Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
ARTH 101-910 PREHISTORY - RENAISSANCE TILLERY, LAURA JAFFE BUILDING 113 TR 0900AM-1250PM This is a double introduction: to looking at the visual arts; and, to the ancient and medieval cities and empires of three continents - ancient Egypt, the Middle East and Iran, the Minoan and Mycenaean Bronze Age, the Greek and Roman Mediterranean, and the early Islamic, early Byzantine and western Medieval world. Using images, contemporary texts, and art in our city, we examine the changing forms of art, architecture and landscape architecture, and the roles of visual culture for political, social and religious activity.
    Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)

    ARTS & LETTERS SECTOR

    ARTH 102-920 RENAISSANCE-CONTEMPORARY FILIPOWSKA, ROKSANA JAFFE BUILDING 113 MW 0115PM-0505PM This course is an introduction to the visual arts including painting, sculpture, print culture, and new media such as photography, film, performance and installation art in Europe and the United States from 1400 to the present. It offers a broad historical overview of the key movements and artists of the period, as well as an investigation into the crucial themes and contexts that mark visual art production after the middle ages. Such themes include the secularization of art; the (gendered) role of the artist in society; the sites of art production and consumption such as the artist's studio, the royal courts and the art exhibition; the materials of art; the import of technology and science to art's making, content and distribution; the rise of art criticism; and the socio-political contexts of patronage and audience; among others.
      Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)

      ARTS & LETTERS SECTOR

      ARTH 108-920 WORLD FILM HIST TO 1945 CORTEZ, CESAR FISHER-BENNETT HALL 322 TR 0530PM-0920PM This course surveys the history of world film from cinema's precursors to 1945. We will develop methods for analyzing film while examining the growth of film as an art, an industry, a technology, and a political instrument. Topics include the emergence of film technology and early film audiences, the rise of narrative film and birth of Hollywood, national film industries and movements, African-American independent film, the emergence of the genre film (the western, film noir, and romantic comedies), ethnographic and documentary film, animated films, censorship, the MPPDA and Hays Code, and the introduction of sound. We will conclude with the transformation of several film industries into propaganda tools during World War II (including the Nazi, Soviet, and US film industries). In addition to contemporary theories that investigate the development of cinema and visual culture during the first half of the 20th century, we will read key texts that contributed to the emergence of film theory. There are no prerequisites. Students are required to attend screenings or watch films on their own.
      • CINE101920
      • COML123920
      • ENGL091920
      Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)

      ARTS & LETTERS SECTOR

      ARTH 109-910 WORLD FILM HIST '45-PRES CONSOLATI, CLAUDIA FISHER-BENNETT HALL 323 TR 0100PM-0400PM Focusing on movies made after 1945, this course allows students to learn and to sharpen methods, terminologies, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film. Beginning with the cinematic revolution signaled by the Italian Neo-Realism (of Rossellini and De Sica), we will follow the evolution of postwar cinema through the French New Wave (of Godard, Resnais, and Varda), American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (including the New Hollywood cinema of Coppola and Scorsese), and the various other new wave movements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as the New German Cinema). We will then selectively examine some of the most important films of the last two decades, including those of U.S. independent film movement and movies from Iran, China, and elsewhere in an expanding global cinema culture. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and generic organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the Paramount Decision of 1948 to the digital convergences that are defining screen culture today. There are no perquisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, a final exam, and active participation. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes).
      • CINE102910
      • COML124910
      • ENGL092910
      Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)

      ARTS & LETTERS SECTOR

      ARTH 203-920 INTRODUCTION TO MUSEUMS SANECKI, JAMIE JAFFE BUILDING 104 TR 0115PM-0505PM Much of the art we encounter today is mediated through the space of the museum. Museums thus play a critical role for scholars and the general public alike, determining which works we see, as well as how we view them and the cultures they represent. This course will provide an introduction to the history, theory, and practice of art museums. Through readings, case studies, and visits to Philadelphia institutions, we will explore the origins of the modern museum in late 18th- and early 19th-century Europe and America; historical and contemporary practices of collecting and display; the political significance of museums, particularly in the construction of national identity; the ethical questions involved in exhibiting artifacts from non-Western or indigenous cultures; and changing practices that aim to transform the art museum into a less authoritative, more inclusive space. With the goal of producing more critical museum visitors, this course will be of interest to art historians focusing on any era, as well as those interested in museum work or public history.
        ARTH 244-910 Introduction to Medieval Manuscripts, c. 300-1500 GROLLEMOND, LARISA CANCELED This course will define and examine the history of the scriptorium and the typical subject matter, means of production, social and aesthetic contexts of selected medieval manuscripts produced in Western Europe during the period 300 to 1550 AD. Students will examine the great achievements in the traditions of medieval manuscripts, including early scriptures, the Book of Kells, The Lindisfarne Gospels, Magna Carta, The Luttrell Psalter, and various fifteenth century Books of Hours. Students consider the use and reception of manuscripts in both religious and secular contexts, examining the book in light of monastic culture, changing devotional practices, the rise of the universities, and introduction of print. This includes an examination of text and image interactions, social issues, gender issues, patronage, and the relationship of images to their historical, geographical, and social contexts. This course also provides students with an introduction to the modern study of medieval manuscripts, providing them with the basic tools for pursuing research in the fields of codicology and paleography.
          ARTH 301-950 On-Site: Art in Venice, Past and Present BELLAVITIS, MADDALENA Topic varies. Spring 2017: Architecture, wrote Walter Gropius in 1935, grows "from the house to...the street; from the street to the town; and finally to the still vaster implications of regional and national planning." An unusual claim for today, but think of a modernist architect and the image of Le Corbusier's hand mid-flight over a model of his radical plans for Paris comes easily to mind. This seminar will excavate and critically examine modern architecture's quest for control over the urban fabric. While we will review some key urban proposals, advanced primarily between the 1920s and the 1950s in Europe and America (among these will be projects by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, and the Smithsons), our main concern will be to trace how architects attempted to redefine and expand their professional role so as to encompass planning at all scales. We will set the theories of modern "masters" against the daily work of average practitioners, and pay close attention to turf wars among architecture, planning, and engineering as specialized disciplines. We will also consider how conceptual links between urban design and social engineering were invented and challenged in the context of broader developments in social, political, and economic history.
          • ITAL300950

          CROSS CULTURAL ANALYSIS; STUDY ABROAD COURSE; PERMISSION NEEDED FROM DEPARTMENT; CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS

          ARTH 384-950 CUBAN ART & ARCHITECTURE LEVY, AARON
          SHAW, GWENDOLYN
          This course will focus on the urban history and cultural politics of contemporary Cuba with an emphasis on contemporary art and contemporary developments in the city of Havana. Students will learn about the Spanish influence on early colonial art, the development of formal academic art training and the changes to art instruction and the form and content of art created since the Revolution. This intensive summer travel course begins immediately following the conclusion of Spring 2016 final exams and requires that students maintain a Philadelphia residence through the end of May, 2016. Students will be expected to read several articles and book chapters, view films, and participate in two day-long meetings in advance of the May 13, 2016, departure for Havana, Cuba. While in Havana, students will continue to read and participate in daily discussions as we visit various artists' studios, collections, architectural monuments, and historical sites. Students will be asked to document these travel experiences digitally in a written journal and on Instagram (#penninhavana), and upon their return to the United States, they will be required to complete two written projects (a daily journal from the trip and a longer research essay). Several short online quizzes will be administered through the course Canvas site in advance and upon conclusion of the trip.

            STUDY ABROAD COURSE; PERMISSION NEEDED FROM DEPARTMENT