An exploration of how states of consciousness arise from differential brain activity. Analysis of neurological case studies, ethical dilemmas, experiments addressing mind-body interactions. Active participation in discussions of readings is required. Prerequisites: PSY 100, PSY 201 and PSY 202, or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limit of 25 students.

This course provides an opportunity for students to discover what research practice can look like for those working in film, photography, video, installation, and related and interdisciplinary new and old media forms.

In a return to probing the material, organizational and spatial qualities of the line (see ARS 281), this research-based architectural design studio questions the agency of the line in relationship to contemporary issues of mobility and migration. In particular, this studio privileges the sea as a lens from which to view a changing world order and to explore ways in which architectural representation may be foregrounded as an investigative and speculative site. A required fee of $100 to cover group-supplied materials will be charged at the time of registration.

Advanced problems in sculpture using bronze casting, welding and various media. A required fee of $25 to cover group-supplied materials is charged at the time of registration. Students may require additional materials as well and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Enrollment limited to 12. Prerequisites: ARS 273 and permission of the instructor.

Topics Course: Looking at an array of contemporary artists in global and historical contexts, students will create works that explore the comedic modes of irony, wit, melodrama, slapstick, and other visual deliveries of humor. The class will involve short experimental assignments, iterative works, and independent projects, produced in varied painting media.

An introduction to more advanced theories and techniques of drawing, including the role of drawing in contemporary art. The emphasis of the class is on both studio work and class discussion. A major topic is the development of independent projects and practice. A required fee of $25 to cover group-supplied materials is charged at the time of registration. Students may require additional supplies as well and are responsible for purchasing them directly. Enrollment limited to 15. Prerequisite: ARS 163, 172, or permission of the instructor.

Constitutional limits on monarchical power, the embrace of Protestantism, religious intolerance and fanaticism, revolution and regicide, and a much vaunted (when not exaggerated and misleading) insularity, set the stage in England for patterns of patronage and a relationship to the visual arts both similar to and significantly different from modes established in Continental absolutist courts.

The meanings we ascribe to art works of any culture or time period are a direct result of our own preoccupations and methods. This colloquium gives a broad overview of contemporary debates in the history of art and locates these methods within art history’s own intellectual history. Among the topics we consider: technologies of vision; histories of interpreting art across cultural boundaries; colonialism and the history of art and globalism. The course consists of wide-ranging weekly readings and discussion, giving special attention to the intersection of art history and other disciplines.

This course examines the work of artists with no formal training, and their reception by fine artists and institutions in the United States. Special attention will be paid to issues of collecting and display, the shifting terms used to designate “folk” and “outsider” art, and the ethical and political concerns raised by the study of self-taught artists. How might study of the politics of self-taught art transform our understanding of canonical art historical movements and their boundaries? How does it challenge what it means to write about, research, and encounter objects in the world?

Topics course: Urban and architectural history of the Eternal City, comprising seven famous hills whose summits and slopes (and the valleys in between) are a cradle of Western civilization. Extensive readings in primary sources and the analysis of works of art of all types will help us understand why Rome has constituted such an indispensable and inexhaustible point of emulative reference from the traditional date of its founding (21 April 753 BCE) to the fascist era and beyond.