Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
ARTH 0141-401 Museums, Monuments, and Social Justice Richard M Leventhal TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Monuments, museums, and heritage are all critical parts of the world that we have created and are shaped by. These institutions and sites often claim to represent our past, who we imagine ourselves to be today, and how we might define our futures. We often rely on museums and monuments to frame history and history’s relationship to our current social and cultural systems. However, in recent years, social, racial, and economic justice movements have pushed us to rethink the function of monuments, museums, and heritage. In particular, these social movements have helped us understand how racism, sexism, and colonialism are responsible for the creation of monuments and museums. This course examines the echoes and continuities of colonial representations in museums and monuments. In addition, we will examine how new ways of commemorating and representing the past can result in a new vision for our future. By visiting a variety of local monuments and sites and by engaging in conversations about accountability and social justice, this course will challenge us to rethink the tangible and intangible ways that we weave the past into the present for the creation of the future. ANTH1410401
ARTH 0221-401 Material World in Archaeological Science Marie-Claude Boileau
Deborah I Olszewski
Vanessa Workman
TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM By focusing on the scientific analysis of inorganic archaeological materials, this course will explore processes of creation in the past. Class will take place in the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM) and will be team taught in three modules: analysis of lithics, analysis of ceramics and analysis of metals. Each module will combine laboratory and classroom exercises to give students hands-on experience with archaeological materials. We will examine how the transformation of materials into objects provides key information about past human behaviors and the socio-economic contexts of production, distribution, exchange and use. Discussion topics will include invention and adoption of new technologies, change and innovation, use of fire, and craft specialization. ANTH2221401, ANTH5221401, CLST3302401, MELC2960401, MELC6920401
ARTH 1010-001 World Art and Civilization Before 1400 Ann L Kuttner MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM This course serves as a double introduction to art history. First, it surveys the visual arts in a global context from prehistory to the dawn of the modern era. Focusing on multiple premodern cultures and traditions, the course examines a wide variety of art forms, from public monuments and architecture to paintings, textiles, and illustrated books. We will consider this rich material in its historical context and ask how art was made, used, seen, and valued by people in the past. Special emphasis will be placed on cross-cultural connections, interactions, and analogies. Second, the course will introduce you to the practice of art history. You will develop the skills of visual analysis and critical reading and learn the basic methods that scholars employ to interpret works of art and architecture. In the process, you will gain a deeper understanding of the intersection of art, society, and human experience at large. Lectures and group discussions will be complemented by visits to museums and other collections on campus and beyond. Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 1030-401 Art and Civilization in East Asia Nancy R S Steinhardt MW 10:15 AM-11:14 AM Introduction to the major artistic traditions of China and Japan and the practices of art history. We will also consider aspects of Korean and Indian artistic traditions as they relate to those of China and Japan. Our approaches will be methodological in addressing how we understand these objects through careful looking; chronological in considering how the arts developed in and through history; and thematic in studying how art and architecture were used for philosophical, religious and material ends. Special attention will be given to the relationship between artistic production and the afterlife; to the impact of Buddhism and its purposes; to painting traditions and their patronages; and to modernist transformations of traditions. EALC0100401, VLST2330401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
ARTH 1060-001 Architect and History Mantha Zarmakoupi TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM The built environment shapes our lives and this course tackles its underpinning design principles and qualities as well as social and cultural contexts. It is an interpretative look at the built environment or, more precisely, at the ways in which monuments and cities are designed, represented, perceived and construed over time. It introduces students to the interrelated fields of architecture, art history, and urbanism and explores great architectural monuments and cities from the modern to the ancient period, from the US across Europe and from the Mediterranean to Asia. We will assess the built environment as culturally meaningful form and examine a body of historical and cultural material relevant to its interpretation. In doing so, the course seeks to foster a critical understanding of the cultural and artistic processes that have influenced architectural and urban design. The focus will be on understanding these works as results of skilled workmanship as well as social and cultural products. We will tackle ancient and modern perceptions of these monuments and cities by analyzing form, design, structure and by addressing their perceptual qualities through 3D reconstructions and virtual environments, as well as sketchbook assignments. This course fulfills Sector IV, Humanities and Social Sciences. Hum & Soc Sci Sector (new curriculum only) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 1800-401 Introduction to Queer Art Jonathan D Katz MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM It's no exaggeration to note that queers have long been at the forefront of innovation in the arts, and that the arts, generally, have been a comfortable home for queers, even at moments when society at large was distinctly hostile. In fact the concepts of modern art and homosexuality that we use today are twins, for they were both founded in the third quarter of the 19th century and grew up together. Introduction to Queer Art thus begins with the coining of the word "homosexual" in 1869, and surveys how a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and film shifted in response to new definitions of sexuality. Along the way, we will work towards answering two related questions: 1) Why were queer creators largely responsible for the introduction of modernity in the arts, and 2) why do we find so often that queer social and political dissent found form in, and as, aesthetic dissent as well? In creating new forms for art that often seem far removed from any traditional definition of sexuality, including non-objective and abstract art, queer artists pushed the boundaries of normativity, leading to new ways of seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking that often dared to encode queer meanings as part of their formal innovation. We will look into the politics of queer art, and how and why in the US, even amidst often dangerous homophobia, it was queer artists who represented America to itself. Thus, we will cover such key cultural figures such as Walt Whitman, Gertrude Stein, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frank O'Hara, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and Agnes Martin. Throughout, new methods informed by queer, gender, and critical race theory will be utilized. GSWS1800401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 1900-001 What is Contemporary Art? TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM What is contemporary art? When is contemporary art? For whom is contemporary art? Where is contemporary art? And… why does contemporary art matter? This survey introduces us to some central artists, themes, works, and debates currently comprising the history of contemporary art, with a particular focus on the social, racial, and political engagements that have informed artistic developments, as well as how they are historicized in relation to other art and geopolitical events, globally. We consider the ways in which artists have approached, contested, reflected, and reconfigured the problems and possibilities of institutions in order to find critical traction and build historical context. We also look at how globalization, technology, racialization, and capitalism have all shaped artistic production, art criticism, and the art market, while also reflecting upon the temporality of our present and what it is that is “contemporary” to our “now.”
ARTH 2260-401 Hellenistic and Roman Art and Artifact Ann L Kuttner TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This lecture course surveys the political, religious and domestic arts, patronage and display in Rome's Mediterranean, from the 2nd c. BCE to Constantine's 4th-c. Christianized empire. Our subjects are images and decorated objects in their cultural, political and socio-economic contexts (painting, mosaic, sculpture, luxury and mass-produced arts in many media). We start with the Hellenistic cosmopolitan culture of the Greek kingdoms and their neighbors, and late Etruscan and Republican Italy; next we map Imperial Roman art as developed around the capital city Rome, as well as in the provinces of the vast empire. AAMW6260001, ARTH6260001, CLST3402401, CLST5402001 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2500-401 Michelangelo and the Art of the Italian Renaissance David Young Kim TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM An introduction to the work of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo (1475-1564)-his sculptures, paintings, architecture, poetry, and artistic theory-in relation to his patrons, predecessors, and contemporaries, above all Leonardo and Raphael. Topics include artistic creativity and license, religious devotion, the revival of antiquity, observation of nature, art as problem-solving, the public reception and function of artworks, debates about style, artistic rivalry, and traveling artists. Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course selects works as paradigmatic case studies, and will analyze contemporary attitudes toward art of this period through study of primary sources. ARTH6500401, ITAL2550401, ITAL6500401
ARTH 2559-601 European Baroque Art Ian F Verstegen T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This course surveys the art and architecture of seventeenth-century Europe, with particular attention paid to the visual culture of Italy, Spain, and the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Artists to be covered include Caravaggio, Bernini, Velazquez, Poussin, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Rubens. While developments in form and style will be discussed, the class will examine art in context, particularly focusing on the historical, religious, political, geographical, and theoretical basis for these works. Themes covered will include the Counter-Reformation church, emergence of the art market, the creation of new genres, the academy, and global exploration.
ARTH 2621-401 Prints and Politics: From the Early Modern Era to Now Shira N. Brisman MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course offers a history of how mechanically reproducible images reshaped the social world. Beginning in the fifteenth century in Europe, these media connected new audiences across geographies by providing access to the same visual information. Prints launched propagandistic missions, fomented rebellion against authorities, and built networks of progressive thinkers who could envision alternative futures. Prints played a key role in developing what constituted news. Mass-distributed images delivered the mistreatment of the “Indians” by the Spanish and portrayed the packing of Africans on a slave ship. Goya’s etchings protested the repression of the Second of May uprising. The silkscreens of Andy Warhol repeated the image of police dogs attacking civil rights activists in Birmingham. Covering a five-hundred-year history, this course will focus on how printed images created communities and acted as exclusionary devices. We will train our eyes on examples from local collections and pay particular attention to Philadelphia activist groups and their places in these histories. ARTH6621401
ARTH 2679-401 Intro to Latinx Cultural Studies Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This course offers a broad introduction to the study of Latinx culture. We will examine literature, theater, visual art, and popular cultural forms, including murals, poster art, graffiti, guerrilla urban interventions, novels, poetry, short stories, and film. In each instance, we will study this work within its historical context and with close attention to the ways it illuminates class formation, racialization, and ideologies of gender and sexuality as they shape Latinx experience in the U.S. Topics addressed in the course will include immigration and border policy, revolutionary nationalism and its critique, anti-imperialist thought, Latinx feminisms, queer latinidades, ideology, identity formation, and social movements. While we will address key texts, historical events, and intellectual currents from the late 19th century and early 20th century, the course will focus primarily on literature and art from the 1960s to the present. All texts will be in English. COML1260401, ENGL1260401, GSWS1260401, LALS1260401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2760-001 Impressionism Andre Dombrowski TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM Impressionism opened the pictorial field to light, perception, science, modernity, bourgeoise leisure and famously the material qualities of paint itself. This course will survey the movement's major contexts and proponents--Manet, Monet, Morisot, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rodin--from its origins in the 1860's to its demise in the 1890's, as well as its subsequent adaptions throughout the world until World War I. Particular attention is paid to the artists' critical reception and the historical conditions which allowed one nation, France, to claim the emergence of early Modernism so firmly for itself. The course also analyzes the effects of the rapidly changing social and cultural fabric of Paris, and its affects on artistic developments. We also look outside of France's borders to Germany and Britain. ARTH6760001 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2810-001 Modern Architecture,1900-Present MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM The architecture of Europe and America from the late nineteenth century until the present is the central subject of this course, but some time is also devoted to Latin American and Asian architecture and to the important issues of modern city planning. Topics discussed include the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Art Deco, the International Style, and Post-modernism. The debate over the role of technology in modern life and art, the search for a universal language of architectural communication, and the insistent demand that architecture serve human society are themes that are traced throughout the course. Among the important figures to be considered are Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown. The course includes weekly discussion sessions and several excursions to view architecture in Philadelphia. ARTH6810001
ARTH 2872-401 Sex in the Museum Jonathan D Katz MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course maps the often fraught intercourse between the history of sexuality and the history of museums, exhibitions, and curation. Bodies have long been the mainstay of art, but the attribution of sex to those bodies is a highly variable social phenomenon that tells us as much about the culture in question as it does about ourselves. Sex is thus in the eye of the beholder, defined by cultural, religious, scientific, and political norms, themselves often defined in and through a politics of visibility and exhibition. Beginning in the ancient world and moving into the present, this course studies the sexual politics of display, inherent but little studied, in the history of art history. From Renaissance battles over fig leaves to Enlightenment Europe’s titillation at what they saw as the unbridled eroticism of the ancient world to the culture wars of today, sex has long been a hidden motor of shifts in the art world. Whether coming to understand the so-called “Free Body Culture” of turn of the 20th century Europe with its very public nudity, to the explosion in nude performance in the 1960s to the culture wars of the 1980s in the USA over an art that addressed queerness, AIDS, and their intersection, we’ll see how often exhibitions have served as proxy for other social and political issues. In this course we’ll also come to understand the distinction between the nude, a category in art, and the naked, a category that was often said to corrupt art. Reading the latest work in queer, feminist and anti-racist scholarship, we will see how easily bodies on display can turn into sex, and conversely, slip as easily back from sex into bodies again. ARTH6872401, GSWS2872401, GSWS6872401
ARTH 2990-401 Radical Arts in the Americas Jennifer Lyn Sternad Ponce De Leon MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This course explores the complex and fruitful relationship between literature and the visual arts, including painting, sculpture, installations, and performance art. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. CIMS1261401, COML1261401, ENGL1261401, LALS1261401, THAR1261401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 3060-301 Venice Biennale Spiegel-Wilks Seminar R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Founded in 1895, the Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia) is one of the art world’s most prestigious venues for contemporary art. In this seminar, we will consider the history of the Venice Biennale, its curatorial process for group shows, the role of national pavilions, and related topics, within the larger frame of the international art world. How contemporary artists cross boundaries, challenge expectations, and respond to the site itself are also key issues. The seminar focus will be adapted in each iteration according to the expertise of the instructor, and students will be funded to travel with the instructor to Venice over fall break as part of this site seminar. This course is open to History of Art Juniors and Seniors, admission by permission only.
ARTH 3071-401 What is an Image? Ian F Verstegen R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM The course explores various concepts of images. It considers natural images (as in optics), images as artifacts, virtual images, images as representations, and works of art as images. Themes to include: the image controversy in cognitive science, which asks whether some cognitive representations are irreducibly imagistic; the question of whether some images resemble what they represent; the development of the concept of the virtual image and of three-dimensional images; the notions of pictorial representation and non-representational images in art. Readings from C. S. Peirce, Nelson Goodman, Robert Hopkins, Dominic Lopes, W. J. T. Mitchell, John Kulvicki, and Mark Rollins, among others. VLST3050401, VLST5050401
ARTH 3330-401 Material Christianities: The First Millennium Ivan Drpic
Reyhan Durmaz
W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM What can objects tell us about Christianity? How might a lavish mosaic, a withered body part, a dark crypt, or a pilgrim's oil lamp challenge and complicate visions of the past extracted from texts? This course investigates the first thousand years of Christianity through the lens of material culture. The history of Christianity - from its nebulous beginnings in Palestine to its recognition as the official religion of the Roman Empire and subsequent expansion - is often narrated from a perspective that privileges the writings of elite men. To capture the rich diversity in Christian experience and expression, we will turn to the material practices of religion and explore how things, places, and bodily acts shaped what it meant to be Christian. Building on insights drawn from archaeology, art history, anthropology, and religious studies, we will seek to recover the experiences of diverse and often marginalized subjects and communities, and in the process, will problematize the categories of religion, authority, and identity. Regular visits to the Penn Museum and other collections in Philadelphia will complement lectures and group discussions. RELS3330401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 3870-401 The History of American Animation Linda R. Simensky M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM This course will look at American animation as an art form, a technology and an industry. We will explore the ways in which artistic, technical, historical, and cultural conditions shape the development of animation and in turn, how animation impacts viewers. Topics will include trends in animation and their relation to contemporary popular culture, issues of art versus commerce in the creation of cartoons, the intersection of animation and politics, and shifts in style and technique throughout the years. We will look at the personalities in animation who have shaped the art form and continue to influence it, the rise in animation's popularity, and current-day applications of animated imagery. Case studies will include Pixar, Walt Disney, UPA, television cartoons, stop motion animation, and the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. CIMS3200401, FNAR3181401
ARTH 3959-401 The Politics of Truth in the Global Documentary Julia Alekseyeva T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This course is a study of documentary film practices internationally, beginning from the invention of cinema and ending in the contemporary landscape. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. CIMS2943401, COML2943401, ENGL2943401
ARTH 3965-401 The Art of Art Collecting Peter Decherney
Gwendolyn D Shaw
T 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This course is taught regularly and takes up different case studies of collectors and collecting. In Fall 2024, we will undertake a semester-long study of the Neumann family of collectors. We will examine and contextualize the business they built starting in the 1920s, Valmor, that developed and sold cosmetics for African-Americans. We will then look at the collection of modern and contemporary art that the family has developed over four generations. We will draw on archival material, visits with the Neumann family, and interviews with experts on collecting, the Neumanns, and related aspects of the history. Projects for the course will include research documents as well as multimedia presentations. CIMS3965401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 4400-401 African Art, 600-1400 Sarah M. Guerin TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This course examines the flourishing civilizations of the African continent between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the "Age of Discovery." Although material remains of the complex cultures that created exceptional works of art are rare, current archaeology is bringing much new information to the fore, allowing for the first time a preliminary survey of the burgeoning artistic production of the African continent while Europe was building its cathedrals. Bronze casting, gold work, terracotta and wood sculpture, and monumental architecture - the course takes a multi-media approach to understanding the rich foundations of African cultures and their deep interconnection with the rest of the world before the disruptive interventions of colonialism. AFRC4400401
ARTH 5130-401 Ukiyo-e: Beyond the Great Wave Julie N Davis T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM In this seminar we will take a closer look at the prints, paintings, and illustrated books produced in the genre known as "ukiyo-e," the "pictures of the floating world." We'll begin by asking how the "Great Wave" became a global icon and we'll bust the myth of prints being used as wrapping paper. As we learn the history of the genre, from 1600 to ca. 1850, we'll also make critical interventions into that narrative, asking how "ukiyo-e" became a genre within a larger artistic sphere; how publishers collaborated with designers to construct artistic personae; how illustrated books contributed to knowledge formations; and how concepts of authenticity and authorship remain critical to its understanding. This course will also consider how internet resources affect our understanding of the work of art. Students need not have any Japanese language skills, but should have taken related courses in art history or East Asian Studies. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students preferred. EALC7141401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 5231-401 Archaeological Field Methods Holly Pittman F 8:30 AM-11:29 AM This seminar will prepare students for participation in the excavations at the site of ancient Lagash, modern Tell al-Hiba, in southern Iraq that are scheduled to take place in the fall semester. The topics to be considered are introduction to the recording methods, use of equipment, review of the ceramic sequence, methods of recording, drawing, photography. Permission of the instructor required for participation in the class. AAMW5231401
ARTH 5503-301 Early Modern Art Theory Seminar: Portraits of the Medici and the Early Modern Self Sheila Carol Barker
David Young Kim
W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM Reading and discussion of texts relevant to open problems and key issues pertaining to Renaissance and Baroque art (1500-1800) in Europe and beyond with emphasis on Italy and Brazil.
ARTH 5770-401 Ecological Thinking in Art and Architecture Mantha Zarmakoupi R 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This seminar will address the diverse narratives of ecological thinking in the history of art, architecture, and urban planning during the 20th century. The course will contextualize and interrogate contemporary disciplinary discourses as well as historical assumptions related to ecological thinking in art and architectural history and environmentally-conscious practices. By mapping received trajectories of Eco Art, Ecocritical Art History, and Ecological Histories of Architecture and Urban Planning, the course will work from a subtly hidden foundation of eco-historical knowledge that connects these fields of inquiry, while also critiquing these trajectories and seeking to provide more focused and robust alternatives for knowledge production in the present. It aims to attract students from the School of Arts and Sciences and the Weitzman School of Design in a discussion on the interconnected histories of art and architecture during the 20th century. ARCH7130401
ARTH 6260-001 Hellenistic and Roman Art and Artifact Ann L Kuttner TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM This lecture course surveys the political, religious and domestic arts, patronage and display in Rome's Mediterranean, from the 2nd c. BCE to Constantine's 4th-c. Christianized empire. Our subjects are images and decorated objects in their cultural, political and socio-economic contexts (painting, mosaic, sculpture, luxury and mass-produced arts in many media). We start with the Hellenistic cosmopolitan culture of the Greek kingdoms and their neighbors, and late Etruscan and Republican Italy; next we map Imperial Roman art as developed around the capital city Rome, as well as in the provinces of the vast empire. AAMW6260001, ARTH2260401, CLST3402401, CLST5402001 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 6500-401 Michelangelo and the Art of the Italian Renaissance David Young Kim TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM An introduction to the work of the Renaissance artist Michelangelo (1475-1564)-his sculptures, paintings, architecture, poetry, and artistic theory-in relation to his patrons, predecessors, and contemporaries, above all Leonardo and Raphael. Topics include artistic creativity and license, religious devotion, the revival of antiquity, observation of nature, art as problem-solving, the public reception and function of artworks, debates about style, artistic rivalry, and traveling artists. Rather than taking the form of a survey, this course selects works as paradigmatic case studies, and will analyze contemporary attitudes toward art of this period through study of primary sources. ARTH2500401, ITAL2550401, ITAL6500401
ARTH 6621-401 Prints and Politics: From the Early Modern Era to Now Shira N. Brisman MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course offers a history of how mechanically reproducible images reshaped the social world. Beginning in the fifteenth century in Europe, these media connected new audiences across geographies by providing access to the same visual information. Prints launched propagandistic missions, fomented rebellion against authorities, and built networks of progressive thinkers who could envision alternative futures. Prints played a key role in developing what constituted news. Mass-distributed images delivered the mistreatment of the “Indians” by the Spanish and portrayed the packing of Africans on a slave ship. Goya’s etchings protested the repression of the Second of May uprising. The silkscreens of Andy Warhol repeated the image of police dogs attacking civil rights activists in Birmingham. Covering a five-hundred-year history, this course will focus on how printed images created communities and acted as exclusionary devices. We will train our eyes on examples from local collections and pay particular attention to Philadelphia activist groups and their places in these histories. ARTH2621401
ARTH 6760-001 Impressionism Andre Dombrowski TR 5:15 PM-6:44 PM Impressionism opened the pictorial field to light, perception, science, modernity, bourgeoise leisure and famously the material qualities of paint itself. This course will survey the movement's major contexts and proponents--Manet, Monet, Morisot, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Rodin--from its origins in the 1860's to its demise in the 1890's, as well as its subsequent adaptions throughout the world until World War I. Particular attention is paid to the artists' critical reception and the historical conditions which allowed one nation, France, to claim the emergence of early Modernism so firmly for itself. The course also analyzes the effects of the rapidly changing social and cultural fabric of Paris, and its affects on artistic developments. We also look outside of France's borders to Germany and Britain. ARTH2760001 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 6810-001 Modern Architecture,1900-Present MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM The architecture of Europe and America from the late nineteenth century until the present is the central subject of this course, but some time is also devoted to Latin American and Asian architecture and to the important issues of modern city planning. Topics discussed include the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Art Deco, the International Style, and Post-modernism. The debate over the role of technology in modern life and art, the search for a universal language of architectural communication, and the insistent demand that architecture serve human society are themes that are traced throughout the course. Among the important figures to be considered are Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown. The course includes weekly discussion sessions and several excursions to view architecture in Philadelphia. ARTH2810001
ARTH 6872-401 Sex in the Museum Jonathan D Katz MW 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This course maps the often fraught intercourse between the history of sexuality and the history of museums, exhibitions, and curation. Bodies have long been the mainstay of art, but the attribution of sex to those bodies is a highly variable social phenomenon that tells us as much about the culture in question as it does about ourselves. Sex is thus in the eye of the beholder, defined by cultural, religious, scientific, and political norms, themselves often defined in and through a politics of visibility and exhibition. Beginning in the ancient world and moving into the present, this course studies the sexual politics of display, inherent but little studied, in the history of art history. From Renaissance battles over fig leaves to Enlightenment Europe’s titillation at what they saw as the unbridled eroticism of the ancient world to the culture wars of today, sex has long been a hidden motor of shifts in the art world. Whether coming to understand the so-called “Free Body Culture” of turn of the 20th century Europe with its very public nudity, to the explosion in nude performance in the 1960s to the culture wars of the 1980s in the USA over an art that addressed queerness, AIDS, and their intersection, we’ll see how often exhibitions have served as proxy for other social and political issues. In this course we’ll also come to understand the distinction between the nude, a category in art, and the naked, a category that was often said to corrupt art. Reading the latest work in queer, feminist and anti-racist scholarship, we will see how easily bodies on display can turn into sex, and conversely, slip as easily back from sex into bodies again. ARTH2872401, GSWS2872401, GSWS6872401
ARTH 7010-301 Methods Seminar Ivan Drpic M 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This course is designed to build skills of analysis and argumentation essential to the conduct of creative and responsible work in History of Art. Its goals include presenting the history of the field in a manner attentive to the complexities of its institutional and professional formations, purposes, and effects; encouraging appreciation of historiography, specifically the time, place, and political and social circumstances in which a given text was composed; promoting awareness of the ethics of scholarship (inclusive and expansive in every sense); familiarizing students with the strengths and weaknesses of distinct methodological traditions that have shaped the field; considering the audiences served by art historical scholarship (the academy, the museum, local and global publics) and the forms scholarship might take to effectively reach those audiences. The course is required for first-year graduate students in History of Art and open to others with permission of the instructor.
ARTH 7400-401 Medieval Art Seminar: Metal/Work: Dialectics of Matter and Form Shira N. Brisman
Sarah M. Guerin
M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM Alternating specific topic from year to year, this advanced graduate seminar surveys methodological issues concerning the art of the European Middle Ages, broadly conceived. Seminars take advantage of the rich resources of the Philadelphia area. This course is open to graduate students only. AAMW7400401
ARTH 7880-301 20th Century American Art Seminar: Appropriation ("North" and "South") Huey Gene Copeland W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This seminar examines the history of art, artists, and artistic movements that emerged in the United States during the twentieth century. It may also engage with histories of visual culture, criticism, and the theory of art. Specific topics vary from semester to semester.
ARTH 7881-301 19th Century American Art Seminar: Early Black Makers Gwendolyn D Shaw R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This seminar examines the history of art, artists, and artistic movements that emerged in the United States during the long nineteenth century. It may also engage with histories of visual culture, criticism, and the theory of art. Specific topics vary from semester to semester.