 236 and ARCH 236) This course will consider the complex role of the ruin in the history of art—including paintings, prints, photographs, films, sculpture, and architectural remains—making extensive use of the exhibition “Architectural Ghosts” at the Mead Art Museum. We will begin with artists such as Piranesi, Thomas Cole, and Casper David Friedrich, as well as Romantic architects who designed structures meant to suggest the passage of time and the powers of decay. We will consider early travel photographs of ancient ruins and modern and contemporary responses made in the aftermath of war, terrorism, and climate disasters, including new writing on the ruin. The class will examine historical phenomena such as the “rubble women” who gathered debris after the blanket bombings of Europe in the 1940s; “ruin-porn” in relationship to post-industrial urban revitalization; and efforts of preservation in the context of continued violence throughout the world. The course will include a focus on art, architecture and films made after World War II, the Holocaust, and Hiroshima when the imagery of ruins and the markings of rupture became artistic tools—as in the works of Alberto Burri, Anselm Kiefer, Roberto Rossellini, Yves Klein, or the Gutai group. Students will present on one object in the exhibition, respond to weekly readings in discussion, write short essays, and work on an extended research project (presentations and paper) on an object or site of their own choosing.
Spring semester. Professor Koehler.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
239 Drawn with Thread
How can a thread or stitched line bring meaning to the content and subject of an artwork? Explore the expressive ways thread is used as a linear element to draw, think, join, and define space socially and culturally in this studio art class. If you have no sewing experience or even if you have a lot, this collaborative learning environment is for you. Bring your curiosity and willingness to learn and share. We will consider the gestural, emotional expression, and rhythm, and textural possibilities of thread. We will use recycled and upcycled materials. We will employ the simplest running stitch to the complex shisha stitch and improvise from the richness of global embroidery histories. Sometimes we will even build form and meaning without fabric or on non traditional materials. Set your pencil aside, pick up a needle and thread, and draw.
Fall Semester. Professor Sonya Clark.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
241 The Age of Michelangelo: Italian Renaissance Art and Architecture
(Offered as ARHA 241, ARCH 241, and EUST 241) Michelangelo, a defining genius of the Italian Renaissance, emerged from a rich cultural environment that forever changed how we think of art. Artists of the Renaissance developed an original visual language from the legacy of the ancient world, while also examining nature, their environment, and encounters with other worlds to the East and West. Their art revealed a profound engagement with philosophical attitudes toward the body and the spirit, as well as with ideals of pious devotion and civic virtue. Those concepts changed radically over the period of the Renaissance, however. Artists developed the rhetoric of genius and artistic struggle by vaunting an artist’s godlike role, owing to his imaginative creation of art and his ability to mimic reality illusionistically, yet they also questioned a human’s place in the cosmos. We will analyze in depth the visual language of painting, sculpture, and architecture created for merchants, monks, princes and popes in the urban centers of Florence, Rome and Venice from the 14th through the 16th centuries, and examine the virtuosic processes artists used to achieve their goals.
Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course, based on lectures but regularly incorporating discussion, will analyze selected works and contemporary attitudes toward the visual through study of the art and its primary sources.
Learning goals:
Gain confidence in the art of close looking to gain visual understanding;Achieve an understanding about how art and its culture are intertwined; Develop the critical skills to analyze points of view from a historical period other than our own; Learn collaboratively with classmates; Develop and argue an original thesis about a single work of art in a research paper.
One course in ARHA, FAMS, or ARCH recommended. Spring semester. Professor Courtright.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2021, Spring 2024
244 Kyoto: City, Image, Text
(Offered as ASLC 244 and ARHA 244)
Kyoto was established as the capital of Japan in 794 and remained the site of the imperial palace until 1868. For much of its history the city was home to Japan’s most influential religious thinkers, writers, and artists and while today Kyoto is a modern city of over a million people, it still is thought to define traditional Japanese culture. This class will explore the intersection of the art and literature produced in the city throughout its long history. Both were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Shinto, so the class will examine some religious texts as well as novels, poetry and folk tales, painting, sculpture, architecture and crafts. Among the topics that will be covered are the high value placed on artistic accomplishment within the aristocratic culture of the eleventh century, millenarianism in the late Heian period, multiple civil wars, Zen culture and the arts and architecture of the late medieval era, the birth of drama in Japan, and modern writers’ and artists’ nostalgia for the past.
Spring semester. Professors Morse and Van Compernolle.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2015, Spring 2024
252 Performance In (and Out of) Place
This course is designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating site-specific performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall, the lecture hall, the page). In the first part of the semester we will experiment with different techniques for working together and for developing responses to different spaces. We will conduct a series of performance practices and studies in numerous sites around the campus and utilize different mediums according to student interest and experience. A special emphasis will be placed on considering issues of access when we make choices about where and how to perform and create work. How can we encourage inclusive events that foster interaction and response with communities both near and far? What are possible relationships between art and community? How can we integrate important social and cultural issues into our art making? How might we collaborate with and make work for sites we are distanced from? What are crucial limitations to consider in creating site specific events, and how do we allow these limitations to inspire? The semester will culminate in a series of public final projects reflecting on the students’ processes through in-class showings, readings, viewings, discussions, and critical feedback sessions. Recommended requisite: previous college course experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Professor Kim.
Recommended requisite: Previous experience in improvisation and/or composition in dance, theater, performance, film/video, music/sound, installation, creative writing, and/or design is required. Limited to 8 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2024
253, 257 Slaves, Voyagers, and Strangers: Building Colonial Cities
(Offered as ARHA 257, ARCH 257, and BLST 253) Creole dwellings were first erected by enslaved builders working under Diego Colón (the son of Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. By the end of the first wave of European expansion in the early nineteenth century, the creole style existed across imperial domains in the Caribbean, North and South America, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and even Asia. We will examine the global diffusion of this architectural typology from its emergence in the Spanish Caribbean to its florescence in British and French India in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In doing so, we will address buildings and towns in former Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British colonies worldwide. Some of the urban centers that we will engage include: Kingston, Jamaica; Pondicherry, India; Cape Town, South Africa; Cartagena, Colombia; Saint-Louis, Senegal; and Macau, China. In investigating both creole structures and the cities that harbored such forms, we will think through the social and economic factors that caused buildings and urban areas to display marked continuities despite geographical and imperial distinctions.
Limited to 34 students. Fall semester. Professor Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
254, 264, 332 Impulse/Imagination/Invention: Experiments Across Media
This studio course is designed as an interactive laboratory for students interested in imaginative experimentation to discover and access multiple ways to generate material in different media (dance, theater, visual /digital art, text and/or sound). The course emphasizes a practice of rigorous play and a dedicated interest in process and invention. Also, the course will be informed by a view that anything and everything is possible material for creative and spontaneous response and production. Working individually and in collaborative groups, students will construct original material in various media and delve into multiple ways to craft interesting exchanges and dialogues between different modes of expression. A range of structures and inspirations will be given by the instructor but students will also develop their own "playlists" for inspiring creative experimentation and production. We will have a series of informal studio showings in different media throughout the semester. A final portfolio of creative material generated over the course of the semester will be required. This studio seminar requires instructor permission; interested students need to contact the instructor before registering.
Limited to 15 students. Spring Semester. Professor Woodson. The course will also incorporate instruction from guest artists.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019
260 Art in and out of Latin America
(Offered as ARHA 260 and LLAS 260). This course explores the movement of art both in and out of Latin America in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This includes the forging of a mural movement in Mexico, the cosmopolitan travels of artists to Europe, the export of art to the United States, and the transnational circulation of art and ideas across national contexts within Latin America. In the process, we will explore the sometimes conflicting and sometimes hybrid desires to create local aesthetics in particular places (sometimes drawing on the pre-Columbian past and Indigenous present) and to participate in international, sometimes transcontinental artistic movements and debates. We will also consider the category “Latin American art” as it developed over the course of the twentieth century and how it has both intersected with and stood apart from developments in art elsewhere. A core concern of the class will be the examination of how culture develops in relation to both political and economic shifts in the region and in the world beyond, including in relation to imperialism, the spread of capitalism, the Cold War, Communism, modernization, dictatorship, and globalization.
Limited to 25 people. Spring semester - Assistant Professor Niko Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023260, 261 Buddhist Art of Asia
(Offered as ARHA 261 and ASLC 260) Visual imagery plays a central role in the Buddhist faith. As the religion developed and spread throughout Asia it took many forms. This course will first examine the appearance of the earliest aniconic traditions in ancient India, the development of the Buddha image, and early monastic centers. It will then trace the dissemination and transformation of Buddhist art as the religion reached South-East Asia, Central Asia, and eventually East Asia. In each region indigenous cultural practices and artistic traditions influenced Buddhist art. Among the topics the course will address are the nature of the Buddha image, the political uses of Buddhist art, the development of illustrated hagiographies, and the importance of pilgrimage, both in the past and the present.
Spring semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2021
270, 293 African Art and the Diaspora
(Offered as ARHA 270 and BLST 293 [D]) The course of study will examine those African cultures and their arts that have survived and shaped the aesthetic, philosophic and religious patterns of African descendants in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti and urban centers in North America. We shall explore the modes of transmission of African artistry to the West and examine the significance of the preservation and transformation of artistic forms from the period of slavery to our own day. Through the use of films, slides and objects, we shall explore the depth and diversity of this vital artistic heritage of Afro-Americans.
Fall semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022
292 Sound Art
This course explores sound as a medium of art-making with a rich history and radical potential within contemporary culture. Techniques covered will include non-musical scores, field recording, basic computer-based audio manipulation, and building lo-fi electronics for experimental sound synthesis. Accompanying readings draw from acoustic ecology, critical sound studies, afro-futurism, and media theory to contextualize collective exploration. Students will be expected to create studio-based art for critique. No musical experience is required.
Spring 2023. Professor House.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
304 Documentary Photography
In this intermediate/advanced level course students will explore the practice of documentary photography. This course is structured around individual projects of the student’s own design and is informed by weekly group critiques and in-class visual exercises. We will examine the history, theory and ideological questions and complications of working with those outside of or within one’s own circle of experience. This will be complemented by a series of historical and topical readings, class visits by contemporary photographers, and slide lectures that consider the multitude of ways artists use photography within the documentary tradition.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring 2023 semester. Professor Kimball.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2024
306 A World of Evidence: Architecture, Race, and the Amherst College Archive
(Offered as ARHA 306, ARCH 306, BLST 306, EUST 305) This upper-level seminar will teach students how to conduct research on race and racism in the field of architectural studies. Throughout the semester, we will visit Amherst College Special Collections as well as several local archives to explore the letters, photographs, drawings, and ground plans that relate to the architecture of race, racism, and social change in the region. Then, we will visit the buildings and spaces that these records address. In the process, we will ask several questions: What can the local historical record tell us about the history of architecture and race at Amherst College and in Western Massachusetts at large? What is missing from local archives? Why do these omissions matter and how should we respond to them? Recognizing the sensitivity of these questions, we will think through what it means to conduct research on topics of political, moral, cultural, and interpersonal significance. Readings and course discussions will examine how other architectural historians have tackled controversies of race and racism in their work. Guest lectures will also introduce students to the intellectual and personal journeys of the diverse range of scholars who are working on these issues today. Overall, the goal of this class is for students to gain an understanding of how to conduct architectural research with the aid of historical documents, building remnants, and altered cultural landscapes. At the end of the semester, students will complete a final research paper. This class is subsequently ideal for students in Black Studies, Architectural Studies, Environmental Studies, and History who are planning to complete a senior thesis.
No prerequisites. Juniors and seniors, however, will be given preference. The class will help students strengthen their critical thinking abilities as well as their writing and research skills. This course is limited to 20 students. Fall semester. Professor Dwight Carey.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
310, 385 Witches, Vampires and Other Monsters
(Offered as ARHA 385, EUST 385, and SWAG 310) Our course will explore how evil was imagined, over cultures, centuries and disciplines. With the greatest possible historical and cultural specificity, we will investigate an array of monstrous creatures and plagues -- their terrifying powers, the explanations for why they came to be, and the strategies for how they could be purged -- as we attempt to articulate the kindred qualities they shared. We will study centuries-old witch burning manuals, and note the striking degree to which dangerous tropes -- about women, about pestilence, about dangerous sexuality, and about differences of all kinds -- have continued to our day. Among the artists to be considered are Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, Buñuel, Dreyer, Wilder, Almodóvar, and the community who made the AIDS Quilt.
This course fulfills a requirement for the Five College Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice (RHRJ) certificate.Not open to first-year students. Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Staller.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
315, 353 Myth, Ritual and Iconography in West Africa
(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies—the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria—the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context. We shall address the problem of cultural symbols in terms of African conceptions of performance and the creative play of the imagination in ritual acts, masked festivals, music, dance, oral histories, and the visual arts as they provide the means through which cultural heritage and identity are transmitted and preserved, while, at the same time, being the means for innovative responses to changing social circumstances.
Spring semester. Professor Abiodun.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
319 Working in Series: The Interdisciplinary Connection Between Drawing and the Hand-Printed Image
An investigation of ideas into the development of visual imagery focusing on series of works utilizing drawing and printmaking. Contemporary and historical references of artists' series of works will be studied in conjunction with students' individual projects, culminating in a final project consisting of a cohesive, visual body of work. Experimentation of conceptual and technical boundaries will be encouraged and explored. Discussion and critiques will be held regularly in both group and individual formats. Visual work will include a wide variety of drawing media, including, but not limited to traditional methods. The techniques of intaglio and relief printmaking will be used in combination with and concurrent to the drawn images.
Requisite: Introductory level Drawing or Printmaking I or consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Fall semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
323 Advanced Studio Seminar
A studio course that will emphasize compositional development by working from memory, imagination, literature and abstractions derived from nature and other works of visual art. The Students will be encouraged to explore a wide variety of media including, but not limited to, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and collage. Students will be required to create an independent body of work over the course of the semester which explores their individual direction in pictorial construction.
Requisite: ARHA 222, 326 or 327 or permission of the instructor. Limited to 5 students. Fall semester. Professor R. Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023
324 Sculpture II Symbiotic Sculptures
Symbiosis is a close biological interaction between living organisms. It can be temporary or permanent; positive, neutral, or parasitic; and involve two or thousands of individuals. In this class we will explore a variety of relationships with and within nature through sculpture. Conceptual prompts will be accompanied by material experimentation with “biomaterials”: materials that are grown, cooked, or processed through collaborations with fungi, plants, and bacteria.
Requisite: ARHA 214 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester 2023. Professor Monge.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023
Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2024
326 Painting II
This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Tuesday and Thursday classes 1:30pm - 3:30pm every week.
Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Offered Spring 2023. Professor Sweeney.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020
327 Printmaking II: Further Investigations of the Hand Pulled Print
Description:
This course is an exploration of intaglio, relief, and planographic printmaking processes. Combining conceptual concerns with techniques will be integral to the development of imagery. The course will involve continuous and vigorous visual research of historical and contemporary artist printmakers and teach the techniques of drypoint, etching, engraving, aquatint, monoprints, monotypes, woodcut and linocut. Printmaking processes will include color printing, multiple plate, combinations of various printmaking techniques, series and large scale prints. All students will complete a final project of an editioned portfolio exchange of prints and a handmade portfolio. Individualized areas of investigation are encouraged and expected. In-class work will involve demonstration, discussion and critique.
Requisite: ARHA 213 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Spring semester. Senior Resident Artist Garand.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2024
328 Photography II
This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques. This is complemented by slide presentations and topical readings of contemporary and historical photography.This course will be taught using digital cameras and software. Students will be supplied with cameras for the semester. Two two-hour meetings per week.
Requisite: ARHA 218 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 12 students. Fall Semester. Visiting Lecturer Bestard.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019, Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2024
355 Solo Performance: Movement, Text, Sound, Video
In this studio course, we will explore different skills and approaches towards creating solo performance. We will examine examples of historical and contemporary solo performances in theater, dance, video, music, radio plays, street, stand up and in political/social arenas to inform and ask what makes these effective (or not). We will use what we learn from these examples to inspire our own solo material. We will also develop additional techniques (through improvisational trial and error) that enliven and engage our different voices, stories, imaginations and emotions. An emphasis will be placed on exploring and crafting dynamic relationships within and between different media and modes of expression in order to create confident and compelling solo presentations for live and virtual arenas. We will consider the solo as both a personal vehicle of expression and as a means of giving voice to experiences of others. In the process of making compositional choices, we will consider the personal and social implications of these choices. The semester will culminate in public performances of final solos.
Requisite: Previous experience in performance and/or video--whether in the arts or public presentations in other disciplines/contexts. Open to juniors and seniors. Admission with consent of the instructor. Limited to 10 students. Spring semester. Professor Woodson.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2013, Spring 2024
383 The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture
(Offered as ARHA 383 and ASLC 383) An examination of the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment-the garden setting, the architecture of the tea room, the forms of tea utensils, and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background of tea culture, the course will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Two class meetings per week.
Limited to 20 students. Fall Semester. Professor Morse.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022
410 Material Histories of Art
How might paying closer attention to materials open art history to other disciplines and other ways of thinking about a range of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, buildings, monuments, and design objects? This seminar will focus on particular materials—including dirt, oil paint, metal, plastic, and wood—and will support students in their own research projects into these. The professor’s own developing research about metal’s use in art, architecture, and design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries will guide some of the class sessions. In addition to reading and discussion, the course will include guest speakers, whose research span historical periods and geographies, and field trips that supplement our understanding of the ways in which the study of art’s constitutive materials can contribute to our analysis and interpretation.
Fall semester. Limited to 20 students. Assistant Professor Vicario.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
412 The Sixties
Pop, Op, Color Field, Minimalism, Land Art, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Fluxus. We will explore the dramatically different art forms and ideologies created during a decade marked by war, assassinations, and massive social change. We will consider how artists passionately engaged these events, as they radically re-imagined urgent challenges of their time.
Our texts will include: Thomas Crow, The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent; James Meyer, Minimalism: Art and Polemics in the Sixties; Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique; and Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. There will be films. It was a great moment for popular music: Our soundtrack will be constant, and ever changing.
There will be a research paper, with ongoing class presentations as it crystallizes; at least one field trip and, if there is interest (as in the past), a multi-media art-music-dance happening at the end of the semester.
Not open to first year year students. Preference to ARHA majors, and to a diversity of majors
Limited to 12 students. Spring Semester. Professor Staller.
How to handle overenrollment: Students will write about why they want to take the seminar; instructor will decide.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on written work, close reading, visual analyses, group work, oral presentations, museum visits.
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2019
413, 432 Filming the Non-Actor (Advanced Workshop)
(Offered as ARHA 413 and FAMS 432) Students in this fieldwork-intensive course will produce socially-engaged artworks that emerge out of collaborations with a local community. We will think expansively about the practice of using non-actors to interrogate the idea of representation and the illusion of “the real” in audiovisual art making, as well as the hazy space between fiction and documentary. The artists we will consider include Peggy Ahwesh, Basma Alsharif, Jonathanas de Andrade, Yael Bartana, Lizzie Borden, Pedro Costa, Kazuo Hara, Adam Khalil, Alison Kobayashi, Laida Lertxundi,Sharon Lockhart, Djibril Diop Mambéty, Otolith Group, Jean Rouche, and Leslie Thornton.
Two 80-minute class meetings per week and a screening.
Fall semester: Visiting Professor Drummer.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2022
414 Art Under Surveillance (Integrated Practices)
(Offered as ARHA 414 and FAMS 414)
In this studio-seminar course, we will investigate the history of video surveillance -- from hand-held 8mm cameras in the 1930s, closed-circuit television in the 40s, life-casting cam girls in the late 90s, to present-day police body cams, eye tracking, and facial recognition technology -- as a means to produce our own research-based artworks. Focused primarily on film and video (but open to those working across media), readings, screenings, and discussion will be interwoven with hands-on workshops in which we will creatively misuse various technologies of surveillance and violence. Screenings will include Rebecca Baron’s How Little We Know of Our Neighbors, Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Alex Johnson’s Evidence of the Evidence, Meredith Lackey’s Cable Street, Walid Raad’s I Only WishThat I Could Weep, Deborah Stratman’s In Order Not to Be Here, Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints and works by the Forensic Architecture group. Texts will include Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music, Italo Calvino’s The King Listens, William Davies’ Nervous States, Shoshana Zuboff's The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, among others.
Two 80 minute classes per week and one screening.
Spring 2023 semester. Visiting Professor Emily J. Drummer
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023415 Felix Gonzalez-Torres, "Untitled" (Blue Placebo)
In spring 2023, “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) will be on view at the Mead. This work from 1991 by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996) is one of the artist’s candy spills; visitors are invited to take the plastic-wrapped candies away with them one at a time. This seminar will use “Untitled” (Blue Placebo) as a jumping-off point for looking at contemporary art from a variety of perspectives. How does this work fit into the artist’s practice as a whole? How does it relate to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived? How does it relate to the present? What is the role of an artist’s identities in shaping how we interpret the work they make? What is the role of participation in contemporary art? In what ways can art move beyond what critic Clement Greenberg called “eyesight alone” to engage other senses? What is the dynamic between an artist’s intention, a museum’s installation of a work, and the public’s experience of it? What are the different ways we can interpret a work of art and how can we draw both on art history and other disciplines to expand our thinking?
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Assistant Professor Niko Vicario
2022-23: Offered in Spring 2023490 Special Topics
Independent reading course. A full course.
Fall and spring semesters. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022, Spring 2023Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Fall 2014, Spring 2015, Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018, Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024
498, 499 Senior Departmental Honors
Preparation of a thesis or completion of a studio project which may be submitted to the Department for consideration for Honors.
Open to seniors with consent of the Department. Fall semester. The Department.
2022-23: Offered in Fall 2022Other years: Offered in Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023