HIAA 0010. A Global History of Art and Architecture.

Introduction to the global history of art, architecture and material culture from cave paintings to installation art. The course is both an historical survey as well as an analysis of case study examples. In addition to examining visual strategies of representation, the course explores the varied ways in which art shapes and reflects cultural, social, religious, and political concerns. Weekly one-hour conference required. Limited to 200. A

HIAA 0011. Introduction to the History of Architecture and Urbanism.

Western architecture and urbanism from classical antiquity through the eighteenth century: patterns of development; major architects and monuments; methods of interpretation. Does not presume previous knowledge or special skills. A

HIAA 0012. Theories of Architecture from Vitruvius to Venturi.

Theories and Design from Classicism to Postmodernism: An inquiry into the ways in which the nature of architecture has been thought, both inside the profession and outside, since Vitruvius first defined its study and practice as an “interdisciplinary discipline.” The seminar will study selected texts and designs in the culture of western architecture from antiquity to the present. Drawn from works in architectural, social, political, and aesthetic theory the seminar will deepen our understanding of historical architecture and open up ways of interpreting contemporary design culture. A

HIAA 0013. Introduction to Indian Art.

This course presents aspects of Indian art over a period of 2,000 years, and introduces the art of Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Islam, and colonial and post-colonial India. Emphasis is placed on characteristic features, functions and socio-political contexts of stupas, temples, mosques, churches, and other architectural sites as well as sculptures, painted manuscripts, paintings, and photography. A

HIAA 0022. The Art of Enlightenment.

This course surveys the history of Buddhist art-making from the earliest representations of the Buddha to the curatorial practices of modern museums. Ranging from the great mandala of Borobudur in Java to the Zen monasteries of Japan, we will examine the complex ways in which theology and scripture interacted with the particularities of time and place in the long development of Buddhist art. Throughout these inquiries, the sensorial qualities of the art will remain at the forefront of our analysis. Together, we will explore the mechanisms by which artists transformed inert matter into powerful implements of the Buddhist dharma.

HIAA 0023. South Asian Art and Architecture.

This course is an introduction to South Asian Art & Architecture, from 2500 BCE until the present, and to Southeast Asian Arts connected to them through religion, trade, or conquest. We will explore a range of media—including architecture, painting, sculpture, textiles, and photography—to ask critical questions about the nature of images and their relationship to emotions, the environment, devotion, politics, performance, and other art forms, like literature, music, and dance. The course will include regular visits to the RISD museum (A)

HIAA 0024. Arts of Asia: Beginnings to 1300.

This course surveys the history of art in Asia from the earliest times through the Mongol Empire. Organized around a series of exemplary objects, the course explores the temporal, geographic, material, and thematic range of early Asian art through the life stories of individual things. Tracing histories of human ingenuity and value, we will examine the ways these things changed the people who saw them and were themselves changed in the process of being seen. And we will come to know them through the ways they change us.

HIAA 0031. Pre-Islamic Empires of Iran.

Introduction to art and architecture of the Ancient Near Eastern empires that flourished between the 6th century BCE and the Islamic conquests of c. 630 CE. We will consider the material culture of the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Parthians, and Sasanians, empires that inhabited primarily the areas of Mesopotamia and the Persian plateau, but spread at times as far afield as the Mediterranean coast, Egypt, the Caucasus, and the Indus Valley. Lectures will prioritize close analysis of the most illuminating art and architecture, so that you leave the course knowing not only the material evidence but also current approaches to interpreting it. A

HIAA 0032. Art and Architecture of the Roman Empire.

How did a small city in central Italy grow to become one of the most powerful empires in history? This course explores the art and architecture produced in ancient Rome from its origins in the 6th century BCE to the fourth century CE. It considers a wide variety of media, including reliefs, freestanding sculpture, architectural monuments, mosaics, wall paintings, and daily-life objets. By exploring the role of art and architecture in the formation and expansion of the Empire, considering the experiences of ancient viewers, the course offers a post-colonial reading of ancient Roman history and culture. (A)

HIAA 0033. The Legacy of Roman Art from the Renaissance to Today.

Beginning in the Renaissance, European artists and scholars were eager to unearth ancient Roman art and architecture to study what they perceived to be the glory of ancient Rome. Discoveries of ancient masterpieces impacted the work of artists like Raphael and Michelangelo, and later Annibale Carracci, Peter Paul Rubens, and Gianlorenzo Bernini. In this lecture course, students will analyze how early modern artists, patrons, and scholars used the visual and cultural vocabulary of ancient Roman art to build monuments dedicated to civic virtue and imperial power, and how many of these artistic practices and cultural ideals continue to shape our society today. Examples of painting, sculpture, and architecture will all be considered. Students will also study the interdisciplinary methods employed by antiquarians and consider how contemporary art historical methodologies can be traced to early antiquarian practices. A

HIAA 0040. Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture.

A comparative examination of the three artistic cultures of the medieval Mediterranean: Islam, the Byzantine empire, and the predominantly Christian regions of western Europe. Medieval Jewish art is also treated. Topics include medieval attitudes toward the use of images, the architecture of worship (churches, synagogues, and mosques), royal and domestic art, and instances of contact among all three cultures. Weekly one-hour conference required. A

HIAA 0041. The Architectures of Islam.

Through selected case study examples, the course examines the varied manifestations of Islamic architectures. The course spans fourteen centuries and three continents, and examines religious as well as secular buildings. We will trace the sources and 'invention' of Islamic architecture in the Umayyad dynasty of the seventh and eighth centuries, and will explore its varied manifestations up to the contemporary period. By examining cross-cultural and trans-regional interactions, we will also investigate the relationship between Islamic and non-Islamic architectural traditions. A

HIAA 0042. Islamic Art and Architecture.

The formation of an Islamic artistic expression in art and architecture and the regional manifestations of that art from central Asia and the Middle East to Sicily and Spain. Weekly one-hour conference required. A

HIAA 0044. Art and Architecture of the Islamic World.

This course is an introduction to the spectacular art, architecture and visual culture of the Islamic world, starting from the late seventh century C.E. until the present day. Students are introduced to the visual aspects of religious and secular life in the Islamic world through a spectrum of artworks, architecture, manuscripts, textiles, plastic arts, painting, and popular art, all examined in historical context. It covers the foundational premises of Islamic art and architecture in the early Islamic period, the artistic identities of the medieval era, the empires of the Early Modern world, and the colonial and postcolonial period from c. 1800 to the present. It is structured through thematic issues including, but not limited to: textuality, geometry and ornament, optics and perception, sacred and royal space, image production and aniconism, modernity and tradition, and artistic exchange with Europe, and China.

HIAA 0050C. Illustrating Knowledge.

This seminar will investigate the history of illustration from the first manuscript maps and printed herbals to the present, including paintings, photographs, and computer imaging. We will investigate the role of pictures in the exchange of scientific ideas, and modes of representation developed in both the arts and the sciences. Enrollment limited to 15 first year students.

HIAA 0051. Roman Baroque Palaces as Theaters of Power.

The palaces of Baroque Rome were more than extravagant homes for the elite. They were centers of diplomatic and cultural exchange in which cardinals, princes, and popes sought to express their political power. Through theatrical facades, strategic floorplans, and illusionistic frescoes, the patrons of Rome used their palaces to reinforce political, religious, and cultural identities. Each week students will be introduced to a new Roman palace or villa such as Palazzo Barberini, the Apostolic Palaces, Palazzo Pamphilj, and the Villa Borghese. The impact of developments in urban planning, papal pageantry, and collection and display will be considered throughout. A

HIAA 0061. Baroque.

The course surveys the visual culture of Rome from 1564-1700. During that time Rome became the center of Artistic change in Europe, the seat of the Counter-Reformation Catholic Church and the dominant source of classical learning. All media that participated in these historical developments are included: from papal urban plans to Bernini's fountains and Caravaggio's paintings.

HIAA 0062. Dutch and Flemish Art: Visual Culture of the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century.

Surverys the amazing art in Holland and Flanders that revolutionized all media. We will see how paintings, sculpture, and architecture formed the historical environment of life in the 17th-century Netherlands. The work of such artists as Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Vermeer is presented as part of this history of art in a "golden age." Weekly one-hour conference required. A

HIAA 0063. Food and Art in the Early Modern World.

“Taste” is the sensory perception of flavor and the act of judging aesthetic quality. This class asks how the taste for food and for art relate in the early modern world. From the movement of spices, scents, chocolate, and sugar to the vessels that were invented to contain them, we will investigate the trade and circulation of foods and objects across the globe. We will then turn to cities that flourished in the wake of such consumption and their rituals of feasting and fasting. Finally, we will consider the transmission of knowledge about food and eating through recipes, culinary ephemera, a set table, and dinner parties. (A)

HIAA 0065. Introduction to the Built Environment.

This course provides an introduction to the major forces and discourses that shape the built environment, with a focus on architecture and the city, but including examples from a wide range of scales and art and creative practices. The course is organized topically, with the goal of offering a general framework, precise vocabulary, and a conceptual armature for thinking critically about the shape of the built environment. This course fulfills an Architecture concentration requirement. A.

HIAA 0070. Introduction to American Art: The 19th Century.

This undergraduate lecture course traces the rise of American painting in the period from the Revolution to the dawn of modernism in the 20th century. Major figures, such as Thomas Cole, Frederick Church, Winslow Homer and Albert Pinkham Ryder, will be examined, as will significant movements, such as the Hudson River School and Tonalism. Discussion will help place American art within the context of history, the invention of national identity, and parallel developments in popular visual culture. Enrollment limited to 50.

HIAA 0072. Introduction to American Art: The Twentieth Century.

This course examines fine art in the US from roughly 1900 through the 1970s, with special attention to modernism and the rise of modern art. Through slide presentations and group discussion, most major figures of the period—Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock, and Andy Warhol among them—will be placed in historical and cultural context. Key events, institutions, and critics of these decades will also be considered. We will look at the role of cultural episodes like the Harlem Renaissance, and the increasing prevalence of women in the art world, as markers of increasing diversity and changing values. Readings by leading scholars will allow a wide-ranging introduction to art historical methods of interpretation. Discussion in sections will help place this art within the context of social history, the invention of national identity, and parallel developments in popular visual culture.

HIAA 0074. Nineteenth-Century Architecture.

Surveys stylistic developments, new building types, and the changing conditions of architectural production through the 19th century. Special emphasis placed on the social context in which buildings were designed and used.

HIAA 0075. Introduction to the History of Art: Modern Photography.

This class will survey the history of photography as an art form and means of visual communication in the modern era. The photograph will be considered from both esthetic and social perspectives; photography's rise as a medium of personal expression will be examined, as will technology's role in the creation of new regimes of spectatorship, and the mass dissemination of visual information. The class follows the rise of photography's acceptance as an art form in the twentieth century, and culminates with its prominence within the phenomenon of postmodernism. Prior coursework in modern history or art history is helpful. Enrollment limited 80.

HIAA 0077. Revolutions, Illusions, Impressions: A History of Nineteenth-Century Art.

Over the long nineteenth century (1789-1900) revolutions replaced kings with citizens. Capitalist and colonial expansion mobilized armies, goods, and slaves across continents. New class and gender dynamics changed patterns of sociability. Technological innovations mass produced images and goods. In this course, we will discern such social and historical factors in Europe and across the globe alongside artistic ones to interrogate what makes art in this period irrepressibly modern. We will study the turbulence that has defined the century, including the art historical swings in style from Classicism to Romanticism to Impressionism, with care. Course includes visits and assignments in museums.

HIAA 0081. Architecture of the House Through Space and Time.

This undergraduate lecture course focuses on one building type, the house, through time in Mesopotamia, China, Japan, the Islamic world, the African diaspora, India, Britain, Rhode Island, and Germany and France. Houses can be minute or monumental, vernacular or high art, provide minimal shelter or afford the material and psychic satisfaction of home. By studying houses, we can bypass some of architectural history’s biases, and explore some of the major debates in the discipline: What is architecture? Who determines what is included/excluded in this category? And on what basis do they make these claims? A

HIAA 0084. Postwar to Postmodernism: Art Since 1945.

This lecture course will survey major artistic movements and strategies that developed from the postwar period through the 1980s. Styles and schools discussed will include art informel, Abstract Expressionism, Happenings, expanded cinema, kinetic art, Fluxus, Situationists, Pop, minimalism, conceptual art, performance, Institutional Critique, video art, and appropriation. Taking a globally comparative approach, emphasis will be on the historical conditions that gave rise to such a multiplicity of practices, as well as the theoretical frameworks used to advance and understand them.

HIAA 0085. German Architecture after World War Two.

This course examines the relationship between architecture and politics in postwar Germany. During the years that immediately followed WW2, we will investigate debates over urban reconstruction and mass-produced housing. After Germany was divided into East and West, we will examine how two opposing ideological settings impacted the approach to architecture in each Germany. Towards the end of the 20th century, we will study various approaches to the design of memorials to historic crimes. Throughout the course, special attention will be given to themes such as searching for a new identity, preventing sprawl, and coming to terms with the Nazi past.

HIAA 0087. Contemporary Art.

This lecture course will survey the major movements and artistic strategies of contemporary art since 1989. Topics include installation art, new documentary, performance/re-performance, new genre public art, relational aesthetics, arte útil, critical geography, post-production, para-fiction, research-based art, and post-colonial, post-critical, and post-internet practices. As suggested by the prevalence of “posts,” our discussion will center on the persistence of history in the art of the present.

HIAA 0089. Contemporary Photography.

This course surveys the rise of photography in the art world in the period after 1960. It examines both the development of photography as an independent medium and the appropriation of lens-based imagery by Pop Art, conceptual art, minimalism, and eventually Postmodernism.

HIAA 0090. The Other History of Modern Architecture.

This lecture course presents modern architecture as the product of the cultural, technological, political, and intellectual developments associated with capitalist expansion across the globe. By exploring the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its effects on Western industrialization, European Jesuit gardeners in China, modernization efforts in 19th century Turkey and Japan, and tropical climate and colonial policy in India, Nigeria, and other global sites; the course will expose students to the “99 percent” who are frequently excluded from discussions about modern architecture, but whose labor and cultural traditions were crucial to the heroic modernism of the West.

HIAA 0100. Introduction to Architectural Design Studio.

The class introduces students to basic tools and strategies in architectural design. A warmup exercise and several design assignments guide students to explore questions about form, function, structure, and light. The semester is devoted to the design of a small house. Students are trained in rigorous, conceptual thinking and graphically and verbally clear pronunciation of consequential design logic. By the end of the semester, the proposed building design is presented in concept diagrams, plans, sections, elevations, and a model. Course is intended for first and second year students. Preference is given to actual and future architecture concentrators. To apply for this class, students are required to submit an override request and a note via CAB to specify their concentration, semester level, and previous applications for this class. Enrollment limited to 15.

HIAA 0130. Architectural Projection.

This course introduces the beginning student to the origins, media, geometries and role(s) of projection drawing in the design and construction process. The student will learn systems of projection drawing from direct experience, and be challenged to work both from life and to life. Subjects such as transparency, figure/ground, sciagraphy, oblique projection, surface development, volumetric intersections, spatial manipulation and analytic operations will build on the basics of orthographic and conic projection. The course involves line and tone drawing, hand drafting, computer drawing(Autocad) and computer modeling(Rhino).

HIAA 0140. Structural and Architectural Analysis.

This course examines in greater detail the importance of materials, structures, and processes in architecture and helps students understand how buildings are made and ‘hold together.’ The students will study key examples in brick, wood, reinforced concrete, and steel, and design a series of small sample structures.

HIAA 0150. Intermediate Architectural Design Studio.

Building on the skills taught in the Introductory Studio, this studio emphasizes design as a mode of critical cultural inquiry to explore the cultural, environmental, and political forces which shape relationships between cities and the buildings, landscapes that form the public realm. Questions of the meaning of materials, functions, and urban imagery will be addressed with particular emphasis on acquiring greater fluency with the graphic tools and iterative processes through which designers conceptualize, synthesize, and represent the complex conditions of site, program, tectonics, and materiality to create urban landscapes. The city of Providence usually serves as a case study for observation and testing ground for your ideas, in addition to providing a site for your imaginary project. Students will come away with enhanced proficiency in representational techniques and a greater awareness of the social conditions of architectural production.

HIAA 0190. Advanced Design Studio.

This double-credit studio course builds on the skills taught in the Introductory and Intermediate Studios and will challenge students to design a more complex building. Urban planning strategies are developed to carefully insert the proposed building into a hybrid, densely populated urban context within a city. Students will be briefed to either design a residential housing project or a large public building. Students will analyze the built environment and character of the site to create contextual building designs that strengthen a neighborhood. The final presentation will require a complete set of drawings, renderings, a shared urban context model, and a large-scale model of the proposed building design. A jury of invited architects and professors will conduct a discussion of each project in an exhibition-like setting at the List Art Center. This course can be repeated once for credit.

HIAA 0211. Art of Empire: The Early Modern Hispanic World.

This course juxtaposes artists such as Titian and Velázquez alongside frequently unnamed indigenous craftsmen living under Spanish rule across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. We will track bi-directional artistic exchange and mobility during imperial expansion to ask: how did navigation, religion, natural resources, and trade shape the art of Spain and its colonies as preColombian visual traditions persisted and were exported to Europe? Considering how the power structures of the world’s first global empire continue to shape our understanding of the past, we will propose ways to begin decolonizing the study and display of objects produced under imperial rule.

HIAA 0311. Envisioning Monstrosity in Early Modernity.

This course introduces students to the historical analysis of visual and material culture through the charged site of the “monster” in the Atlantic World. How and why are monsters made? What can visualizations of monsters tell us about how Otherness is constructed, contested, and critiqued? What do monsters tell us about human oppression, agency, and cross-cultural encounters? Analyzing visual and textual primary sources as well as different theoretical approaches, students will hone in the course sharper visual analysis skills, a critical awareness of the many-sided discourses on monstrosity, and a deeper understanding of early modern Atlantic history.

HIAA 0321. Toward a Global Late Antiquity:200-800 CE.

Competing empires, the division of the eastern and western halves of Roman territory; long distance trade, the rise of monotheism, the spread of Buddhism: how did these factors affect the art and architecture associated with the Roman west, Constantinople, Ctesiphon, Alexandria, the Han Dynasty capitals, and Gandhara? This course takes an expanded view of Late Antiquity, extending beyond typical that associate the period with the post-classical west, to explore the dynamic creativity and intercultural connectivity of an era once considered a "Dark Age" in a world history.

HIAA 0322. The Arts of Religion and Ritual in the Ancient World.

This course explores how humans have imagined and conceptualized notions of divinity throughout the history of the ancient world (circa 3000 BCE to 1000 CE). We will consider a variety of visual representations, architectural monuments, and urban centers to investigate the types of places, natural phenomena, and individuals that were considered sacred. The class also explores how the art and architecture of temples and sanctuaries informs the nature of ancient ritual in a cross-cultural setting (A).

HIAA 0340. Roman Art and Architecture: From Julius Caesar to Hadrian.

An introduction to the major monuments in Roman art at the point when the Empire emerged up to the time of the creation of the Pantheon. No prior background required. A

HIAA 0400. Early Christian, Jewish, and Byzantine Art and Architecture.

No description available. A

HIAA 0405. Arts of the Sacred and the Demonic in the Ancient Mediterranean.

From rural temple to urban shrine, to elegant synagogue or village church, from household prayer nook to adorned tomb, people in the ancient world honored, encountered, and experienced their gods. They practiced a piety in which human flourishing depended on gestures, rituals, and built articulations of devotion mediated by beauty. But holy powers could also be malevolent, so ancient art served to protect, warn, or ward off evil spirits. This course will explore the art, architecture, and material cultures of ancient Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians between the 6th century BCE and the 6th century CE. We will consider a wide variety of evidence, including texts, sculpture, frescoes, mosaics, architecture, and domestic artifacts, to explore the many ways in which these distinct but connected communities expressed their beliefs through visual representations and material practices.

HIAA 0420. Cathedrals and Castles.

The course aims to engage critically with the major architectural features of the medieval world: the cathedral and the castle. In addition to examining specific buildings as case studies, we will also interrogate the cultural context and the material culture associated with the construction, use and meanings of these important spaces. The course is arranged thematically rather than chronologically. A

HIAA 0421. Inventions and Interpretations of Landscapes in the Middle Ages.

This course examines the multiplicity of the Middle Ages. The landscapes we will explore include imaginary deserts, mental pilgrimages, rabbit warrens, enclosed gardens, and tombs for the living with examples in the Iberian peninsula, Jerusalem, northern Africa, the Alps, Scandinavia, and beyond. The period covered will extend just beyond the Middle Ages to include examples in the Americas and the commodification and dissemination of its landscape across the globe. These broad examples will engage deeply with different forms of evidence to examine how we recreate meaning in the past and to question how we know what we know.

HIAA 0432. Pilgrimage Art and Architecture in the Middle Ages.

From Santiago de Compostela to Jerusalem, the movement of religious pilgrims in the Middle Ages resulted in a rich variety of architectural spaces and material culture. The growth of the cult of relics, and the pilgrims that visited them, fueled the development of the urban landscape and religious practices across the medieval world. This course explores the roots and routes of pilgrimage, focusing on the sacred relics that attracted them and the development of architectural spaces they visited. We will examine not only the art and architectural traditions related to pilgrimage in western Europe but the deep connections and exchange of art and architecture in Byzantine, Jewish and Islamic traditions. (a)

HIAA 0440. Gothic Art and Architecture.

Examines Gothic art and architecture to explore its sources and "invention" in mid-12th-century France and to trace its varied manifestations in European art to the 16th century. Special attention is given to cathedral architecture and decoration. Weekly one-hour conference required. A

HIAA 0460. Muslims, Jews and Christians in Medieval Iberia.

The cultural diversity of medieval Spain and Portugal is proclaimed by their Christian churches, Islamic mosques and Jewish synagogues. The three distinct cultures that produced these buildings lived together for centuries in medieval Iberia, sometimes in peace, sometimes not. For almost eight centuries (711-1492) writers, scholars and artists emerged from a cultural environment of intellectual borrowing nurtured by uninterrupted contact through marriage, conversion, commerce and travel. This convivencia of Jews, Muslims and Christians will be examined from the perspectives of literature, music, art, architecture, archaeology, and history.

HIAA 0550. Painters, Builders, and Bankers in Early Modern Italy.

How close can we get to understanding, or even to seeing, the art and architecture of 15th-century Italy? Michael Baxandall proposed studying it with a ‘period eye’ to understand the styles and functions of art and architecture in the domestic, civic, and religious lives of early modern people. We will learn to activate a period eye in the contexts of modern conservation, notions of cultural property, wars, the market and museums to understand both the original circumstances of the production of art, and to ask how these works are seen and the functions they serve today.A

HIAA 0555. Power, Dependence, and Social Welfare in Early Modern Italy.

This seminar examines the visual and material culture of power, propaganda, and social justice during the early modern period in Italy (c.1450-1800). Noble families set the tone for art patronage in public and private spaces across Italy. Prominent silk merchants sponsored the construction of the first institutional orphanage in Florence, while local nobility housed slaves. Venetian fathers consigned unwilling daughters to convents, as nuns in Naples built ‘invisible cities’ and employed artists to adorn them in lavish style. ‘Talking statues’ in Rome advocated for the end of oppressive taxation by over-zealous popes as The Church marshalled indigenous artisans to propagate the iconography of Catholicism and conversion in the Americas. We consider a range of works (painting, sculpture, prints, woodwork, ceramics, textiles, and clothing) to flesh out emerging, often conflicting discourses of social welfare, charity, opportunity, and oppression across Italy.

HIAA 0560. Constructing the Eternal City: Popes and Pilgrims in Early Modern Rome.

Examines painting, sculpture, architecture and printing in the context of the unique urban character of Early Modern Rome: site of ancient myth, religious pilgrimage, and a cosmopolitan court with power and influence across both visible and invisible worlds. Beginning with late medieval art, and the artists Filarete and Fra Angelico, we move through the Renaissance (Michelangelo and Raphael), and Counter-Reformation (Fontana, Tempesta, Barocci), tracing the formation of modernity in artists' workshops and academies, and through the streets with expanding papal urbanization programs. A

HIAA 0570. The Renaissance Embodied.

Renaissance depictions of the body range from muscular, idealized nudes to decaying, but ambulatory, corpses. Artists dissected human cadavers and, for the first time since antiquity, reflected the use of living models in their workshops and studios. In this course, we examine art that embodied power and sexuality, death and disease, the divine and demonic, the marginalized and the fantastic. We consider a diverse set of bodies as they were represented in paintings, sculpture, drawings, decorative arts and prints in relation to contemporary religious, political and social concerns.

HIAA 0580. Word, Image and Power in Renaissance Italy.

This undergraduate lecture class is designed to introduce cultural and historical perspectives on Italy from Siena in the Middle Ages to Renaissance Florence and the early modern Veneto. Team taught by professors of Italian Art History, History, and Literature, we will move across Italy and the centuries focusing on monuments of literature, art, architecture, and history through different disciplinary lenses. In English.

HIAA 0600. From Van Eyck to Bruegel.

Artists of Flanders and Holland effected a revolution in the techniques and subjects of painting during the 15th and 16th Centuries. This course explores the roots of artistic change in religion, urban history, politics, Italian humanism, economics, and craft traditions. The focus is on the great works of such artists as Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

HIAA 0630. Cultural History of the Netherlands in a Golden Age and a Global Age.

Between 1580 and 1690 two nations emerged in Europe from what had been one unified region. To the north, the Dutch Republic gained its independence from Spain and developed as a bastion of liberty, ideas in ferment, visuals arts, Calvinist faith, science, technology, and global economic reach. To the south, the "loyal" Netherlands, now Belgium, returned to the Spanish and Catholic fold, but sustained its leading position in the arts, competed in global trade, and negotiated a new compromise of government. In this course we present an interdisciplinary, comparative view of the "two" Netherlands and their legacy in the world.

HIAA 0632. Mural Painting in Mexico.

Before Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros were lauded as heroes of the twentieth-century muralismo movement, artists had been painting on walls throughout Mexico for centuries for both public and private audiences. We will consider how murals were sites for elite consumption and religious contemplation, political tools, agents for social change, and nexuses of collective identity. We will examine Mexican wall painting through time from Pre-Columbian dwellings and ceremonial spaces, to the painted interiors of Spanish colonial residences and churches, to public displays uniting post-Revolutionary Mexico, ending with the Chicano mural movement and vibrant community spaces of contemporary Mexico and the U.S.

HIAA 0660. Giotto to Watteau: Introduction to the Art of Europe from Renaissance to French Revolution.

Giotto to Watteau introduces the great works of European art from the Renaissance to French Revolution. What ideas and forces enabled artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt to transform the visual world so profoundly that their innovations still radiate outwards through history into the present? What are the best terms and concepts to describe and understand the new styles that developed between 1300 and 1800? Lectures, discussion, reading, and direct looking consider these questions in a way that works for students at an introductory level. A

HIAA 0710. The Other History of Modern Architecture.

This lecture course presents modern architecture as the product of the cultural, technological, political, and intellectual developments associated with capitalist expansion across the globe. By exploring the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its effects on Western industrialization, European Jesuit gardeners in China, modernization efforts in 19th century Turkey and Japan, and tropical climate and colonial policy in India, Nigeria, and other global sites; the course will expose students to the “99 percent” who are frequently excluded from discussions about modern architecture, but whose labor and cultural traditions were crucial to the heroic modernism of the West. A

HIAA 0770. Architecture and Urbanism of Africa.

This course introduces African built environments from the earliest known examples to the contemporary moment. Through recent debates about heritage and preservation, we will interrogate “Africa” as both an imagined construct and a concrete geographic entity characterized by diverse cultures, contexts, and histories. We will also explore competing interpretations of Africa’s architectural and urban history and their contemporary relevance. Weekly one-hour section required. A

HIAA 0771. African American and Caribbean Architectures: Domestic Space.

This course explores domestic landscapes occupied by African-Americans between the earliest years of slavery and the Second World War. We will examine some of the most common housing forms that diasporic Africans inhabited during those years—plantation slave quarters, tenant shacks, and urban tenements, to name a few. Our premise is that study of domestic life can reveal how political, economic, and social forces inform everyday life. The goals of the class are twofold: to improve our understanding of the social history of diasporic Africans and to develop sensitivity to the study of ordinary, everyday landscapes— or “vernacular architecture.” A

HIAA 0801. Art After ‘68.

The tumultuous social unrest of the 1960s was concretized in a worldwide succession of civic revolts in 1968. Throughout this period, art was an organizing tool for various political events. In turn, the concept of 1968 generated an aesthetic response that supported, documented and historicized the period. This course will examine the art and new art forms created in the wake of 1968. We will also look closely at the strategies of contemporary art making that are influenced by the spirit of 1968.

HIAA 0810. 20th Century Sculpture.

Writing in 1937, sculptor Naum Gabo posed the question, “What are the characteristics which make a work of art a sculpture?” Gabo’s question has a general resonance for the entirety of the twentieth century, where the medium of sculpture formed many of the significant debates within art. This lecture course is a survey of sculpture in the twentieth century. We will examine the medium through its definitions, material (metal, paper, plastic, stone, wood, etc.), methods (carving, casting, modeling, welding, etc.), practitioners, movements, theories and related practices, like architecture.

HIAA 0820. Art and Technology from Futurism to Hacktivism.

This course will introduce students to the central role of technological media in art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. From telephones to computers, the Sony Portapak to the Internet, artists have creatively engaged technology to transform how their art was made, circulated, and received. We will pay equal attention to technology as a medium and the ways artists responded to broader technological change. Looking at works from Europe, the Americas, and Japan, we will interrogate the varying social conditions and political motivations that drove artists to use technology in order to radically change the making and meaning of art.

HIAA 0830. Revolutionary Forms: 100 Years of Art and Politics in Latin America.

This course surveys Latin American art within the context of socio-political and intellectual concerns in the region. We will consider a wide variety of media with an eye to local and global events that prompted their production. We will examine how artworks embodied, challenged, and helped to shape history. We will survey major trends in art production: from photography during the Mexican Revolution to participatory and activist art in the beginning of the 21st century. Students will acquire visual and critical analysis skills in order to actively engage with their visual surroundings. Previous knowledge of art history is not required.

HIAA 0840. History of Rhode Island Architecture.

This course examines the historical development of architecture and building in Rhode Island within the larger context of colonial and national trends and with a focus on important manifestations of a distinct regional identity. Emphasis will be placed on stylistic developments, new building types and technologies, and the social and economic influences on the creation of the built environment.A

HIAA 0850. Modern Architecture.

The "classic" period of European and American modern architecture from the turn of the century to the 1950s. Presents both the established canon of masterpieces by among many others, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe, and LeCorbusier, and counterbalances this approach with information about new building materials, changing conditions of architectural production, and the "mechanisms of fame." A

HIAA 0860. Contemporary Architecture.

Stylistic, technological, and theoretical developments in architecture from the 1960s to the present. Analyzes movements such as "Brutalism," "Postmodernism," and "Deconstruction" and works by architects such as Frank Gehry, I. M. Pei, and Zaha Hadid. Emphasizes the complex conditions of architectural production in different parts of the world. Complements HIAA 0850, but may be taken independently. A

HIAA 0861. City and Cinema.

An examination of the mutual influence between two of the major art forms of the 20th century: film and architecture. Concentrates on European and American film sets throughout the 20th century and explores their formal and iconographical sources in contemporary architectural discourse. Presentation and examination of sketches, paintings, still photographs, and film clips as well as writings by directors, set designers, critics, and architects (Eisenstein, Reimann, Kracauer, Bunuel and many others). A

HIAA 0870. 20th Century British Art: Edwardian to Contemporary.

The field of British art offers a wide view onto the history of art and aesthetics. This survey of British art in the twentieth century will examine the nation's art, artists, and art movements alongside its current events. Readings will be drawn from periodicals, primary documents (artist's letters and manifestos) and secondary texts (Alloway, Hall, Read and others). Architecture, literature (Martin Amis, Joseph Conrad, Lynton Kwesi Johnson and others) and music will be considered throughout the course.

HIAA 0900. City and Cinema.

An examination of the mutual influence between two of the major art forms of the 20th century: film and architecture. Concentrates on European and American film sets throughout the 20th century and explores their formal and iconographical sources in contemporary architectural discourse. Presentation and examination of sketches, paintings, still photographs, and film clips as well as writings by directors, set designers, critics, and architects (Eisenstein, Reimann, Kracauer, Bunuel and many others).

HIAA 0901A. African American Art History at Tougaloo College.

This course covers the history of the contributions of Black artists and artisans to the Art and Architecture of the United States from 1600-to the present. We examine the careers, works, and lifestyles of African-American artists positioning them within the larger canon of American art and artist. The course exposes the student to African American artists beyond the textbook, with studio visits to Clementine Hunters former studio, and museum visits to have firsthand encounters with artworks. The course is project based with no exams and includes a research component that utilizes the Tougaloo Art Collection and the works of Edward Bannister.

HIAA 0931. Eco-aesthetics.

This course examines a movement in contemporary art and visual culture – termed “eco-aesthetics” – that works to raise awareness of global climate change and to resist forces of environmental degradation. We will begin by tracing a history of emerging artistic-ecological consciousness in the US and Europe in the 1960s and 70s, and then take a more global, interdisciplinary look at shifting methods of photographic, filmic, and new media documentation and representations of a “post-natural” landscape in the Anthropocene Age. We will analyze collective eco-aesthetic activism in the 21st century, exploring artistic collaborations in various local, regional, and global contexts.

HIAA 1001A. Constructing Memory: The Design of Monuments in the Public Realm.

This is a course about cities, people, and what we chose to recognize and commemorate through the construction of monuments and memorials in the public realm. Cities are distinguished by their public spaces, a complex hybrid of social, cultural, political, and spatial phenomena not easily studied by a single discipline, and it is the urban public realm that provides the greatest insight into the provocative interaction between the cultural values and the built environment.

HIAA 1012. Art History Detectives: The Case of the Black Gospel window.

Students will study the intersection between art, culture, and geopolitics through the lens of art theft. While the course will introduce the history of art theft in general from Napoleon to the Nazis and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond to the Mona Lisa, the primary focus will be on 500 years of Europe’s looting of African art. In addition to developing visual analysis skills and an understanding of the history of African art, students will learn about the history of the Western museum, the international art market, the decolonize museum movement, and the debate on restituting African art.

HIAA 1014. Art History Detectives: The Case of the Black Gospel Window.

In 2022, a stained-glass window was uncovered in a church in Warren, RI. The window appears to be the earliest known representation of Christ and Gospel Women as people of color in American public space. Who made this window? Why did it depict people of color in a biblical scene? This course introduces students to art and architectural history research in action through participation in a collaborative research project bringing together Brown University faculty, faculty experts from across the United States, museum curators at the Memphis Art Museum which will conserve and display the window, and heritage professionals from Rhode Island.

HIAA 1015. Art from The Four Corners of the Early Modern World.

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, encounters between Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa challenged traditional worldviews as people, objects, and ideas traveled between the “four corners of the world.” These encounters resulted in distinct works of art such Dutch cabinets made from African ebony and classical architectural facades featuring carvings of Chinese peonies in Macau. In this course, we will consider how artistic styles spread across the globe and how historical forces shaped constructions of race and ethnicity. Students will also be introduced to various methodological approaches to the discipline of art history.

HIAA 1020. Topics in East Asian Art.

Topics in East Asian Art. Topics will be listed separately.

HIAA 1060. Russian Culture: From Peter The Great to Putin.

Taught by Vladimir Golstein and Maria Taroutina. An interdisciplinary exploration of Russian cultural history through its literature, art, religion, political thought, and film. This course seeks to encourage thinking in more integrative and interdisciplinary ways about history, arts, and society. We examine a wide range of cultural expressions: visual arts, religion, civic rituals and practices, social customs and popular entertainment. Topics include: conceptions of Russian nationhood; visual arts in the service of Russian Empire, the myths of St. Petersburg and Moscow; the interaction among elites, intelligentsia, and the common people (narod); conflicting appeals of rationality, spirituality, and nihilism. All of these themes and forms will be treated as interrelated, as connected to social and political life, and as part of a larger European culture.

HIAA 1090. Writing About the Arts.

Writing is a critical skill for those who engage in the practice of art history, art criticism, and art theory. This writing-intensive workshop/seminar will offer students the opportunity to encounter various kinds of art in various real-world settings, then write about them. Different genres of art writing will be explored (reviews, museum wall texts, scholarly analyses, etc.) and, through frequent short assignments, participants will be learn to write with greater clarity, precision, and organization. Readings will explore the problems entailed in art historical description and what happens when visual ideas become texts.

HIAA 1101A. Illustrating Knowledge.

This seminar will investigate the history of illustration from the first manuscript maps and printed herbals to the present, including paintings, photographs, and computer imaging. We will investigate the role of pictures in the exchange of scientific ideas, and modes of representation developed in both the arts and the sciences. Enrollment limited to 19 first year students.

HIAA 1101B. Seeing and Writing on Contemporary Arts.

The purpose of this writing intensive seminar (especially designed for freshmen) is to train the students in both seeing and writing on contemporary art. The class will be based on looking at specific works of art of the twentieth century in museum context (using nearby collections, notably) and on how to translate visual observations into analytical and critical writing.

HIAA 1101C. Water and Architecture.

The seminar explores the varied ways in which water is manipulated in architecture and urban planning. It is organized in ‘archaeological’ order: from the most recent to the oldest. We will examine case studies, beginning with Tadao Ando’s Water Temple and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. We will examine the local examples of Slater Mill, the Blackstone River, and Barnaby Evans’ Waterfire. We will then look back at historical examples: the Hoover Dam, the creation of Venice and the Grand Canal of China, the fountains at Versailles, the Islamic gardens at Isfahan, the medieval hydraulic plan for Canterbury Cathedral, and the Roman aqueduct bridge of the Pont du Gard. One of the principal aims of the course is to place the discussion of design into historical, technological and environmental contexts, and to provide students with experience in the production of architectural projects

HIAA 1104. From Treasuries to Cabinets of Curiosity: A History of Collecting Art and Artifacts.

From the Treasury of Saint-Denis in medieval Paris to Athanasius Kirchner’s museum of curiosities in early modern Rome, collectors have long been fascinated by the finest objects formed by nature and human hands. This seminar will focus on the intersection of art and science and the principles of early modern collecting and display. Each week students will consider how collectors classified objects as wonders of art or science, and how the princely and scientific collections of the early modern world shaped modern museum practices. Attention will also be given to the global trade networks that made the collection of such objects possible.

HIAA 1105. Otherworldly and Other Worlds: Representing the Unseen in Early Modern Europe.

This course will examine European beliefs about vampires, witches, angels, demons, “monstrous races” and other enchanted and unseen beings between 1500-1800— the era of the famous witch hunts and a period of confrontation between belief and disbelief about these figures. Spurred by new instruments like the telescope, new technologies in printing and cartography, and unprecedented travel across the globe, knowledge about the universe increasingly expanded in this period to incorporate new discoveries and observations. Close analysis of several case studies will highlight how dramatic debates about these creatures played out in visual form in early modern Europe.

HIAA 1120B. History of Urbanism, 1300-1700.

Examines major themes in the history of urbanism by concentrating on selected towns and cities in order to explore general issues (e.g. the relationship of town and countryside and the emergence of capital cities) and characteristic urban building (e.g. fortifications, designed squares, civic monuments). No prerequisites. A short oral presentation and term paper are required.

HIAA 1120C. History of Western European Urbanism 1200-1600.

Examines major themes in the history of urbanism by concentrating on selected towns and cities in order to explore general issues (e.g. the relationship of town and countryside and the emergence of capital cities) and characteristic urban building (e.g. fortifications, designed squares, civic monuments). No prerequisites. A short oral presentation and term paper are required.

HIAA 1121. Designed in European Style: Colonial Architecture of the Global South.

In many (post)colonial cities across the Global South, colonial architecture often continues to define contemporary cityscapes. These buildings—including but not limited to monuments, commercial spaces, hotels, and houses—function as sites of negotiation for decolonial rhetoric. This course traces colonial architecture across time, linking social, political, and cultural change with specific case studies of colonial architecture across South and Southeast Asia, West Africa, and South America. We will engage both broad theoretical overviews and closely read archival documents, photographs, plans, novels, memoirs, and films to understand colonial architecture in its historical and contemporary contexts. This course provides a foundation to understand the continuous reckoning with colonial remnants in the Global South. This is a WRIT and RPP course and is open to all undergraduate students.

HIAA 1150C. El Greco and Velazquez.

This course will study the great Spanish artists El Greco and Velázquez in relation to the major developments in 16th- and 17th- century European painting and in the context of the social, political, and intellectual concerns of Habsburg Spain, as well as the particular cultural milieu in which they each worked. We will trace El Greco’s career from his native Crete to Venice and Rome and finally to Toledo, and Velázquez’s from the commercial metropolis of Seville to the court in Madrid. In addition, we will examine their modern reception by art historians, artists, and collectors in Spain and beyond.

HIAA 1150D. El Greco and the Golden Age of Spanish Painting.

This seminar examines the career of the Greek painter from Crete known as El Greco in Spain where he worked in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Empahsis will be given to the interaction of various European traditions in the culture of Counter Reformation Europe. Weekly readings and discussion and individual projects required. Enrollment limited to 25 students.

HIAA 1151. Painting Indigenous Histories in Colonial Mexico.

This seminar considers the ways in which indigenous histories and cultures were represented in manuscripts made by indigenous and missionary artists/authors of colonial Mexico. Part of our corpus will include manuscripts held in the John Carter Brown Library. Of particular importance to our inquiry will be definitions of writing and literacy; configurations of space and time; modes of recounting the past; representations of indigenous identities, the evolution and invention of pictorial forms; and the role of pictures in juridical contexts. The course will culminate with the creation of an online exhibition featuring books and manuscripts from the JCB’s collection.

HIAA 1170B. Twentieth-Century American Painting.

HIAA 0800 is a suggested prerequisite. Weekly one-hour section required.

HIAA 1171. Cities, Landscapes, and Design in the Age of Pandemics.

This is a course about design and public health. Over the course of the semester, we will examine design proposals by architects, landscape architects, and urban planners which respond to a range of concerns about public space and public health. As a part of our study, we will explore topics including urban planning, and policy strategies proposed by Olmsted, Howard, Burnham, le Corbusier to address to fears about urban density, immigration, and contagion; the effect of treatment protocols for infectious diseases like tuberculosis (hygiene, fresh air, sunlight) on the evolution of the work of designers including Aalto, Neutra, Eames, and others.

HIAA 1172. Words and Modern Architecture.

From its emergence against the backdrop of the industrial revolution and European imperialism, architectural modernism has been shaped by a distinct vocabulary. This course interrogates how architects and critics have used critical terms to define modern architecture in theory and practice. We will investigate the role of six of these words in the formation of architectural modernism: nature, material, structure, detail, program, space. Concentrating on the circulation of these terms in the Anglican world, we will consider their introduction from colonial encounter and French and German discourse. We will also investigate how these defining concepts are linked to mass media.

HIAA 1181. Prefabrication and Architecture.

Architects have been captivated prefabrication since the Industrial Revolution revealed the benefits of mechanized human labor. This undergraduate project seminar will examine the provenance and relevance of prefabrication. We will consider the prefabricated traditions of Africa and Asia as the foundation for the discipline of “vernacular architecture”; and conceptualize prefab as a technology of colonial expansion, solution to the postwar housing crisis, expression of 1960s counterculture, and response to climate change. Case studies will be drawn from Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, and North America. A

HIAA 1182. Spaces and Institutions of Modernity.

This undergraduate seminar will explore canonical and emerging theories of modernity as they intersect with our understanding of space and the role of the built environment and designed objects within it. The seminar will be organized as a series of case studies of the iconic sites and institutions of modernity (the metropolis, the world's fair, the museum, the prison) as well as others that have also come to exemplify it (the ship, the plantation, the railroad, the colony). Class time will include analysis of primary documents and field trips to local sites. A

HIAA 1190. Spaces and Institutions of Modernity.

This undergraduate seminar will explore canonical and emerging theories of modernity as they intersect with our understanding of space and the role of the built environment and designed objects within it. The seminar will be organized as a series of case studies of the iconic sites and institutions of modernity (the metropolis, the world's fair, the museum, the prison) as well as others that have also come to exemplify it (the ship, the plantation, the railroad, the colony). Class time will include analysis of primary documents and field trips to local sites.

HIAA 1200A. Ancient Art in the RISD Collection.

The RISD Museum's ancient collection will be studied firsthand and in light of recent scholarship in Greek and Roman art and archaeology. Using the collection as a springboard, the course will explore original contexts for museum objects; issues of cultural property and museum ethics; conservation, restoration and display in museums; and notions of historical interpretation in museum display.

HIAA 1200D. Pompeii.

Pompeii and its neighboring towns are the best examples for studying the life, art, and architecture of a Roman town. This seminar covers the works of art and the life in the town as reflected in the monuments excavated over the past 250 years. Instructor permission required. A

HIAA 1201. Brushwork: Chinese Painting in Time.

How did the tenor of the individual brushstroke become the locus of value in traditional Chinese painting? What other possible standards of excellence—such as verisimilitude—were displaced in the process? This course pursues these questions by analyzing the great monuments of Chinese painting from the perspective of the aesthetic debates that defined them over the centuries. Proceeding from the famous Six Laws of Painting down to the aesthetic watershed of the Northern and Southern Schools, the course traces the fraught interplay of artistic practice and critical judgment in China over more than a thousand years. No prior knowledge required.

HIAA 1202. Mountains and Waters: Art and Ecology in East Asia.

For more than a millennium, painters and poets across East Asia have acclaimed soaring peaks astride expansive rivers as the most sublime of all subjects. Often termed “landscape” in modern English, these images of “mountains and waters” (shanshui) offer fascinating insights into the ways in which what we now call “the environment” was conceptualized in premodern East Asia. Drawing upon recent eco-aesthetic perspectives, this seminar examines these celebrated monuments of East Asian painting as ecological entities, investigating their relationships with the human and nonhuman beings that participated in their reproduction, and interrogating the moral implications of their enduring appeal. First year seminar

HIAA 1203. Patterns of Exchange: Ornament in Art and Architecture Between Local and Global.

This seminar will explore design history through the study of selected decorative motifs and design tropes (i.e., the lotus and dragon designs, 􀎟oral and geometric motifs, and the concept of symmetry and repetition), examining their evolution through cultural and artistic exchange. Focusing on ornamental features found in movable art objects, such as textiles, ceramics, and metalwork, as well as architecture, students will trace the journey of these motifs across diverse cultures and time periods, observing how they adapt and transform in response to changing contexts. Through structured discussions, assigned readings, and curated museum visits, participants will critically analyze artworks that serve as prime examples of the exchange of decorative elements. This interdisciplinary course is tailored to appeal to a diverse audience, including students of design history, art history, art practitioners, individuals intrigued by the dynamics of artistic exchanges.

HIAA 1212. The Pictured Text.

Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.

HIAA 1213. The Bureaucracy of Hell: Envisioning Death in East Asian Art.

This seminar examines the material and visual cultures of death in premodern East Asia. Topics include the materiality of funerary rites, the practice of entombing the dead with miniatures, and the visual tradition associated with the influential Scripture on the Ten Kings, which envisioned the afterlife as an infernal bureaucracy. We will discover that the way people in premodern East Asia envisioned death had a lot to do with the way in which they experienced life. By thinking through the continuities, we will use the present traces of death to envision the absent world of the living.

HIAA 1300. Topics in Classical Art and Architecture.

No description available. Topic courses listed separately.

HIAA 1301. The Palaces of Ancient Rome.

This seminar addresses the palatial art and architecture of the ancient Roman Empire. Key themes include the architectural articulation of political power; the role of international relations in expressing cultural power; the interplay of influence among palaces and villas; the art of adornment, luxury, and collecting; the interaction of architecture and landscape, including interior gardens and urban environments; the critical analysis of archaeological evidence, reconstruction, and legacy. A

HIAA 1302. Women and Families in the Ancient Mediterranean.

What was life like for the women of the ancient Mediterranean? What rights, roles, responsibilities, and expectations defined their lives? Why is the examination of art and architecture such an important source for answering these questions? This course will provide a comparative perspective exploring Greek, Etruscan, and Roman case studies.

HIAA 1303. Pompeii: Art, Architecture, and Archaeology in the Lost City.

Buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, Pompeii stands as a time capsule of city life in the Roman Empire of the 1st century. Exploring the city’s grand public baths, theaters, and amphitheaters, its seedy bars and businesses, its temples for Roman and foreign gods, and its lavishly decorated townhomes and villas, this seminar will reconstruct a panoramic view of Roman daily life and consider the Vesuvian region’s modern reception since its rediscovery in the 18th century. A

HIAA 1304. Spectacle! Games, Gladiators, Performance, and Ceremony in the Roman World.

Theaters, amphitheaters, baths, circuses, and imperial residences pepper the former territory of the Roman Empire. Modern films conjure the fantastic, yet ephemeral, events of days long past, amplifying the fascination of these ubiquitous ruins. For the Romans, however, spectacle was not only about fun and games. What really took place in these spaces, and why? Learn to separate fact from fiction as we consider artistic, architectural, and archaeological evidence to understand how and why spectacles were fundamental to Roman daily life.

HIAA 1305. Pre-Columbian Art + Architecture.

Survey of ancient art and building in ancient America, with a focus on Mexico, Central America, and the Andes. Underlying concepts include: meaning and method, cosmos and kingship, narrative and symbol, personality and authorship, empire and royal court. Rich collections of the Haffenreffer museum will form the focus of work in the class. A

HIAA 1306. Art and Crime: The History and Hazards of Collecting the Classical.

What if almost everything you thought you knew about Classical art was wrong, or at least highly suspect? This course will introduce and debate the epistemological and ethical problems entangled in the collection, display, and study of ancient art. Topics of discussion, among others, will include: How have decontextualized artifacts shaped narratives of ancient art? How are looting and forgery intertwined? Do museums and collectors unwittingly support the illegal trade of artifacts? What should be done with the thousands of unprovenanced objects in museum collections? What is repatriation and why is it such a complex issue?

HIAA 1307. Politics and Spectacle in the Arts of Ancient Rome.

This seminar investigates the intersection of politics and spectacles in the artistic production of ancient Rome. We will explore a variety of public monuments to reveal how they codify essential aspects of Roman culture. Topics include the architecture of entertainment spaces such as theaters, amphitheaters, and circuses, as well as the social functions of spectacles such as gladiatorial games and triumphal processions. We will look at expressions of imperial propaganda in monuments such as tombs and honorific arches. The class also considers how these ideas entered the private realm in the form of domestic wall paintings, mosaics, and sculpture gardens. A

HIAA 1308. Arts of Memory in Ancient Rome.

In ancient Rome, art and architecture were important vehicles for preserving memories, both individual and collective. Works of art such as reliefs, stelae, paintings, and monumental tombs, perpetuated the memory of historical events and honored the legacies of notable individuals. This seminar will explore the multiple forms of commemoration in ancient Roman art and architecture, considering a variety of media including burials and cenotaphs, triumphal arches, honorific columns and statues, among others. We will analyze the monuments built by and for members of the Roman elite, as well as private memorials dedicated by ordinary citizens. (A)

HIAA 1309. Sacred Waters of the Ancient World.

Bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and springs, have for long been considered places where humans can communicate with supernatural forces. In the ancient Mediterranean world, people engaged in rituals that incorporated water: from the deposition of votive offerings in sacred lakes, to the immersion in hot springs as a strategy for healing. This seminar explores the relationship between art and architecture, religion, and water landscapes in the ancient Mediterranean world and in other pre-modern locations. We consider small shrines and large sanctuaries dedicated to the cult of water deities, such as the Celtic goddess Sequana and Roman Nymphs, to investigate the visual and material cultures associated with these sacred spaces. We also investigate how sacred places were transformed by human activity to reflect larger cultural process such as such as warfare, migrations, and acculturation.

HIAA 1310. Topics in Hellenistic Art.

Topics course . Topics listed separately.

HIAA 1360X. The Aesthetics of Color: History, Theory, Critique (GNSS 1960X).

Interested students must register for GNSS 1960X.

HIAA 1400F. Research Seminar Gothic Art.

No description available.

HIAA 1401. Objects of Devotion in the Middle Ages.

How did people in the medieval world ‘do’ devotion? What role did objects and architectural spaces have in engaging with the divine? This seminar explores the liminal role objects and spaces had as mediators, as foci, and even the metaphysical embodiment of saints in the Middle Ages. We will study the legacy of attitudes toward icons, relics, and martyrdom in Late Antiquity in the early and high European Middle Ages. We examine the medieval approach to materials and the meditative and performative use of devotional art. Topics to be explored include relics and bodily remains, architecture, pilgrimage, gendered devotion art, iconoclasm, and modern museum practices exhibiting devotional art. Students will have the opportunity to engage in-depth with devotional from the Hay Library and the RISD Museum.

HIAA 1410A. Topics in Islamic Art: Islamic Art and Architecture on the Indian Subcontinent.

This course focuses on architecture, manuscript paintings, and decorative arts produced under the patronage of Islamic rulers, who dominated the Indian subcontinent between 1192 and 1858. The class will examine works of art as instruments in the process of establishing an empire as well as expressions of political and religious power. A

HIAA 1410B. Painting in Mughal India 1550-1650.

The Mughal (Muslim) rulers of north India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries presided over what was then the richest, most cosmopolitan culture in the world. The earliest rulers were open-minded and intellectually voracious; they brought together Persian, Turkish, and a variety of indigenous Indian traditions to create a distinctive new way of representing and living in the world. This cultural interaction, and the important role played by Portuguese missionaries and English traders, will be the focus of this seminar.

HIAA 1411. Illustrating Indigenous Knowledge in European Print.

This seminar examines the transatlantic politics of publishing indigenous knowledge. In early modern Europe, pictorial prints codified paradigm shifts in geography, ecology, and medicine. Knowledge of newly conquered lands appeared in books illustrated by artists who, often, had never visited the places they pictured. Meanwhile in the Americas, indigenous and creole artists appealed to experienced printmakers and publishers in Europe while building resources and artisanal knowledge among local printmakers. How did the power dynamics of coloniality shape the way knowledge of indigenous peoples was codified? We will answer this question through study of illustrated books in special collections at Brown.

HIAA 1418. Islamic Art in the RISD Museum: Thinking With Objects.

In this seminar, students will work with objects from the RISD Museum collection to think through the histories and historiographies of Islamic art. Students will explore aspects of production, circulation, and display history through individual objects and their attendant narratives in scholarship, while also considering the questions of authenticity and provenance that are raised by the material’s passage through the colonial-era antiquities market. Students will work closely with their chosen object to produce a research paper and present their findings in a mini-conference held in the last class meeting.

HIAA 1420. Monarchs, Gods and Demons: The Art of the Ancient Near East.

This seminar explores the art and architecture of the ancient Near East, focusing on the interconnected cultures of ancient Iraq, often referred to as Mesopotamia or the “Land Between the Rivers,” and Iran from ca. 4000 to 300 BCE. We will trace the development of visual and material culture over the course of arguably the world’s oldest civilization. The class will draw on methods and topics from the fields of archaeology, Assyriology, and religious studies. In exploring the “deep time” of the ancient Near East, we will ask fundamental questions about the role of the visual in human society. What is an image? What powers does it have over our lived reality? What makes an image divine? What is a monument? How do art and architecture participate in defining institutions such as the city, religion, or the state?

HIAA 1430A. The Visual Culture of Medieval Women.

Considers women as patrons and producers of medieval art and architecture, and examines the imaging of women in medieval works of art. Topics include: feminist perspectives in medieval history and art history, patronage by royal and aristocratic women, costume and textile production, and the art and architecture of female monastic communities. Optional FLAC French conference offered.

HIAA 1432. Borderlands: Art and Culture between Rome and Iran.

We tend to think of borders as hard and fast lines on a map, separating two distinct spheres of territory under different political authorities. In the ancient world however, borders formed regions of uncertain control, places defined by zones of influence projected from cities, with authorities and actors adept at playing both sides. This was especially true in the Classical and Late Antique Middle East, a region contested by the great empires of Rome and Iran. This class examines the art and architecture produced both by and between Rome and Iran. By studying the depictions (and appropriations) of the other, and the visual and material record of liminal places such as Palmyra, Commagene, Hatra, and Dura-Europos, this course investigates the forms of cultural expression in contested places, and how they forged an international visual language of power, prestige, and sacrality.

HIAA 1440B. The Architecture of Solitude: The Medieval Monastery.

Religious men and women, as well as their patrons, sought to establish places of devotion and learning across the medieval landscape. This course examines the rise and development of the medieval monastery from its late antique beginnings in the deserts of Africa to the rise of the preaching orders in early thirteenth-century Europe. Emphasis will be placed upon the material expressions of western monasticism and upon the notion of the monastery as an architectural, archaeological and historical research problem through examination of individual case study examples. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 12. A

HIAA 1440D. The Gothic Cathedral.

A

HIAA 1440E. The Body and the Senses in Medieval Art.

The seminar considers the contradictory aspects of embodiment in the visual and material culture of the Middle Ages. We will examine the veneration of holy bodies through living holy individuals, and through body parts (relics) and the Eucharist enshrined in sumptuous containers. We will look at the iconography of death and resurrection, the representation of the body in painting and sculpture, attitudes toward sexuality, the performance of identity through clothing, and the sumptuary laws that governed clothing and behavior. We will investigate funerary rituals and burial, and the movement of living bodies in dance and in civic and religious processions. A

HIAA 1440F. Architectural Reuse: The Appropriation of the Past.

This seminar will consider the survival, revival and adaptive reuse of older objects, texts and built spaces in the visual and material culture of successor cultures. We will look critically at the literature on the archaeology of memory, “Renaissance and revival” spolia studies and adaptive reuse. The seminar will examine selected case studies, including the reuse of sculptural elements in the Arch of Constantine, the conversion of Pantheon into a church and Hagia Sophia into a mosque, appropriated elements in the Qutb mosque in Delhi and the adaptation of the Bankside Power Station as the Tate Gallery.

HIAA 1460. Topics in Medieval Archaeology.

No description available.

HIAA 1470. The Lactating, Menstruating Christ: Constructing and Depicting Gender in Late Medieval Europe.

Throughout the long span of the Middle Ages, gender was a mutable category, dangerous and at times powerful because of its instability. This seminar explores the conceptualization, creation, and demarcation of medieval gender, drawing from both medieval texts and the physical record — art, architecture, archaeology, and objects — for evidence. In the first half of the course, we will discuss how gender was defined, bounded, and represented. We will draw from the resulting grasp of how gender was constructed and performed in the second half of the course to complicate, nuance, and interrogate how gender operated in particular contexts and for particular purposes.

HIAA 1550A. Prints and Everyday Life in Early Modern Europe.

Uses the resources of the RISD Museum in graphics and decorative arts (weaponry, embroidery, textiles, and ceramics) from the early modern period. Examines the use of ornament and mythological and sacred themes as they relate to crafts and the transmission of culture, focusing on the making, distribution, materiality, and histories of objects of everyday life.

HIAA 1550B. Topics in the Early History of Printmaking: Festival and Carnival.

This course looks at the printed festival books made for recording ideal versions of royal entries, funerals, weddings and other printed expressions of regal celebration, alongside printed, painted and otherwise recorded evidence of popular celebrations such as carnival, and civic and religious festivals such as the Sienese palio. Although beginning with circulated prints and books, we will also look at the material culture of these events in their widest sense to investigate the advertisement and control of festival cultures. The class will focus on early modern Italy but students are welcome to broaden our geographic horizons. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 1550C. Dreaming of Food in the Early Modern World.

Floods, wars, trade, climate change, class distinctions, carnivals and public feasts kept food at the forefront of the early modern imagination. Focusing on Italy, but including its global connections, we will look at the cultures of food as the material of art and literature in markets, vineyards, courts, recipe books, medicine, kitchens, and the dreams of the hungry. Investigating the cultivation, presentation and consumption of food through related arts and the evolution of manners allows us to consider the design of tableware, food sculpture, and tapestries alongside more canonical arts. Some previous art history required, languages helpful. Upperclass seminar.

HIAA 1560A. Italy and the Mediterranean.

Sicily, Venice, and Rome were Medieval and Renaissance international centers whose populations of pilgrims, traders, soldiers, and diplomats occasioned opportunities for cultural cooperation and violence between East and West. We will study mosaics and architecture of the multi-ethnic Norman rule following the Islamic conquest of Sicily; Venetian relations with the Ottoman Empire and its Greek colonies in goods, painting styles, architecture and atlases; and in Rome obsessions with Egyptian engineering, the vitality of Arabic studies, and reports of travelers resulting from papal efforts to incorporate Eastern Christians under the umbrella of the Roman church. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors.

HIAA 1560B. Mannerism.

This class provides an opportunity to study courtly painting, sculpture, prints, drawing and architecture of the movement that became known as Mannerism. The material will focus most strongly on the art of Florence and Rome, but we will also be looking at France and Bohemia, and at the history, literature and literature of art of those centers.

HIAA 1560C. Renaissance Venice and the Veneto.

This course explores the visual culture, theater, ritual, architecture, and urban development of Venice and the Veneto from the late medieval period through the 16th century, tracing the development of painting, sculpture, architecture and a literature of art within the city¹s unique physical configuration and relationship with the East. For advanced students, written permission required and given at first meeting. A

HIAA 1560D. Siena from Simone Martini to Beccafumi.

This course will focus on the art and architecture of republican Siena over the 250 year period before its annexation to Tuscany in 1555. We will study the relationships between piety, work, and politics in a rich period of building and decorating that has determined the look and, to an extent, the culture of the city until the present day.

HIAA 1560E. The Arts of Renaissance Courts.

Courts were active patronage centers in the areas of secular and religious painting, sculpture and architecture, book illumination, rich narrative textiles for interior use and ornamental ones for costume, as well as ephemeral works for theatrical productions, triumphal entries and festivities. Artists working at court were able to ignore guild regulations, and acquired a status for themselves that set them apart from other urban practitioners. Centering our investigation on primary sources as far as possible, we will study a wide range of works, materials, ideologies and practices that contributed to the reputation of the Italian courts as centers of opulence and power. Final project and weekly class meetings required. Enrollment limited to 20. Instructor permission required.

HIAA 1560F. Topics in Italian Visual Culture: The Visible City, 1400- 1800.

We will look at the image of the city in all media, attending to the contexts in which they are illustrated, the technologies of representation and the reasons for imagining cities, taking into account iconic and symbolic representations, personifications, maps and views, and comparing visual and textual descriptions of the places of early modern urban life.

HIAA 1600A. Bosch and Bruegel: Art Turns the World Upside Down.

An in-depth look at the work of these two enigmatic Netherlandish artists. After seeing how art history uses various methods to establish what they actually painted and drew, we will move outwards to interpretation and historical study of their images of comedy, proverbs, religion, and landscape. Artworks in local museums will be important focuses of discussion. Prerequisite: Any history of art and architecture course numbered below 1000.

HIAA 1600B. Caravaggio.

Caravaggio is one of the great revolutionary artists and a real cultural phenomenon in his own time and ours. This seminar considers in-depth the nature of his work, the different historical strategies used to explain it, and possible new approaches.

HIAA 1600C. Italian Baroque Painting and Sculpture.

Examines developments in painting and sculpture in 17th century Italy with focus on the impact of the Catholic church and the rediscovery of antiquity on church and palace decoration, public andprivate commissions, and the rhetoric of Baroque style andiconography. Study of individual artists, including Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Gianlorenzo Bernini, as well as artacademies, the mechanics of patronage and writings about art andartists.

HIAA 1600D. The Art of Peter Paul Rubens.

The seminar will study the seminal work of Rubens in all its aspects.

HIAA 1600E. The World Turned Upside Down.

Seminar examining the comic and satirical traditions in Netherlandish art, including works by Hieronymus, Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Adriaen Brouwer, and Jan Steen. How do visual images connect with writers such as Erasmus and Rabelais, with polemical satires of the Reformation, and with popular literature along the lines Renard the fox. What historical developments were at play in the formation of comic stereotypes and the representation of charged events such as the celebration of carnival?

HIAA 1600F. Antwerp: Art and Urban History.

No description available.

HIAA 1600G. Art + Religion in Early Modern Europe.

In this seminar we will reconstruct the various ways in which visual communication participated in the practice and changes of religious life during the early modern period (1400-1800). Topics will range from the role played by prints in the spread of the Reformation to the design of new kinds of architecture for the implementation of the Catholic Counter Reformation. Close attention will be given to the significance of iconoclasm (destruction of images), ideals of visual communication for religious persuasion, the invention of new methods of meditation with visual focus, and the relationship between sacred words and images. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 1600H. Comedy in Netherlandish Art From Hieronymus Bosch to Jan Steen.

No description available.

HIAA 1600I. Collections and Visual Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: 1400-1800.

Examines the ways in which collections organized and developed new kinds of knowledge and practices. Collections were decisive in the formation of art, history, science, religion, politics, and international relations. We will discuss the rationales behind these different kinds of collections, the order in which things were placed, the visual organization and architecture that created the first museums, and the economics of collections. Attention to the collections of kings, artists, natural scientists, middle class citizens, humanists, and the devout will provide examples from a wide variety of perspectives. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 1600J. Rembrandt.

This seminar will concentrate on art of Rembrandt. We will study his technique, development, and varied subject matter in all media from drawings to etchings and paintings. Rembrandt's work will be related to the historical contexts in which it was created and displayed. Prerequisite: previous courses in History of Art and Architecture. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 1620. Arts Between Europe and the World: 1500-1700.

How did arts and visual objects of all kinds mediate between Europe and regions of the world opened to contact through trade, conquest, religious conversion, and the exchange of knowledge? This seminar will search for the major contexts of these exchanges and for the best methods to understand their histories. What conditions enabled or prevented mutual recognition? How were foreign materials imported and integrated, as with Chinese porcelain in the Netherlands or European glass in China? What balances of power determined exchanges, from the colonial extinction of Pre-Columbian art to the adaptation of western perspective in Japanese prints?

HIAA 1625. Native American Architecture.

Academic disciplines that discuss Native American pasts (such as archaeology, anthropology, and history) have historically characterized Indigenous peoples of North America by what they supposedly “lack.” Architectural history is no exception. Despite a deep continental history of Native American constructions—whether monumental earthen mounds or effigies, village complexes, roads, or megaliths—Native architecture is often ignored in histories of architecture. Combining archaeological, ethnographic, archival, and oral-historical sources, this course exposes the erasure of Native Americans from architectural history and celebrates the diversity and complexity of Indigenous built environments. We first examine how different academic disciplines have historically studied (and sometimes erased) Native American architecture. Then we will survey Indigenous architecture before settler colonialism. We end the course studying the violence of and resistance to colonialism in North America and how contemporary Indigenous architectural traditions have been shaped in response.

HIAA 1626. Settler-Colonial Placemaking: From Vikings to the Homestead Act.

The term “settler colonialism” has become popular in recent years to define a spatialized structure of inequality between settler societies and Indigenous peoples. What exactly defines a “settler” in this context? What motivates the movement of people to “new” lands? What forms of violence do settlers enact on Indigenous land? And how has the contemporary landscape been shaped by settlement? To answer these questions, this course examines material and ideological transformations of space, architecture, infrastructure, and landscape that comprise the built environments of European settlements in the North Atlantic World. How might Colonial homesteads, plantations, fields and fences, mines and factories, mills and suburbs, capitals and museums, pipelines and railroads be considered built environments of settler colonialism and capitalism? How do these places come about, and what kinds of relations do they attempt to impose on Indigenous land?

HIAA 1627. Material Histories of American Capitalism.

Political upheavals of the last decade have re-centered capitalism as a social ill, at the root of our current climate crisis, racial and gendered inequality, and the alienating experience of work and life in the 21st century. But how did we get here? A historical approach to capitalism can help us better understand our current conditions. But this history is more than a timeline of events. This course will examine capitalism mainly in North America from 1750-1950 through three types of material culture: Landscapes/Architecture, Objects, and Infrastructure. We will examine concepts argued to be associated with “capitalism”: modernity, individualism, industrialization, waged work, enslavement, dispossession, consumerism, and patriarchy. Methodologically, we will examine these concepts through specific material histories tied to spatialized and object forms, such as factories, lumber, plantations, mines, railroads, teacups, or greenbacks.

HIAA 1631. Authority, Identity, and Visual Culture in Colonial Latin America.

After the Spanish invasion, indigenous cultures of the Americas endured profound changes including the suppression of religious practices and reconfiguration of socio-political systems. During the succeeding centuries of colonial rule, diverse members of a highly stratified society relied upon cultural objects to contend for social, economic, political, and religious authority. This course considers the ways in which objects of visual culture in Mexico and Peru functioned as leveraging tools, means to assert authority and identity, ways to maintain the status quo, and forms of resistance with emphasis on the roles various participants played in artistic production and reception.

HIAA 1632. Re-Reading Architecture in Latin America.

This course intends to explore the history of post-independent Latin American architecture, including some aspects urban design, in the light of new theoretical positions that reveal omissions, hesitations and contradictions in existing historiographical registers. In order to undertake this historical exploration, the course offers an opportunity for students to create interdisciplinary connections between traditional architectural history and recent developments in other disciplines such as sociology, geography, and cultural theory.

HIAA 1650A. About Face: English Portraiture: 1600-1800.

About Face: English Portraiture, 1660-1800: This course will consider the function and meaning of portraiture in England from Sir Peter Lely's 'Beauties' of Charles II to James Gillray's social and political satires. We will pay particular attention to the interrelationships between official portraiture and unofficial forms such as caricature.

HIAA 1650B. Visualizing Revolutionary Bodies 1785-1815.

The French Revolution was accompanied by crisis in representation that was both political and cultural. This seminar will examine the problem of how artists and their publics sought to image, or literally to "embody" new forms of individual and communal identity in painting, prints, public festivals, and sculpture. Students will be encouraged to draw on the resources of the John Hay Library, the RISD museum, and other local museums and archives for their research projects.

HIAA 1650C. Visual Culture and the Production of Identity in the Atlantic World, 1700-1815.

This seminar will examine the production, reception and circulation of visual culture within the vortex of the 18th century Atlantic world (including such sites as Britain, France, colonial America, Mexico and the Caribbean). Enrollment limit 20.

HIAA 1650D. Souvenirs: Remembering the Pleasures and Perils of the Grand Tour.

Examines visual image and objects, ranging from portraits, landscape watercolors and graphic satires, to cork models of antiquities, which served to remind and remake travelers' ideas of Italy and other sites on the eighteenth century Grand Tour of the European continent. We will examine the role of anxiety, laughter, pleasure and danger in a rite of passage that was designed to elevate and educate young men, artists, and increasingly, women and men from the middling orders. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 1711. Black and White: Imagining Africans and African Americans in Visual Culture.

Examines forms of visual culture-paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture- that participate in the formation of racial, social, and national identity in the U.S. from c. 1776-1930. Focuses on how visual culture figured African and African Americans in their interrelationships with each other and with other social groups in the U.S.

HIAA 1720. The Art of Portraiture: Pre-Histories of the Selfie.

The selfie is ubiquitous today, but posing for a portrait has a history. This seminar examines the art of portraiture—from the celebrity to the beloved pet to its medium in paint, print, and stone—during the period of its modern formation in the eighteenth century. How are new concepts of the self represented through expression, environment, and stuff? How do people fake it in portrayal to redeem or elevate their pasts? How can a portrait serve as a stereotype and how can it visualize a more equitable society? Course includes visits and assignments in museums.

HIAA 1721. Real and Unreal Landscapes.

This seminar is about how artists imagine the land, and the relationship between people and the places that they inhabit. We will think broadly about how people have conceptualized “nature,” the “landscape,” and “colonization” from the eighteenth century to today as well as hone in on specific artistic traditions, including those in Africa, Europe, and South Asia and across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. This class will investigate materials that come from the land, such as oil, clay, and pigments; other aspects of the environment, like waterways and clouds; and other art forms, including music, fiction, and dance. A

HIAA 1770. Architecture and Visual Culture of Empire.

This combined undergraduate and graduate seminar examines important urban and architectural concepts and practices that accompanied the expansion of colonial rule across much of the world during the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics to be considered include: how early cultural encounters prefigured later representations of colonizing/colonized communities and their corresponding material cultures; colonial spatial orders and their implied relationship to forms of governance; debates on colonial domesticity and the proper arrangement of the home; and post-colonial architectural developments that grew out of the historical experience of de-colonization. We will consider primarily territories formerly under British, French, and German rule. A

HIAA 1771. Eclectic Arts in the Global 19th Century.

How does art motivate the economy, participate in political action, develop society, and aspire to beauty? In this introduction to the arts of South Asia, 1650 to the present, we will consider these questions. From the floral designs adorning the Taj Mahal to popular clay figurines, and from the British colonial production of turning raw cotton into patterned cloth to Gandhi’s movement for independence based on the hand-spun, we will examine the arts of painting, sculpture, and monumental architecture alongside the decorative arts of textiles, furniture, ceramics, and bronze, and modern artists’ contemplation of earlier traditions to create the contemporary.

HIAA 1810. Contemporary Art and Activism.

This seminar will trace the ways that art has been conceived as a form of political activism since 1989. We will analyze strategies such as social practice, relational aesthetics, new genre public art, tactical media, critical geography, useful art, and the interactions among artists and Occupy. Emphasis will be on these recurrent issues: the relationship between aesthetics and politics, conceptions of community and the public, and the practical aims of art, both intended and actual. Close readings, class discussion, and weekly response papers will culminate in a final research paper interrogating the political implications of a single artist or artwork.

HIAA 1811. Possible Futures: Art and the Social Network before the Internet (1950-1979).

Decades before the invention of the Internet, artists used computers, cybernetics, and systems theory to envision and engender social networks in their art. This seminar will examine these creative and conceptual experiments with new media, from programmable objects that invite audience participation, to interactive installations accentuating viewers’ connection to the environment, to televisual and video works that illuminate how media structure identity and society alike. We will grapple with the extent to which this period gave birth not only to the technologies of the present but ideas about what society can and should be.

HIAA 1820. Abstraction in Theory and Practice.

This seminar will examine the proliferation of abstraction in the first half of the twentieth century. Looking closely at artworks and primary texts from movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Orphism, Expressionism, Suprematism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus, and De Stijl, our discussion will emphasize the politics of form—that is, how artists understood their artworks to directly engage with and even restructure their audiences and the world. enrollment limited to 20

HIAA 1822. Dada and Surrealism: Anarchy, Exile, Alterity.

This seminar will examine the experimental practices of Dada and Surrealism with a focus on the historical conditions, theoretical influences, and political ambitions that shaped them: the trauma of war; experiences of exile and displacement; uses and abuses of psychoanalysis, anthropology, and political theory; Communist allegiances; as well as anti-colonial projects and counterparts in the Caribbean, Latin America, and North Africa. We will consider a range of artistic practices (performance, assemblage, the “readymade,” photomontage, poetry, painting, sculpture, exhibitions) with the aim of complicating our understanding of these movements and assessing the relevance of their subversive project today.

HIAA 1850A. Frank Lloyd Wright.

Seminar concentrating on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright-usually considered the most important architect in American history-and the critical discourse surrounding it. Selected scholarship serves as a paradigm for broader discussions about the history, contemporary roles, and shortcomings of architectural criticism and historiography. Examines the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation's approach to critical scholarship and the commercialization of Wright's oeuvre.

HIAA 1850D. Film Architecture.

Since the 1920s, a far-reaching discussion about the mutual influence between the two most important art forms of the 20th century - film and architecture - has engaged set designers, architects, cinematographers and critics. Apart from a fascination with the impact that the techniques of the new medium, such as montage, slow motion, close-ups and camera movements, would have on the perception and presentation of architecture, there continuously has been an enormous interest in the potential of film sets as a realm where visionary, historic, mystical or psychological space could be developed. This seminar will study selected chapters in the history of cinematic set design through the twentieth century and examine masterpieces, major movements, protagonists, and crucial theoretical debates. In addition, the course looks at the depiction of the city through film and the role of the movies as a reflection, commentary, and experimental laboratory for contemporary architecture. A

HIAA 1850E. Architecture, Light and Urban Screens.

This seminar explores the history, theory and practice of architectural illumination and the notion of electric light as a "building material." We will also consider the current interest in urban screens and media facades. The course will follow a historic trajectory from ca. 1900 to the present and will introduce the students to the most important techniques, protagonists and critical debates over the past 100 years. We will critically examine the broader implications of lighting design, the tension between luminous advertising and architectural illumination, the relationship to stage lighting, the implications of a "nocturnal modernity" and the use of light for propaganda purposes. Enrollment limited to 20. Instructor permission required. A

HIAA 1850G. Contemporary American Urbanism: City Design and Planning, 1945-2000.

Examines the history of American urban planning from the canonization of the modernist tradition following WWII to its effect on urbanism over the remainder of the twentieth century. We will examine the influence of the modernist tradition on major urban processes of the time period, including urban renewal, sprawl, suburbanization, and downtown revival. The class considers how modernism was received and will include discussion on postmodern urban analysis and contemporary approaches to green planning. No prerequisites, but prior courses in twentieth century architecture, art, or visual culture will be helpful. Enrollment limited to 20. Instructor permission required. A

HIAA 1850H. Berlin: Architecture, Politics and Memory.

This course deals with the architecture and urbanism of the German capital and the way the city’s traditions of commemoration in different phases of its history and under different political regimes. Students will research historic structures and sites of the 19th through 21st Centuries and engage with the intense German debate about historic preservation and commemoration. The course will travel to Berlin during spring break. There we would meet with local architects, politicians and artists to discuss the city’s engagement with its dramatic past. Course enrollment by application. A

HIAA 1850I. Architectures of the Sea: Space and Place in the Maritime Cultural Landscape.

This course charts the spatial histories of maritime architecture, from the 18th century to present. Casting a wide net, we will explore the global network of seaborne vessels and the attendant architectural and urban environments that together produced the modern world. Venturing beyond architectural history, this seminar questions how we conceive of space and place in light of the many disciplines invigorated by the spatial turn, among them: Cultural Geography, Anthropology, Marine Archaeology, History, and Cartography. Themes include: the spaces of the transatlantic slave trade, the ocean liner and mass migration, seaside holidaymaking and postwar leisure, and naval and imperial mobilities.

HIAA 1870. Cannibalism, Inversion, and Hybridity: Creative Disobedience in the Americas.

This seminar examines how artists and intellectuals have depicted, constructed, and defied the notion of “America”. While focusing on Latin America in the 20th and 21st centuries, we will also consider Chicano/a artistic production in the U.S. We will look at a series of concepts—cultural cannibalism, inversion, hybridity, in-betweeness, and tropicality—that shape our present understanding of the continent and subvert the legacy of colonialism and imperialism. This seminar considers these terms as current theoretical modes of inquiry and as recurring themes in cultural production, including literature and the visual arts.

HIAA 1870B. SoCal: Art in Los Angeles, 1945 to the Present.

Recent exhibitions, scholarship and media have turned to Los Angeles as a site of exploration of both American art and the larger frameworks of the Americas and international contemporary art. The character of media is directly connected to the circumstances of Los Angeles as a creative community built around an industry of visuality (film). This undergraduate seminar will examine postwar architecture, exhibitions, installation, land art, painting, performance, photography, public art and sculpture in Los Angeles and its impact on art history. This course may be open to a limited number of graduate students.

HIAA 1880. Criticality and Modern Art.

This seminar will interrogate a central way of understanding the politics of twentieth-century art: criticality. The notion that art’s relationship to society is one of negation, diagnosis, and destabilization pervades modern art history. This seminar will trace the development of criticality as an artistic practice and art-historical methodology. Alongside texts on critique in philosophy and theory, we will examine artists for whom criticality is paramount: Dada’s ballistic mission, repetitions of the neo-avant-garde, anti-art, institutional critique, critical postmodernism, art as undercommons. We will end with recent claims of critique’s collapse and assess the viability of criticality in art of today.

HIAA 1881. Architectural Replicas in the Modern and Contemporary Eras.

From World’s Fairs to Disney World, copies of buildings are an important part of the architecture of entertainment in the modern and contemporary eras. But replicas, once valued as part of ‘serious’ architectural practice, also exist outside of the world of theme parks. This seminar will explore what it means to build an architectural replica in a discipline focused on originality. What forms do these replicas take? What might propel an architect to copy part or all of a building in their own work? What place might these replicas occupy in the canon of architectural history?

HIAA 1882. Indigenous Art, Issues and Concepts.

This seminar will map out the field of indigenous art with an emphasis on artworks from English-speaking settler colonial countries, concentrating on Native North American and Aboriginal Australian artists. We will approach indigenous art theoretically, outlining major issues and concepts of this global topic. Units will include defining indigeneity and indigenous art terms, anthropology in relation to art, and curatorial practice. We will begin by addressing the concept of indigeneity through legal and sociopolitical frameworks, continuing with museological display of indigenous art across time, and seeing how museums are working to better contextualize their anthropological collections.

HIAA 1888. Exhibition as Medium.

This seminar will examine “the exhibition” as a medium for artists in the modern and contemporary period, with particular focus on developments since the 1960s. We will look at artists who have staged alternative exhibitions in non-traditional spaces, worked within museums and galleries to dismantle curatorial conventions, and, most of all, created exhibitions that stand alone as single works of art. Emphasis will be on the relationship between form and content, the definition of audience and the public, and the intersections and tensions between art and history.

HIAA 1890E. SoCal: Art in Los Angeles, 1945-Present.

Recent exhibitions, scholarship and media have turned to Los Angeles as a site of exploration of both American art and the larger frameworks of the Americas and International contemporary art. The charecter of media is directly connected to the circumstances of LA as a creative community built around an industry of visuality (film). This UG seminar will examine postwar architecture, exhibitions installation, land art, painting, performance, photography, public art and sculpture in LA and its impact on art history. This course may be open to a limited number of graduate students.

HIAA 1890G. Contemporary Art of Africa and the Diaspora.

Will explore the art of contemporary Africa and its diaspora with an eye towards understanding the political and economic context in which it is produced and consumed. Our approach will be interdisciplinary, putting key theoretical texts from anthropology on the political economy of Africa in dialog with the works of contemporary artists. However, the intent here is not to reduce creativity to an economic activity alone, though we will be addressing the topic of art markets. Rather, we will explore artistic practices that surmount "the tyranny of the 'already,'" as Malian writers Konate and Savane have eloquently said. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors, seniors, and graduate students.

HIAA 1900. Museum Interpretation Practices.

This course examines current interpretive practices and offers students the opportunity to participate in creating interpretation for the museum context. Questions of material and form, power and identity, models of attention and perception, the relationship between language and vision; and what constitutes learning through experience will be considered. Throughout the semester students will develop their interpretive practice through a series of workshops, exercises, site visits, and critical discussions. This course takes place at the RISD Museum.

HIAA 1910A. Providence Architecture.

Seminar examining selected aspects of the architecture of downtown Providence from the late 19th century to the present. Projects require research at local archives, libraries, and architectural drawings collections. Instructor permission required. A

HIAA 1910B. Project Seminar: The Architecture of Bridges.

No description available.

HIAA 1910D. Water and Architecture.

The seminar explores the varied ways in which water is manipulated in architecture and urban planning. We examine several case studies, including Roman aqueducts such as the Pont du Gard, medieval urban and monastic hydraulic systems, Renaissance and early modern garden (and fountain) design, and the local examples of Slater Mill and the Providence water supply. A

HIAA 1910E. Project Seminar for Architectural Studies Concentrators.

HIAA 1910F. City Senses: Urbanism Beyond Visual Spectacle.

Architecture and urbanism provide synesthetic experiences of space that don't necessarily privilege visual perception. This project seminar explores alternative approaches to design and an understanding of the city through explorations of all the senses. We will examine case studies of cities through the sounds of church bells, traffic, and water fountains; the smells of foods, plants, and sewers; or even the feelings of light and shade. Students are encouraged to work on projects that map the city through unconventional sensory markers, record sounds, distill scents, or film different corporal means of navigating the urban environment.

HIAA 1920. Individual Study Project in the History of Art and Architecture.

Reading and reports on an approved topic, supervised by a member of the staff. Project proposals must be submitted and approved no later than the first week of the semester. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 1930. The History and Methods of Art Historical Interpretation.

This seminar provides an overview of the methods and theories used by art historians and introduction to the history of the discipline. Through readings and discussions, we will examine how art history emerged as an intellectual pursuit and humanistic discipline in the modern era, and review its foundations in the Western philosophical tradition. The transformations wrought by the advent of critical theory and the incorporation of approaches from outside the discipline of art history will receive particular attention in the second half of the course. Open to juniors and seniors concentrating in History of Art and Architecture or Architectural Studies.

HIAA 1931. Museums, Histories, Critiques.

This course offers a historical and theoretical examination of the art museum from its eighteenth century inception to contemporary expectations and institutional critiques. We will explore the philosophical and social implications of collection and classification, architecture and display practice; institutional mission and audience experience; interpretive strategies and educational goals; curatorial practice and the artist as curator. This critical framework will offer a means to examine the museum's role in structuring knowledge and facilitating experience and its place within intellectual discourse and public life.

HIAA 1990. Honors Thesis.

The subject of the thesis and program of study will be determined by the needs of the individual student. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 1991. Independent Study - WRIT.

This course should be taken in place of HIAA 1990 if students will receive substantive feedback on their prose -- on at least two assignments of any length. Completion of this course may be used to satisfy the writing requirement.

HIAA 2012. Art History Detectives: The Case of the Black Gospel Window.

Students will study the intersection between art, culture, and geopolitics through the lens of art theft. While the course will introduce the history of art theft in general from Napoleon to the Nazis and the Koh-i-Noor Diamond to the Mona Lisa, the primary focus will be on 500 years of Europe’s looting of African art. In addition to developing visual analysis skills and an understanding of the history of African art, students will learn about the history of the Western museum, the international art market, the decolonize museum movement, and the debate on restituting African art.

HIAA 2014. Art History Detectives: The Case of the Black Gospel Window.

In 2022, a stained-glass window was uncovered in a church in Warren, RI. The window appears to be the earliest known representation of Christ and Gospel Women as people of color in American public space. Who made this window? Why did it depict people of color in a biblical scene? This course introduces students to art and architectural history research in action through participation in a collaborative research project bringing together Brown University faculty, faculty experts from across the United States, museum curators at the Memphis Art Museum which will conserve and display the window, and heritage professionals from Rhode Island.

HIAA 2210. Asian Reprographics A Long History of Impression.

This seminar examines the early history of reprography in East Asia. Defining reprography broadly to encompass all pre-photographic technologies of graphic impression, it explores the transfers that occurred within and between piece-mold bronze casting, ceramic molding, sealing, rubbing, and woodblock printing as they developed in succession and tandem over the past four millennia. In particular, the seminar considers the extent to which technics of transfer facilitated the movement of images across medium and time.

HIAA 2212. The Pictured Text.

Writing makes language visible, and thus concerns images. Language also delimits the legibility of imagery. Turning words into images and images into words occurs at great speed around us. This course explores the relation of text and image across world traditions—Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and others, extending up to the present. Topics include: calligraphy, context, scribal practice, the form and shape of writing, including typography, hidden or pseudo-writing, graffiti, and contemporary art.

HIAA 2214. Art & Architectural History Publishing Seminar.

Search online and you will discover a plethora of short courses, blogs, information about ChatGPT, and many types of advice about how to write well. This course will be tailored to graduate students in the history of art and architecture. It will offer individual support, critique and advice, bringing you into a community of academic writers. Wendy Laura Belcher's "Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success," will provide structure to the courseA focus on methods will help identify the type of writing that both feels right for you and provides a suitable perspective for your research.

HIAA 2300B. Research Seminar in Roman Art and Architecture: Topography of Rome.

Major monuments of the city of Rome from the Republic to the rise of Christianity.

HIAA 2300C. Allegories/Symbols in Roman Art, Origins in Hellenistic Art, Augmentation in Early Christian Art.

Roman historical relief sculpture.

HIAA 2301. Finding the Viewer: The Reception of Ancient Art and Architecture.

This graduate seminar will explore the role of viewers in the creation of meanings for ancient art and architecture. The perspectives of the makers of a work of art, patrons and artists, tend to get greater attention in art historical inquiries, in large part because those agents leave more visible traces in the literary and material records. Yet the agency of viewers, although less apparent, can be recovered through careful examination of diverse types of evidence—textual, archaeological, visual—and by relying on viewer-centered theoretical models such as phenomenology and reception theory. A

HIAA 2400A. The Visual Culture of Medieval Women.

The course treats the history of women as commissioners, creators and subjects of medieval art. Case studies will be drawn from western Europe, Byzantium and Islam. Weekly seminars consider feminist perspectives in medieval history and art history; imaging of women in medieval art; archaeological approaches to gender and the analysis of gendered spaces; and the art and architecture of female spirituality.

HIAA 2410C. Representing the Past: Archaeology Through Image and Text.

The archaeological past exists for us through intermediaries that may be written or visual. Drawings, descriptions, photographs, graphs, charts and computer visualizations all display a considered image of the past. This seminar takes a critical look at the literature on visualization, and at the strategies by which scholars have re-presented the archaeological past of a range of cultures.

HIAA 2418. Islamic Art in the RISD Museum: Thinking With Objects.

In this seminar, students will work with objects from the RISD Museum collection to think through the histories and historiographies of Islamic art. Students will explore aspects of production, circulation, and display history through individual objects and their attendant narratives in scholarship, while also considering the questions of authenticity and provenance that are raised by the material’s passage through the colonial-era antiquities market. Students will work closely with their chosen object to produce a research paper and present their findings in a mini-conference held in the last class meeting.

HIAA 2430B. The Afterlife of Antiquity.

Examines the survival and revival of classical art and architecture in the Middle Ages. Discussion focuses on selected case studies from across Europe and critically engages the secondary literature on classical revival.

HIAA 2440A. Recent Approaches to the Gothic Cathedral.

No description available.

HIAA 2440B. Architecture of Solitude: The Medieval Monastery.

Religious men and women, as well as their patrons, sought to establish places of devotion and learning across the medieval landscape. This course examines the rise and development of the medieval monastery from its late antique beginnings in the deserts of Africa to the rise of the preaching orders in early thirteenth-century Europe. Emphasis will be placed upon the material expressions of western monasticism and upon the notion of the monastery as an architectural, archaeological and historical research problem through examination of individual case study examples. Instructor permission required. Enrollment limited to 12.

HIAA 2440C. Recent Approaches to the Gothic Cathedral.

No description.

HIAA 2440D. Architectural Reuse: The Appropriation of the Past.

This seminar will consider the survival, revival and adaptive reuse of older objects, texts and built spaces in the visual and material culture of successor cultures. We will look critically at the literature on the archaeology of memory, "Renaissance and revival, spolia studies and adaptive reuse." The seminar will examine selected case studies, including the reuse of sculptural elements in the Arch of Constantine, the conversion of Pantheon into a church and Hagia Sophia into a mosque, appropriated elements in the Qutb mosque in Delhi and the adaptation of the Bankside Power Station as the Tate Gallery. Limited to 15.

HIAA 2450. Exchange Scholar Program.

HIAA 2540A. Book Illustration in the Early Modern Period.

This course will examine book illustration in the early modern period, seeking to identify the ways visual information is produced and how it relates to information in the text. Relationships between decoration in illustration and in architecture and painting will also be explored with an eye to the roles of pattern and visual convention in overtly didactic visual material.

HIAA 2540B. Print Culture in Early Modern Europe.

Examines the uses of prints, book illustration, and other pictorial printed schema in the early modern period, seeking to explain some of the ways visual information was produced and reproduced. Relationships between the prints and other arts are explored, with an eye to the roles of visual convention in overtly didactic materials such as maps and charts.

HIAA 2540C. Illustrating Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.

We will look at the history of scientific illustration in the age of the first printed books, using works in special collections libraries to investigate the exchange of ideas and the development of specializations in the arts and sciences from about 1450-1800. Focusing primarily on Italian examples, comparative projects may be chosen from any country in which the student can read the language.

HIAA 2540D. The Theater that was Rome.

"The Theater that was Rome" is a digital research site uniting text and images to portray the development of Rome (1500-1800) in the flood of printed information that proceeded from interest in the physical and mythological city. Our goal is to provide historical and critical interpretation of these illustrated books and prints that created Rome as a theater for the most advanced technological and decorative feats of an international group of artists, architects, engineers, authors, and publishers, looking at their productive collaborations, and using original materials, often in languages other than English, at the Hay Library and on the website. For graduate students; qualified upper-level undergraduates should contact the instructor. Enrollment limited to 15.

HIAA 2550A. The Visual Cultures of Southern Italy.

A workshop devoted to the visual cultures of Southern Italy, a geographical location with an unstable ruling population and sense of cultural identity from the late medieval through the early modern period. Projects about any aspect of art/architecture of Italy from south of Rome to Sicily are welcome. Research requires reading ability in Italian, Spanish, or French.

HIAA 2550B. Art and Charity in the Renaissance.

This seminar looks at the roles of art and architecture in commissioning charitable works in the service of maintaining a healthy civic body, including the design and decoration of hospitals, orphanages, ghettoes, homes for women, immigrants and the poor, in the context of institutional structures that provide for marginal people. Examples will be from Italy, but students may work in other areas.

HIAA 2550C. Color.

How do we understand color as an integral part of a visual object? How shall we think about the artist's decision and the viewer's responsibility? This seminar will look at color (and its purposeful repression) in painting, sculpture and the decorative arts of the early modern period, also considering the discourses of color in 20th-century painting and other eras, such as antiquity, when color was a profitable topic through which to discuss the senses. We will also look at the economy and science of pigments, and the value of color in different discourses and objects. Graduate students, or by permission.

HIAA 2600B. Flemish Art.

No description available.

HIAA 2600C. Rubens.

No description available.

HIAA 2600D. The Visual Culture of Religion in Antwerp: 1585-1794.

The seminar will study the central role of visual culture in Counter Reformation Antwerp.

HIAA 2600E. Jesuit Global Strategies in Art and Conversion.

The purpose of this seminar is to examine the first global strategy to use art for the purpose of persuasion and conversion. In Europe, Asia, and the Americas during the early modern period, the Jesuits adapted their messages of visual communication, in architecture, prints, paintings, maps, dress, and rituals, to meet what they calculated would be the conceptual frameworks and customs of their target audiences, whether Chinese court officials, Flemish peasants. The seminar will search for the deeper historical roots of this strategy which up to now have not been traced. Open to graduate students only.

HIAA 2620. Arts Between Europe and the World: 1500-1700.

How did arts and visual objects of all kinds mediate between Europe and regions of the world opened to contact through trade, conquest, religious conversion, and the exchange of knowledge? This seminar will search for the major contexts of these exchanges and for the best methods to understand their histories. What conditions enabled or prevented mutual recognition? How were foreign materials imported and integrated, as with Chinese porcelain in the Netherlands or European glass in China? What balances of power determined exchanges, from possible the colonial extinction of Pre-Columbian art to the adaptation of western perspective in Japanese prints?

HIAA 2650A. Visual Culture and Cicum-Atlantic Exchange in the Long Eighteenth Century.

This course examines art and other forms of visual representation that imaged the colonial exchange between Europe and the Caribbean from the late 17th through the early 19th centuries. Readings include current scholarship in postcolonial theory devoted to theorizing colonial relationships in terms of transculturation and exchange. Students are encouraged to select research topics that allow them to take advantage of the rich trove of primary resources at the John Carter Brown and John Hay libraries.

HIAA 2721. Real and Unreal Landscapes.

This seminar is about how artists imagine the land, and the relationship between people and the places that they inhabit. We will think broadly about how people have conceptualized “nature,” the “landscape,” and “colonization” from the eighteenth century to today as well as hone in on specific artistic traditions, including those in Africa, Europe, and South Asia and across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. This class will investigate materials that come from the land, such as oil, clay, and pigments; other aspects of the environment, like waterways and clouds; and other art forms, including music, fiction, and dance.

HIAA 2760C. Paris in the 1860s.

No description available.

HIAA 2850A. Architectural Theory in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

Examines key texts in the history of architecture since the 1800s. Contrasts texts by architects with their actual work and places them into the social, political, and art historical context of their time. Texts by Schinkel, Semper, Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Otto Wagner, Le Corbusiser, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and others.

HIAA 2850B. Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

A seminar concentrating on the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the surrounding critical discourse. Wright is usually considered the most important architect in American history. Selected scholarship serves as a paradigm for broader discussions about the history, contemporary roles, and shortcomings of architectural criticism and historiography. Examines the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation's approach to critical scholarship and the commercialization of Wright's oeuvre.

HIAA 2850C. Architecture, Urbanism, and Post-Colonial.

This graduate seminar explores the relationship among architecture and urban design, colonial empire, and national development, via a comparative analysis of cultural interactions between Europe and its non-western "others" from ca. 1800 to the present. We will draw upon recent critical debates on orientalism, colonialism and empire, and politics of representation as well as interdisciplinary studies of modernity and identity.

HIAA 2850D. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

This seminar will explore the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the most influential architects of the 20th Century. While Mies has been continually discussed and exhibited (the Museum of Modern Art alone held 7 exhibitions about him since 1947, most recently in 2001), to this day, his work has neither been contextualized sufficiently nor has its reception been criticially examined. Apart from studying and understanding Miles van der Rohe's work in its context, this seminar will explore responses by comtemporary critics and compare those to later interpretations.

HIAA 2850E. Architectural History's Future.

Through readings of new, cutting edge texts, this graduate seminar will reconsider how we write and teach architectural history. We will explore provocative recent frameworks such as the “global,” the shift from considering objects to thinking about processes, systems, networks, institutions etc. Our goal is to develop a self-reflexive praxis as historians, teachers, designers, and cultural workers.

HIAA 2860A. The Museum and the Photograph.

This graduate seminar examines the relationship between two rapidly evolving modern institutions: the history of photography and the modern art museum. Through readings, discussions, and independent research, we will look at how the history of photography has been affected by its unique association with the museum, and what this means for it as a field of intellectual inquiry. Enrollment limited to 18.

HIAA 2860B. Photographic Origins.

Through a series of directed readings and discussions, this seminar explores the origins and implications of photography's invention in the wake of Enlightenment philosophy, the industrial revolution, and Romanticism in Europe. No prerequisites, but background in the history of photography and/or 19th century Western art is encouraged.

HIAA 2860C. Roland Barthes.

In the past few decades, the ideas of the French philosopher Roland Barthes have been indispensible to our understanding of the photograph as a theoretical object. This graduate seminar will critically examine Barthes' writings on the subject, from Mythologies to Camera Lucida, placing them within the larger context of Barthes' structuralist project as a whole and contemporary analyses of photography and lens-based imagery.

HIAA 2860D. Photography and Objectivity.

From the moment of its arrival in Western culture, the photograph has been characterized as the product of a machine, of optics and chemistry. The mechanical nature of the medium seemed to guarantee it a special relation to its subject: the photograph showed something real, through an analog technology that was essentially objective. This graduate level seminar will investigate the notion of objectivity, as it has been analyzed in the history of science and other fields, and as it has been discussed in relation to photography. Enrollment limited to 15 graduate students.

HIAA 2860E. Topics in the History of Photography: Photography and Philosophy.

Throughout its history, the photograph has posed a special problem—and special opportunity—for thinkers. As a technology, an artform, and a ubiquitous aspect of modern culture, photography has also been an object of theoretical speculation; as a form of pictorial representation perceived to stand in unique relation to "truth" and "reality," the photograph has invited the attention of philosophers. This graduate seminar will survey the ways philosophy and critical theory have handled photography, from its origins in Enlightenment thought to the most recent speculations about its essence. Enrollment limited to 20.

HIAA 2860G. Photography in Theory and Practice.

Photography’s advent in 1839 brought into the world two inventions: a practical, functional means of making images with a camera, and a suggestive idea. This idea took many overlapping forms—the concept of nature automatically reproducing itself, of a picture radically dissimilar from the hand-made art that preceded it, of an analogic trace of the real world. This graduate-level seminar will use selected readings and class discussion to interrogate the relationship of photography as it has been theorized with its actual deployment in society and the world. Issues like medium specificity, ontology, the "index,” and cultural memory will be explored.

HIAA 2870H. What is Contemporary Art History.

Contemporary art history is a field in formation. As such, it is often contested and embraced, misunderstood and championed. Is contemporary art history a radical new field with a discrete set of practices, methodology and historiography? Or is contemporary art history simply a study of the present? Is the study of the contemporary relevant to other areas of art history? Is contemporary art history a model for other disciplinary approaches to the present? Throughout the term, this graduate seminar will discuss each of these questions. This course is open to students of all art historical periods.

HIAA 2920. Methods of Research and Art Historical Interpretation.

Required of first-year and second year history of art and architecture A.M./Ph.D. students. Enrollment limited to 12. Instructor permission required.

HIAA 2930. Archive Fever: The 1937 Travel Journal of Minnesota Modernist Collis Hardenbergh.

The 2024 practicum provides graduate students with the opportunity to work directly with archives, objects, and collections towards a collaboratively-produced public outcome focusing on the archive of the Minnesota modernist architect, Collis Hardenbergh (1912-1978). We will conduct research and develop a book manuscript based on Hardenbergh’s journal of his 1937 pilgrimage to see Europe’s modernist masterpieces. This journal and the over 1,000 photographs that accompany it are heirlooms that the Hardenbergh family would like to make available to the public. Hardenbergh’s journal is an important primary source that tells us about architectural education in the United States, transatlantic dissemination of modern architecture, the development of Minnesota as a center for architectural excellence, overlapping discourses and practices of modern art and modern architecture, American responses to fascism in Europe, and the mood in Europe on the eve of World War II.

HIAA 2930D. Graduate Practicum.

This practicum will be housed at the Center for Netherlandish Art of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Its focus will be a series The Five Senses signed and dated 1650 by the Brussels painter Michaelina Wautier. Graduate Practicum course

HIAA 2940. Master's Qualifying Paper Preparation.

Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 2980. Individual Reading (Single Credit).

Single credit. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 2981. Individual Reading (Double Credit).

Double credit. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 2982. Individual Reading for the Doctoral Candidate.

Single Credit. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 2983. Dissertation Research.

Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.

HIAA 2990. Preparation for Qualifying Examination.

For graduate students who have met the residency requirement and are continuing research on a full time basis.

HIAA 2991. Dissertation Preparation.

For graduate students who are preparing a dissertation and who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment.

HIAA 2992. Master's Thesis Preparation.

For students preparing a terminal MA thesis, may be repeated in the following semester. Sign up for sections according to individual primary advisor.

HIAA XLIST. Courses of Interest to Concentrators.