Indian popular film, known commonly as Bollywood, is usually understood to have weak storylines interrupted with overblown cinematic spectacles and distracting dance numbers. The course explores the narrative and visual structure of Bollywood for what scholar Lalitha Gopalan has called a "constellation of interruptions." We will analyze a selection of films closely, read scholarly articles, participate in debates, write guided assignments, and pursue independent research papers.

The multicultural course will survey architecture, sculpture, painting, and other arts of India from the earliest times to the twenty-first century. Students will explore the various arts as material expressions of a relationship between religious beliefs, geography and cultural conditions of the subcontinent of India in different historical periods. Class sessions will also provide opportunities for an examination of cross-cultural issues relating to the study of non-Western art in a Western academic discipline.

This course traces the different paths of painting, sculpture, and photography in the U.S. and Western Europe between 1945 and 1989, between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. We will follow the 'crisis of modernism,' the rise of post-modernism, and the effects of geopolitical tension on the visual arts.

A historical survey of medieval architecture, monumental sculpture, and painting of France, England, Germany, and Italy. The course concentrates on the great church as a multimedia environment and on the religious, political and social roles of art in society.

At its height, the Roman Empire spanned a vast area, from modern Scotland to Libya and Iraq. Within that territory lived peoples of multiple races, languages, and religions. The course explores the art and architecture created in this global culture from its beginning in 30 BCE to the dedication of the first Christian capital, Constantinople, in 330 CE. Subjects include the arts of engineering and city planning, public propaganda, arena spectacles, homes of life and the afterlife, and mystery religions.

This course surveys architecture from the ancient world to the present as both a functional response to human activity and as a medium that expresses cultural values. In the service of domestic life, religious ritual, political agendas, commerce, and leisure, architecture reflects and shapes the natural environment, technology, economics, and aesthetic taste. While the history of Western architecture constitutes the primary touchstone, we will pursue themes that include buildings, cities, and sites from around the world.

Bombarded daily by thousands of images, we often lack sufficient visual literacy to understand fully how they shape our reality. The course explores roles that images have played in earlier cultures and in our own, how people view, analyze, and articulate their understanding of the visual world. Topics include living statues, votive offerings, voodoo figures, relics, idolatry, iconoclasm, propaganda, and censorship.

Concentration on individual artistic development. Emphasis will be placed on experimentation, thematic development, and critical review. Students may elect to take this course more than once.

In this course, students learn the traditional practice and history of Japanese hand papermaking, while exploring contemporary applications of the method. Thin, translucent, strong paper is great for drawing and printmaking, as well as sculptural construction and paper casting. This fluidity of medium naturally encourages students to become interdisciplinary in their art making. The apparent fragility, structural strength, and surprising longevity of the material provides a foundation for philosophical investigations into the nature of creativity.