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. This 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 propaganda, arena spectacles, the home, mystery religions, and the catacombs.

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.

The traditionalist view of the Renaissance treats Europe as if it were an isolated hotbed of cultural innovation. This course will reconsider the period as one of intensifying cross-pollination, when European artists were deeply affected by contact with the Near and Far East, Africa, and the Americas. Specific topics will include representations of distant lands and peoples; the collecting of exotic materials; cartography and expanding world horizons; Venice and the Ottoman world; and the reception of classical architecture in Latin America.

This course will survey the arts of India from the earliest times to the twentieth century. Class lectures will describe the relationships between geography, religious beliefs, and cultural history as they are embodied principally in the history of painting, sculpture, and architecture of the subcontinent of India.

This course will survey the rise of the motion picture as both subject and mode in art since 1960. The development of video art, from monitor and installation to projection and flat screen, opened up new channels for performance and sculpture. But the rising presence of 16mm film in galleries (Tacita Dean) as celluloid disappears from movie theaters amplifies a trend that also includes artists as feature filmmakers (Julian Schnabel and Cindy Sherman), Christian Marclay's use of cinema's past in The Clock (2010), and Matthew Barney's reliance on the Guggenheim as set and cinematheque.

Life on the Bay of Naples came to an abrupt halt in 79, when Vesuvius erupted, preserving surrounding cities and villas with lava and ash. The rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum since the eighteenth century had significant impact upon European art and literature. The seminar examines the surviving environment and artifacts created to Roman tastes in the late republic and early empire. It considers the history of archaeological and art historical methods and the romantic visions of art, theatre, and film up to the present.

The course provides an intensive investigation of art museum history, missions, practices, and current issues. Topics include: the ideology and practice of exhibitions from initial concept through installation; components that influence meaning and interpretation of displays of art; the challenges of controversial subject matter and censorship; developing diverse audiences for the 21st century; and, the theories, practices, and ethics of assembling museum collections.

Explores the way photography seized hold of the imagination in India. Nineteenth-century documentary photographs of Indian ruins memorialized the reach of the British Empire when used for dioramas, panoramas, and magic lantern shows on the streets of London. By the twentieth century, manipulated photographs and mechanically reproduced 'photos' of Indian gods complicated photography's claim to truth. Students will debate scholarly views and develop research projects to examine photography's imaginative uses in India.

This course explores the various technical and conceptual aspects of drawing that are specific to portraying the human form. Students will work largely from the figure and examine their drawings within the context of other historical figurative work. Students will pay special attention to the drawings of the Cubists, De Kooning and Richard Diebenkorn. Students will mainly produce drawings, complete several readings and present the work of a contemporary artist working with the figure.

An introduction to both the technical and conceptual aspects of drawing as a primary tool for visual expression and analysis. Art historical contexts as well as the dialogue between the arts and other disciplines will be considered. Emphasis is placed on learning to see, and to think visually.