Full course.

Fall and spring semesters. The Department.

(Offered as ENGL 462, FAMS 462, and ARHA 462.)  In recent years, curating has taken on an increasingly central role in the production of contemporary media cultures.  As the practice of selecting, organizing, and presenting cultural artifacts for public exhibition, curating often determines the sorts of media forms audiences have access to and the frameworks through which those media forms are interpreted.  Curating requires a facility with a wide variety of skills, from historical research to critical analysis, communication, administration, and creative thinking.  Yet

This course provides an introduction to the Pre-Columbian art and architecture of the Americas. It explores major traditions in architecture and city planning, murals, sculpture, painting, masks, and textiles. The first half of the semester concentrates on Preclassic and Classic Mesoamerica (Mexico and Central America); the second on Postclassic Mesoamerica, North America, and the Andes.

 Spring semester. Visiting Professor Couch.

This course will examine historical and contemporary photographic images of political violence from around the world. How have artists, photojournalists, and citizens worked to make visible forms of state repression and censorship, human rights violations, genocide, terrorism, and violence against broader ecosystems? How have they historically used lens-based witnessing to resist such violence or to participate in political protest?

(Offered as BLST 315 [A] and ARHA 353.) Through a contrastive analysis of the religious and artistic modes of expression in three West African societies--the Asanti of the Guinea Coast, and the Yoruba and Igbo peoples of Nigeria--the course will explore the nature and logic of symbols in an African cultural context.

What is art history? What is its history? What are its premises and where does it come from? This seminar will explore the historical foundations, formulations, and applications of current art historical methods, the foundations of the art historical discipline as it emerged from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as attitudes towards and theories on art practice in their diverse global contexts from before the modern period.

(Offered as THDA 352, FAMS 342 and MUSI 352.) The focus of this studio course will be to create performances, installations and/or videos in multiple locations both on and off campus.  This course is especially designed for students in dance, theater, film/video, art, music and creative writing who want to explore the challenges and potentials in creating performances and events outside of traditional "frames" or venues (e.g., the theater, the gallery, the concert hall).

(Offered as ARHA 335 and FAMS 335.)  This intermediate production course surveys the outer limits of cinematic expression and provides an overview of creative 16mm film production. We will begin by making cameraless projects through drawing, painting and scratching directly onto the film strip before further exploring the fundamentals of 16mm technology, including cameras, editing and hand-processing. While remaining aware of our creative choices, we will invite chance into our process and risk failure, as every experiment inevitably must.

This course is a continuing investigation of the skills and questions introduced in ARHA 218.  It will include an introduction to varied camera and film formats and both analog and digital photography methods. An emphasis will be placed on defining, locating and pursuing independent work; this will be accomplished through a series of weekly demonstrations, assignments and a final independent project. Student work will be discussed and evaluated in group and individual critiques.

This course offers students knowledgeable in the basic principles and skills of painting and drawing an opportunity to investigate personal directions in painting. Assignments will be collectively as well as individually directed. Discussions of the course work will assume the form of group as well as individual critiques. Two three-hour class meetings per week.

Requisite: ARHA 215 or consent of the instructor. Limited to 18 students. Spring semester.  Professor Sweeney.