Women in the History of Art
AH 472
3 credits
King-Hammond. Offered fall. Examines the multifaceted roles of women in the history of art. Women function in a wide range—as icon, symbol, object, target, art-maker, patron, historian, scholar, curator, administrator, worker, grand/mother, lover, friend, sister, niece, wife, aunt, and individual. The semester covers the first prehistoric artifacts to the more contemporary images that involve the imaging of women and the challenges women in the art world face daily. The class depends on discussions, lectures, field trips, slides, and films.
Aspects of Contemporary Art
AH 5412
3 credits
Amor. Offered occasionally. Approaches postwar art (1960s to the present) from a topical point of view. While a chronology is followed, the course does not survey the period as a linear narrative but as a field of problems, questions, and events. Rather than focusing our analysis on the successive emergence of artistic movements and styles in Europe and America, questions about the dynamics of modernity and post modernity, and the analogies and differences between artistic practices in the center and the periphery are posed. The course also investigates how the legacies of the pre-war avant-garde were assimilated in different locations and why it becomes increasingly difficult to speak of artistic categories in terms of "movement" and "style" as the century advances and globalization sets in. Questions are posed about the relationship between art and culture, art and critical theory, art and new media, and how these relationships influenced the reconceptualization of the art object. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Sites, Places, Monuments
AH 5550
3 credits
Amor. Offered occasionally. Explores the thorny issues of site specificity and monumentality in contemporary art. Traces their genealogy in the work of the sixties and seventies (Smithson, Matta-Clark, Serra) and maps the experimental terrain they engendered inthe sculptural reversals that followed: (Wodiczko, Holzer, Jaar, Salcedo, Whiteread). Issues of memory and representation in public space are addressed by case studies of artists engaging the notion of the "countermonument" and monumentality and of exhibitions which attempted to articulate similar issues (Mary Jane Jacob's Culture in Action, 1993 and Bruce Ferguson's Longing and Belonging, 1995). Finally, the class discusses "aesthetic agency," community-oriented work and the influence of relational aesthetics in work produced in the last 10 years (Sierra, Hirschhorn, Tiravanija and others). The seminar also familiarizes students with crucial texts on the topic such as Rosalind Krauss's "Sculpture in the Expanded Field" (1986), Pierre Nora's "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire," and James E. Young's "Memory/Monument" (2003). Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
The Medium in Contemporary Art
AH 5573
3 credits
Smith. Offered occasionally. Beginning with an examination of the debates that shaped the definition of the medium and "medium specificity" within European and American modernism, this course proceeds to investigate the recent, expanded concept of the medium in contemporary art. Clement Greenberg posited that the task of modernist self-criticism was to "eliminate the effects borrowed from another art," such that "each art would be rendered 'pure'." Subsequently, postmodern artists and the artists associated with "institutional critique" contended that the medium—no longer pure, but rather imbricated in the world of commerce, society, and mass culture—was not a viable object of investigation. Yet, a concern about the medium has re-emerged. Contemporary artists—for example, William Kentridge, Tacita Dean, Thomas Hirschhorn, Reena Spaulings (Bernadette Corporation), Steve McQueen, and Isaac Julien— employ new and obsolete media, often in combination, to explore their specific formal and conceptual possibilities, but also to rethink the concerns of identity, gender, race, colonial power, war, and memory within late capitalism. Moreover, recent art criticism (notably Alex Potts, Juliane Rebentisch, Hal Foster, and Rosalind Krauss) has attempted to redefine the medium after a hiatus within art historical discourse. Additional readings include theoretical and philosophical texts on perception and media that emerged in the 20th century. Further study of a series of case studies considers how new explorations might shed light on, and be informed by, the medium as it was defined by marginal practices and groups early in the 20th century. Prerequisite: AH 558 L; graduate students only.
Gateway Graduate Survey of Contemporary Art and Theory
AH 5582
3 credits
Smith, Hirsh. Offered fall or spring. Provides an overview of art, architecture, and critical theory from the postwar period to the present. Aims not only to introduce students to artistic movements across the globe but also to critical readings drawn from a wide range of disciplines. As such, the course also generates a rich set of methodological strategies and interpretive practices that equip students with the historical and theoretical tools necessary to advance in subsequent elective courses in art history and theory. Lecture course with a smaller discussion section. Required for all first-year graduate students.
20th-Century Brazilian Art and Culture
AH 5616
3 credits
Amor. Offered occasionally. Examines major topics, moments, institutions, and aesthetic practices in 20th-century Brazilian art, with emphasis on the post-war culture. Students approach the art of the period from a topical and chronological point of view. Students investigate crucial moments that facilitated the development of an avant-garde in Brazil, including the Cannibal manifesto by Oswal de Andrade, the groundbreaking art of Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, and the contemporary flourishing of an internationally successful artistic scene. Emphasis on the institutions created to promote modern art in the late forties, the struggle with cultural identity among artists and critics, the radical experiments with abstraction and the participatory art of Oiticica and Clark, the Tropicalist movement of the seventies and the enmeshments of art and music with the revolutionary culture of the time, the flourishing of conceptual art during the dictatorship, and the rise to international prominence of Brazilian art are some of the issues covered in class. Concepts such as modernity, avant-garde, and center/periphery are investigated to allow for a critical understanding of the dialectic between artistic canons and alternative modernities. Prerequisite: Graduate and post-baccalaureate students only.
Authorship, Anonymity, Collectivity
AH 5620
3 credits
Smith. Offered occasionally. An introduction to, and further examination of, some of the major theoretical issues facing artistic authorship today. Recently, some curators, artists, and collectives have launched a critique of the artist-as-brand-name phenomenon by attributing their work and projects to a non-author ("Anonymous"). This act is a provocative gesture in the contemporary art world where the branding of artists, curators, and critics competes with the complex marketing strategies of major global corporations, and where the act of giving up the name is tantamount to recognition (and fiscal) suicide. This course considers the place of artistic authorship, anonymity, collectivity, and community in the contemporary art world through the lens of theoretical texts on these concepts as well as historical precedents from the 20th-century avant-garde. Students also consider the implications of copyright and patenting for artistic and critical practice both historically and today.
Visual Culture And the Holocaust
AH 5622
3 credits
Hirsh. Offered occasionally. Focuses on a variety of visual cultural forms that address events surrounding the Holocaust and its aftermath. The central questions guiding the course's inquiry involves notions of history, memory, and the ethics of representation. This course examines diverse media including painting, sculpture, film (propaganda, documentary, and feature), graphic novels, autobiographies, photography, monuments/memorials, museums, individual curatorial projects/exhibitions, installations, television, video, and performance. Students consider works by artists and architects including Christian Boltanski, Rachel Whiteread, Art Spiegelman, Shimon Attie, David Levinthal, Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock, Daniel Liebeskind, Peter Eisenman, Charlotte Salomon, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter as well as writings by Primo Levi, Sigmund Freud, Theodor Adorno, and Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich. Course readings draw on a variety of disciplines including art history, history, theory, psychoanalysis, and philosophy-texts engaged with visual culture and the Holocaust. Discussions will focus on questions related to genocide, representation, cultural memory, mourning, and commemoration. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Reading Peace: A History of Nonviolence
IHST 5270
3 credits
Mattison. Offered occasionally. From Aristophanes' Lysistrata in 410 BCE to the early Quakers, from The Beatitudes of Jesus to the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, the vision of peace has been one of the great hopes of mankind. In times of war, who are the peace-makers? This course will examine the seminal writings of the advocates of peace and non-violent solutions to political conflict, from the ancient Greeks to the 21st century. Questions the received wisdom, challenge conventional assumptions, and envision our way toward a just and lasting realization of peaceful societies in the century to come. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Crisis Century I and II
CRT 5524/CRT 5525
3 credits
Druckrey. Offered fall, spring. As the millennium turned, the frenzy to re-evaluate the 20th century reached fever pitch. Apocalyptic, celebratory, sobering—the descriptions covered the gamut. From the point of view of the arts, the 20th century has been one of crisis aesthetics beginning with the explosive works of Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, and ending with post-deconstruction, post-post-modernism, and even celebrations of "bad art" (as hailed recently in the New York Times). Yet, a serious look at the various cultures of the century demonstrates that creativity, science, and technology are linked in an on-going battle over representation and expression. This course focuses on the "permanent revolution" in the arts of the century in a multidisciplinary way, attempting to provide a framework for understanding both the destructive framework and the imaginative potential that emerged from some of the most rapacious and revealing works ever produced. As such it looks at the intertwined links between art, music, photography, and cinema in the light of literature, philosophy, and critical theory. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Reading/Writing/Making Media
CRT 5528
3 credits
Druckrey. Offered occasionally. Current media practices are enveloped by a growing number of histories and theorists struggling to make sense of both the development and critical issues these practices evoke. This situation involves both a great deal of speculation supported by a history that has yet—and may never be—completely conceptualized. From the early 1920s, a media theory has been evolving in forms that touch specifically on issues of aesthetics and the development of "media art." In the post-war period these theories have emerged as an essential aspect in the reciprocity between communication, information, and art-making. Rather than focusing on the development of media historically, this seminar will aim at creating a discourse with emerging theory as a way to encounter and frame what some identify as "new media" others as "collective intelligence" (among other ideas). As a working seminar, it aims more directly at reading and writing about media by examining specific works and texts in an analytical form, and requires regular reading and participation in class discussions.
Issues in Photo History
CRT 5530
3 credits
Druckrey. Offered occasionally. Looks thematically at the development of photography from a critical, rather than merely historical, point of view. The course re-frames the issues and integrates photography more broadly into social and artistic discourses linked with a modernity both compulsively interested in visuality and simultaneously challenged to confront its failing hierarchies. The class evolves thematically and topics to be discussed include the invention of photography the early processes (particularly the heliograph and daguerreotype), the portrait, the rise of documentary, the scientific image, the time-image, the event-image, the rise of "art-photography," experimental photography, the avant-garde, and journalism. The course confronts the rise of post-modernism and the electronic image.
Perspectives in Criticism
CRT 5600
3 credits
Peacock. Offered fall, spring. Explores multiple dimensions of criticism as it functions in mainstream current art trends. A distinguished guest critic will establish a theme for the semester's focal point. Guest critics will play central role in discussions, seminars, and workshops, as additional critics are brought in to present their perspectives on the thematic topic for the semester. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Art, Interior Design, and Domestic Space (1990-2005)
CRT 5668
3 credits
Amor. Offered occasionally. Explores recent proposals in the visual arts that attempt a dialogue between the architectural interests of the 1960s and 1970s (among artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark and Dan Graham) and the more recent fascination with design of the past 15 years. A desire to foreground new ways to interact with everyday space characterizes the work of artists such as Pedro Cabrita Reis in Portugal, Andrea Zittel in the United States, Jorge Pardo in Cuba and the U.S., and Atelier Van Lieshout in the Netherlands. In the work of these artists, an interdisciplinary impulse that mixes the realms of design, art, and architecture attempts to redefine conventional ideas about the production, circulation, and reception of works of art. Oscillating between the more public and collective work of artists such as Atelier Van Lieshout and the more private and subjective proposals of Absalon (France and Israel), the course investigates concepts dealing with contemporary space and place, the institutions of art and architecture, and the public and the private. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Philosophy and Pedagogy of Post-Secondary Arts Education
ED 5533
3 credits
McKenna. Offered fall, spring. What are the artistic behaviors of contemporary artists? How do today's young people experience learning? And how do we construct new pedagogical paradigms-postmodern, multi-narrative-that reflect what we know of artists and learners in the 21st century? This seminar course is designed to provide graduate students who wish to become teachers and leaders in the field of post-secondary visual arts education a better understanding of the open questions that exist within contemporary studio art education. It is highly recommended that seminar participants engage in a Graduate Teaching Internship in the Foundation Program simultaneously with taking this course so that the intersections of theory and practice might be more richly explored. This course is divided into six integrated parts, each of which will contain opportunities to conduct action research based on the teaching internship experience, conversations with guest faculty, selected readings from a bibliography, and components for the Professional Teaching Portfolio. This integrated design allows graduate students to become familiar with a variety of contextual factors that are woven into the learning of art at the college level, including artist-teacher narratives, postmodern theory, adolescent and adult development, creativity theory, and pedagogical paradigms. These explorations provide a background for students to reflect on-and look critically at-their own experiences as practicing artists, students of studio art, teaching interns in undergraduate courses. Highly recommended for those undertaking Graduate Teaching Internships. Satisfies one requirement of the Certificate Program in the College Teaching of Art.
Post-Baccalaureate Seminar in Critical Theory
L 5000
3 credits
Staff. Offered occasionally. Students learn to deal with complex, sometimes abstruse art theories by asking basic questions about the particular theories and about theory in general, for example: Why does some contemporary art seem "theory-driven." and does it need to be? Why does there seem to be no central theoretical "paradigm" in the art world today? Was there ever in times past? What is the relation between multiculturalism and theory? What are some of the conditions that led to the art world being so engaged with theory? Do young artists need to be? What are their options? Will theory every be eclipsed, or is it here to stay?
English Language Intensive Study
L 5106
3 credits
Poppleton. Offered occasionally. An intensive language study seminar for international graduate students who need preparation in English reading, speaking, and writing skills in order to continue their study in the United States. This class may be required for students whose score on the TOEFL is less than 550 and is strongly recommended for all graduate students who are not confident in their English language ability. Emphasis is on reading and understanding academic and art critical discourse, both in writing and in oral forms. The course meets as a seminar and requires frequent written and oral reports. Substantial work outside of class is also required. Credits do not count toward the MFA, but may count toward the post-baccaulaureate certificate.
Erotica in Literature
L 5533
3 credits
Cager. Offered occasionally. Considers erotic texts by African Diaspora writers. It attempts to understand the cultural definitions of love, courting, and coitus in black society and the impact of the concept of courtly love, as an invention of the late Middle Ages in Europe, on the culture and history on non-European peoples. Texts include Black Erotica by Martin, DeCosta-Willis, and Bell, and Dark Eros by Martin. In-class projects and class participation determine grades. Prerequisite: Graduate students only or permission of instructor.
Psychoanalysis and Film
L 5548
3 credits
Staff. Offered occasionally. When around the turn of the last century Sigmund Freud theorized the unconscious, questioned "cogito ergo sum" (the dictum declaring that we are because we are aware of ourselves), and granted children instinctual urges toward pleasure and violence, he threw into crisis much of the worldview of his time. Today, we are still influenced, and often burdened, by much of what psychoanalysis theorizes. In an age where identities are conceptualized as increasingly fragmented, we still ask ourselves what happens when desire gets directed into social imperatives and corporeal drives are disciplined into cultural moulds. How do language and image, metaphor and metonymy serve to facilitate the rules that contain, define, and create desire and its bodily manifestations? Is the unconscious free of the cultural and socio-political imprint, or can we theorize it as deeply intertwined with issues of gender, sex and sexuality, race, age, and zeitgeist? What is the function of sexuality in defining identity? This course addresses some of the questions and relates the ways in which film partakes in the discourse of psychoanalysis. Students study theories of Freudian and id-psychology, ego psychology and object-relations theory, and study writings by some of the critics of psychoanalysis: feminists, post-structuralists, cultural and post-colonial critics, queer theorists, and, last but not least, film critics. The films include Vertigo, Blue Velvet, Track 29, Mona Lisa, Until the End of the World, The Exorcist, and A Song of Ceylon, among others.
Practical Postmodernism
L 5566
3 credits
Shipley. Offered occasionally. These days, postmodern theory seems to be a staple of all serious conversations about art, literature, politics, and just about any intellectual matter. But by its very nature—its counterintuitive logic, its radical relativizing, its existential roots—it would also seem to resist concrete, everyday use and the production of consequential, practical results. This seminar explores postmodern theorizing with an eye to what it might be able to help us actually do, day to day, as we engage the world as creative people. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Infinity and the Sublime
L 5572
3 credits
Myers. Offered occasionally. How do you describe and picture a god who transcends all names, images, sensuous representations, and attributes, and what's so important about such transcendence? How can you grasp infinity by means of the finite imagination? This course explores the intellectual roots of this problem of the sublime in Judaic thought, in neo-Platonic philosophy and mysticism, and in the aesthetics of the sublime. We explore how different concepts of the sublime spur the poetry of Blake, Dickinson, Crane, and Stevens as well as the "ethical sublime" in post-World War II artists and thinkers such as Celan, Levinas, Rothko, and Anselm Kiefer. We also consult continental and analytic philosophers for light on the problem. Prerequisite: Graduate students only.
Media Ethics: News, Ads, and Social Consent
PHIL 5617
3 credits
DeBrabander. Offered occasionally. We live in a media-infested world; our whole lives are subjected to media transmission of some form or another: TV, film, advertisements, newspapers, Internet. In light of this fact about 21st-century culture—and the significant role of artists and designers in shaping those media—it is necessary to consider the moral and political impact and influence of the various media. Do films incline us to violence? Do ads incline us to anorexia? Do newspapers incline us to Republicanism? Underlying these concerns is the larger one about the media's relation to truth and accuracy. Ought the media be objective? Can they be objective? What hidden agendas do the media betray, and how do they betray them? Also, how do the media persuade, compel...control? Prerequisite: Graduate and post-baccalaureate students only.
Maps & Directions