An introduction to design principles as applied to three-dimensional form. A required fee of $25 to cover group-supplied materials is charged at the time of registration.

Topics course. This museum-based seminar examines the remarkable formation of Smith's collection of American art under its first president, L. Clarke Seelye, with the assistance of painter Dwight Tryon, longtime professor of art at the college. We plumb the college archives and museum files to investigate Seelye's tastes and acquisition habits and explore the friendship network of Tryon to determine his role in guiding the purchase process.

Topics course. The houses of ancient Pompeii -- with their juxtapositions of wall paintings, gardens and objects of display -- serve as the focus for an analysis of domestic spaces and what they can reveal about family patterns and the theatrics of social interaction in everyday life in another time and place.

Who collects ancient art? What makes antiquities worthy of display? This colloquium focuses on contemporary debates in the field of ancient American art history. Among the topics we consider: architectural restoration, the legalities and ethics of collecting, indigenous perspectives on the display and interpretation of antiquities, and technologies for representing the past. The course consists of wide-ranging weekly readings and discussion, giving special attention to the intersection of art history and museum exhibitions.

This course spans the history of European architecture, focusing on urban development and design from the French Revolution to WWII. What did it mean to ascend the first immense iron structures, or to wipe ornament from the surface of that deemed modern? How was the Gothic made newly relevant, and why did handicraft reemerge during the industrial revolution? We will study the period's most important developments (Historicism, Bauhaus, etc., to iconoclastic measures undertaken during war and revolution) in relation to socio-cultural debates about space and utility.

From Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Charles I of Spain) in the 16th century, to Charles II, last of the Spanish Habsburg line at the end of the 17th century, this survey investigates the purposes to which painting is used to satisfy religious and political needs in what is called Spain's "Golden Age." Venetian paintings, especially those of Titian -- highly prized by Charles V and his son and successor Philip II -- are examined within the context of royal patronage and against the backdrop of global political power.

Architectural, sculpted and pictorial arts from North of the Alps, c. 1150-1300. Rather than a survey, this course proposes a thematic approach to allow for an in-depth examination of key concerns of the Gothic era, such as the interface between visual creations and new forms of patronage and devotional attitudes, the rise in literacy and secular culture, the development of scientific rationality, or the sustained contact with the Islamic world. Group I.

The pictorial traditions of painting and printmaking are the focus of this course. Examining these two related, but widely divergent traditions in China, Japan and Korea, the course explores the origins and development of paintings and prints from earliest times to the present day.

This course explores the meaning and use of writing-in many forms-within Native communities in the Americas. We challenge the conventional understanding of writing by examining texts not usually considered as such-like hieroglyphic codices, wampum belts, khipu, and winter counts-alongside poetry, sermons, memoirs and treaties. To facilitate this work, the course is arranged thematically by tribe, technology, or text, rather than chronology, allowing us to deepen our knowledge about the peoples and histories concerned each week.

Topics course. Enrollment limited to 20. This course defines, analyzes and interrogates processes of U.S. racial formation with a particular focus on immigration, immigrant communities and the question of immigrant rights. We begin by examining both race and racism as elements in the historical process of "racialization," and proceed by positing racialization as key to understanding the political, economic, social and cultural dynamics of the United States.