Confirm course times, discussion section times, and call numbers
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All Columbia seminars (with "AHIS" prefix) require an application. Columbia seminar applications are due on April 24, 2009, 5:00PM in 826 Schermerhorn Hall. The application form can be found here.
If you are interested in a Barnard seminar, please attend the first day of class. Please compose a brief statement (1-2 paragraphs) explaining your interest in and preparation (e.g., past coursework) for the course. Address the statement to the instructor (Dear Prof. xxxx.) Include: name, PID or social security number, school, Major/Concentration(s), year, email address. An individual application is required for each seminar to which you apply.
Many courses fall into more than one distribution area. However, A SINGLE COURSE can never fulfill two Field requirements AT THE SAME TIME . For example, AHIS W4155: The Art and Archaeology of Ancient Mesopotamia can fulfill either 'Ancient' or 'non-Western' but never both . CHECK to see which requirement the courses below fulfill here.
Please note that 4000 level lectures are "introductory graduate courses" and are open to advanced undergraduate and all graduate students, and a limited amount of registered auditors from the School of Continuing Education, if the instructor permits auditors
(AHIS BC1001) Introduction to the History of Art I
K. Moxey
Either term may be taken separately. Brief examination of the techniques of visual analysis, followed by a chronological survey of the major period styles of Western European art. Emphasis on the introduction of form and content in the works studied and on the correlation of the visual arts with their cultural environments. BC1001: Greek and Roman art; medieval art. BC1002: Renaissance to modern art.
(AHIS C3001) Introduction to Architecture
F. Benelli
Satisfies the architectural history/theory distribution requirement for majors, but is also open to students wanting a general humanistic approach to architecture and its history. Architecture analyzed through in-depth case studies of major monuments of sacred, public, and domestic space, from the Pantheon and Hagia Sophia to Fallingwater and the Guggenheim.
(AHIS V3248) Greek Art & Architecture
I. Mylonopoulos
Introduction to the art and architecture of the Greek world from the Early Minoan/Helladic to the Late Hellenistic period (ca. 3200 - 30 B.C.E.).
(AHUMV3340) Art in China, Japan, and Korea
C. Tsai
Introduces distinctive aesthetic traditions of China, Japan, and Korea--their similarities and differences--through an examination of the visual significance of selected works of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other arts in relation to the history, culture, and religions of East Asia. Major Cultures Requirement: East Asian Civilization List B.
(AHUM V3342) Masterpieces of Indian Art & Architecture
S. Kaligotla, N. Poddar
Introduction to 2000 years of art on the Indian subcontinent. The course covers the early art of Buddhism, rock-cut architecture of the Buddhists and Hindus, the development of the Hindu temple, Mughal and Rajput painting and architecture, art of the colonial period, and the emergence of the Modern.
(AHIS W3407) Early Italian Art
W. Hood
An introduction to the origins and early development of Italian Renaissance painting as a mode of symbolic communication between 1300-1600. Artists include Giotto, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Mantegna, and Leonardo da Vinci. Emphasis on centers of painting in Florence, Siena, Assisi, Venice and Rome
(AHIS W3600) Nineteenth Century Art
A. Higonnet
Studies European visual arts of the 19th century. Covers a century of rapid stylistic, political and technological changes beginning with the radical changes of the Enlightenment and ending with the glamorous portraits of the Belle Epoque. Considers careers and works of individual artists, formal innovation, the invention of new media, materials, institutional structures, and ideological functions. Discussion Section Required.
(AHIS BC3658) History & Theory of the Avant-Garde
R. Deutsche
Examines the practice of artistic avant-gardism from the mid-19th to the late 20th century. Explores the relationship between the avant-garde, the institutions of art, and political radicalism. Studies art-historical theories of the modernist, historical and neo-avant-gardes as well as critiques of avant-gardism from feminist and democratic points of view, discussing the charge of "elitism" often leveled against avant-gardism.
(AHIS BC3682) Cubism and the Crisis of Representation
A. Alberro
The artistic phenomenon that came to be called Cubism is generally considered one of the most pivotal in the history of twentieth century art. This course studies Cubism in all of its complexity. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which Cubist artists responded to the dramatically changing notions of space, time and dimension in the early twentieth century.
(AHIS W3770) Art, Media & the Avant-Garde
N. Elcott
At the center of the avant-garde imagination—and the interwar period in Europe more broadly—were photography and film. Long relegated to the margins of art history and rarely studied together, photography and film were often the guiding lights and vehicles for mass dissemination of avant-garde images and techniques. This lecture course delves into interbellum art, photography, film, and critical writing as it surveys a range of avant-garde movements and national cinemas; seminal artists and theorists; and topics such as montage, abstraction, technological media, archives, advertising, sites and architectures of reception. Film screenings will take place most weeks.
(AHIS G4084) MesoAmerican Art & Architecture
E. Pasztory
A survey of the major pre-Hispanic cities of Mexico and Guatemala, including San Lorenzo, Teotihuacan, Tikal, Monte Alban, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza. Aesthetic, historical, and archaeological problems are discussed.
(AHIS G4106) The Indian Temple
V. Dehejia
This course explores the emergence and development of the Indian temple, examines the relationship between form and function, and emphasizes the importance of considering temple sculpture and architecture together. It covers some two thousand years of activity, and while focusing on Hindu temples, also includes shrines built to the Jain and Buddhist faiths.
(AHIS G4235) Violence in Greek Art
I. Mylonopoulos
Greek art is usually associated with beauty, symmetry, and formal perfection. However, both the historical context that led to the creation of artistic expressions in various media and the majority of topics Greek artists chose to depict clearly demonstrate the violent origins of Greek art. Aim of this course is to break through the frame of what is considered the canonical image of Classical antiquity and shed light on the darker aspects of Greek art. The course will try to demonstrate how art in Classical Greece was used as an effective means in both dealing and channeling violence. Nevertheless, violence in art also represented a sophisticated way to create and demolish the image of dangerous otherness: the aggressive barbarian (Persian), the uncontrolled nature outside the constraints of the polis (Centaurs), the all too powerful female (Amazons).
(AHIS G4330) Paris in the Middle Ages
S. Murray
The urban fabric of Paris provides the connective tissue linking medieval achievements in architecture, sculpture, and painting with the history of the city from the Romans to the Renaissance.
(AHIS W4555) American Colonial Portraiture
E. Hutchinson
This class surveys the field of American colonial portraitures, introducing the major figures in each region and analyzing their work in terms of its style and technique as well as the cultural expectations surrounding the making and viewing of the paintings. Attention will be paid to diverse material forma of portraiture, from miniatures to silhouettes, from oil paintings to engravings on individual sheets or bound into books. The class will pay particular attention to the ways in which portraiture facilitated and undermined the economic and political operations of the colonies.
(AHIS G4601) Origins of Modern Visual Culture
J. Crary
Major developments in the emergence of modern visual culture in Europe and North America, 1750-1900. Topics include the panorama, diorama, photography, painting, world's fairs, early cinema; issues in technology, urbanization and consumer society.
(AHIS G4640) German Art in a European Context
C. Grewe
The class will examine the development of German painting and sculpture from the rise of Neoclassicism to the formation of Expressionism. It focuses on the tension, on the one hand, between a developing nationalist sensibility and the concomitant search for a national style, and, on the other hand, German art's intense engagement with the international art context. Given the particularities of German history, the question of periphery and center assumed a crucial role in the making of the German art world. Focusing on this problem will not only allow us to examine the love-hate relationship of Germans and their art, and the culture of France and England, but also to shed light on the role of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, East Prussia, and Poland in the creation of German (artistic) identity. Periphery and center will also be key concepts for thinking about another vital issue of the period: religion. In an age characterized by burgeoning confessionalism and the rise of an anti-Semitism now grounded in racist theories, religion served as an arbiter for inclusion and exclusion, and was thus inseparably intertwined with the debates about German national identity.
(AHIS W4870) Minimalism & Post-Minimalism
B. Joseph
This course examines minimalism—one of the most significant aesthetic movements—during the sixties and seventies. More than visual art, the course considers minimal sculpture, music, dance, and “structural” film, their historical precedents, development, critical and political aspects. Artists include: Carl Andre, Tony Conrad, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Anthony McCall, Yvonne Rainer, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson.
Columbia University undergraduate seminars require an application, which are due on April 24, 2009 5:00 pm in 826 Schermerhorn Hall. The application can be found here. Applications for Barnard Art History seminars are due in 301 Barnard Hall by April 13th.
(AHIS W3895) The Major’s Colloquium: Literature & Methods of Art History
W. Hood, C. Grewe
Prerequisites: the department's permission. Students must sign-up in 826 Schermerhorn. Introduction to different methodological approaches to the study of art and visual culture. Majors are encouraged to take the colloquium during their junior year.
(AHIS W3819) Contemporary British Art
S. Schama
An examination of (primarily) visual culture in Britain from Hockney to Hirst, with emphasis on the relationship between tradition and innovation in a post-imperial nation and the place of spectacle in modern British life.
(AHIS W3825) Leonardo’s Reflection
J. Keizer
Arguably no other Renaissance artist reflected more profoundly on the nature of art than Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo filled thousands of notebook pages but always maintained that painting and drawing remained the privileged medium of reflection. That reflection forms the topic of this seminar. We will examine Leonardo’s writing, but most sections will be devoted to the paintings and drawings proper. This class includes visits to the Drawings and Prints Department of the MET.
(AHIS W3874) Architects of the 21st Century
M. De Michelis
The seminar investigates the work by seven crucial protagonists of today’s architecture. They are: Frank O. Gehry, Steven Holl, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & deMeuron, Diller & Scofidio, Jean Nouvel, Sanaa (Sejima & Nishizawa).
(AHIS W3899) African American Visual & Decorative Arts
K. Jones
This course surveys the earliest forms of visual production by North Americans of African descent, spanning the period from 1640-1900. Our focus encompasses decorative arts and crafts (furniture, wrought iron, pottery, quilts), architecture and the emerging field of African American archeology, along with photography and the fine arts of painting and sculpture. We will consider how certain traditions brought from Africa contributed to the development of the early visual and material culture of what came to be called the United States. We will also reflect on how theories of creolization, diaspora, and resistance help us understand African American and American culture in general.
(AHIS W3907) Construction of Andean Art
E. Pasztory
Explores various ways in which the West has made sense of Andean Art from the 16th century to the present.
(AHIS BC3936) The Frick Collection
A. Higonnet
This seminar, made possible by the Frick Collection, studies the historical context, collection, installation, and ideas of one of New York’s great museums. Granted privileged access to the galleries and the archives of the Frick Collection, students will have a unique opportunity to learn directly from art objects and primary sources.
(AHIS C3948) Nineteenth Century Criticism
J. Crary
This course is designed for art history majors to examine a heterogeneous selection of texts that have a crucial bearing on the formation of concepts of modernity and new aesthetic practices in nineteenth-century Europe and North America. Readings will include works of art theory, philosophy, social criticism, fiction and poetry from Diderot to Nietzsche.
(AHIS BC3949) The Art of Witness: Memorials
R. Deutsche
Examines aesthetic responses to collective historical traumas, such as slavery, the Holocaust, the bombing of Hiroshima, AIDS, homelessness, immigration, and the recent attack on the World Trade Center.
(AHIS BC3950) Photo & Video in Asia
C. Phillips
Explores the range of contemporary photographic and video work being made in Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Considers the artists, institutions, publications and exhibitions that have contributed to the growing centrality of Asia in the contemporary art world.
(AHIS BC3968) Art Criticism
N. Gaugnini
Contemporary art and its criticism written by artists (rather than by art historians or journalistic reviewers). Texts by Dan Graham, (Art and Language), Robert Smithson, Brian O'Dougherty, Martha Rosler, Adrian Piper and others.
(AHIS BC3985) Intro to Connoisseurship
A. Ainsworth
Factors involved in judging works of art, with emphasis on paintings; materials, technique, condition, attribution; identification of imitations and fakes; questions of relative quality.
(AHIS G4084) MesoAmerican Art & Architecture
E. Pasztory
A survey of the major pre-Hispanic cities of Mexico and Guatemala, including San Lorenzo, Teotihuacan, Tikal, Monte Alban, Uxmal, and Chichen Itza. Aesthetic, historical, and archaeological problems are discussed.
(AHIS G4106) The Indian Temple
V. Dehejia
This course explores the emergence and development of the Indian temple, examines the relationship between form and function, and emphasizes the importance of considering temple sculpture and architecture together. It covers some two thousand years of activity, and while focusing on Hindu temples, also includes shrines built to the Jain and Buddhist faiths.
(AHIS G4235) Violence in Greek Art
I. Mylonopoulos
Greek art is usually associated with beauty, symmetry, and formal perfection. However, both the historical context that led to the creation of artistic expressions in various media and the majority of topics Greek artists chose to depict clearly demonstrate the violent origins of Greek art. Aim of this course is to break through the frame of what is considered the canonical image of Classical antiquity and shed light on the darker aspects of Greek art. The course will try to demonstrate how art in Classical Greece was used as an effective means in both dealing and channeling violence. Nevertheless, violence in art also represented a sophisticated way to create and demolish the image of dangerous otherness: the aggressive barbarian (Persian), the uncontrolled nature outside the constraints of the polis (Centaurs), the all too powerful female (Amazons).
(AHIS G4330) Paris in the Middle Ages
S. Murray
The urban fabric of Paris provides the connective tissue linking medieval achievements in architecture, sculpture, and painting with the history of the city from the Romans to the Renaissance.
(AHIS W4555) American Colonial Portraiture
E. Hutchinson
This class surveys the field of American colonial portraitures, introducing the major figures in each region and analyzing their work in terms of its style and technique as well as the cultural expectations surrounding the making and viewing of the paintings. Attention will be paid to diverse material forma of portraiture, from miniatures to silhouettes, from oil paintings to engravings on individual sheets or bound into books. The class will pay particular attention to the ways in which portraiture facilitated and undermined the economic and political operations of the colonies.
(AHIS G4601) Origins of Modern Visual Culture
J. Crary
Major developments in the emergence of modern visual culture in Europe and North America, 1750-1900. Topics include the panorama, diorama, photography, painting, world's fairs, early cinema; issues in technology, urbanization and consumer society.
(AHIS G4640) German Art in a European Context
C. Grewe
The class will examine the development of German painting and sculpture from the rise of Neoclassicism to the formation of Expressionism. It focuses on the tension, on the one hand, between a developing nationalist sensibility and the concomitant search for a national style, and, on the other hand, German art's intense engagement with the international art context. Given the particularities of German history, the question of periphery and center assumed a crucial role in the making of the German art world. Focusing on this problem will not only allow us to examine the love-hate relationship of Germans and their art, and the culture of France and England, but also to shed light on the role of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, East Prussia, and Poland in the creation of German (artistic) identity. Periphery and center will also be key concepts for thinking about another vital issue of the period: religion. In an age characterized by burgeoning confessionalism and the rise of an anti-Semitism now grounded in racist theories, religion served as an arbiter for inclusion and exclusion, and was thus inseparably intertwined with the debates about German national identity.
(AHIS W4870) Minimalism & Post-Minimalism
B. Joseph
This course examines minimalism—one of the most significant aesthetic movements—during the sixties and seventies. More than visual art, the course considers minimal sculpture, music, dance, and “structural” film, their historical precedents, development, critical and political aspects. Artists include: Carl Andre, Tony Conrad, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Anthony McCall, Yvonne Rainer, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson.
(AHIS G6127) Painting & Calligraphy in the Northern Song Dynasty
R. Harrist
An examination of painting during the Northern Song period (960-1127), with special emphasis on issues of patronage, the relationship between words and images, the ritual uses of painting, and the relationship between pictorial style and visual experience.
(AHIS G6150) Genesis of Buddhist Art
V. Dehejia
This course is devoted to the emergence of art related to Buddhism, commencing with Emperor Asoka's (3rd century BC) rock and pillar edicts erected from Kandahar in Afghanistan to Amaravati in South India. The course will focus on the vibrantly carved stupa complexes constructed and decorated between the 1st century BC and the 5th century BC, the many cave monastery complexes with their rich sculpted and painted decoration, and the images of the Buddha.
(AHIS G6650) Multiple Modernities
S. Vogel and faculty
A comparative approach to the vibrant contemporary arts outside the West which may not fit automatically into current concepts of modernity. The aim is to initiate the discourse for the study of modern art and architecture in the countries of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas. Taught by Professors A. Alberro, V. Dehejia, R. Harrist, E. Hutchinson, K. Moxey, E. Pasztory, guest lecturers, and S. Vogel who is organizing the course.
(AHIS G6655) Art & Architecture & Art
M. De Michelis
The struggle between art and architecture seems to be one of the most unresolved issues of modern history of art. There are several different questions that need a new critical approach: Can we consider architecture as an artistic practice? How and why do the different artistic practices mutually influence each other? Can we still consider architecture as the synthesis of different artistic expression? How can we describe the changing attitudes in modern time (XIX and XX century)? Does the present globalization process transform the meanings and sense of that problem? How can we interpret the repeated experiments of collaboration between architects and artists? The lecture will address these issues through a series of introductory lectures, general discussions, and analysis of case-studies.
(AHIS G6685) What is Critical Theory
J. Rajchman
After the Second World War, there was a re-invention of critical theory in which the arts and art-history would play a key role. The idea of critique, going back to Kant and the Enlightenment, became a new question. Focusing on French theories within a larger international framework, this lecture course looks at a series of key topics and problems in this new critical theory, and then asks how it might be re-invented today within the context of the globalization of art and of theory.
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All graduate seminars require an application. Applications are due by August 1, 2009, 5:00PM without exception in 826 Schermerhorn Hall. The seminar application for all Art History and Archaeology graduate seminars consist of a one-page form, available *only* online as a PDF or as a RTF (the office does not have copies of the form.) Do not attach second pages or letters to the form, only this application form will be accepted. An individual application form is required for each seminar to which you apply. Please drop off seminar applications to 826 Schermerhorn by the deadline.
(AHIS G8170) Assyrian Art
Z. Bahrani
This seminar will investigate Assyrian Art and Architectural forms and practices.
(AHIS G8356) Roman Art & Catholic Reform
W. Hood
This seminar examines the impact of the Council of Trent, new religious Orders, and new devotional practices on art and architecture made in Rome during the century between the opening of the Council of Trent in 1545 to the death of Pope Urban VIII Barberini in 1644.
(AHIS G8635) Degree Zero: Language and the Arts in Paris 1945–1968
K. Cabañas
This seminar will examine artistic production in Paris in relation to models of language, understood as both writing and speech. In the immediate aftermath of the war, artists were coping with the memory of language’s propagandistic deployment. Accordingly, some artists staged the impossibility or futility of authentic communication, while others struggled to invent a new “universal” language. By the mid-50s, with the turn to an increasingly consumer-oriented society, language was regarded as largely commodified. This shift similarly prompted a range of responses in the art and theory of this time: from unfettered optimism to explicit critique. The seminar begins with the prospective radio broadcast of Antonin Artaud’s screams in 1947–48 in order to trace the changing notions of language and communication in the arts and concludes with a discussion of the events May ’68 and the attendant claim to a prise de parole (capture of speech).
(AHIS G8696) The Persistance of Futurisms
N. Elcott
One hundred years ago, F.T. Marinetti published the Futurist manifesto in Paris’s Le Figaro. Hailed as the first avant-garde, condemned for its fascist leanings, Futurism remains a bête noire in the history of modern art. With particular emphasis on Futurist writings and practices across media—not only painting and sculpture, but also photography, film, theater, and machines of all kinds—we will take advantage of recent publications and translations as well as a host of scholarly and artistic events that are being held in conjunction with the centennial anniversary (including Performa09, “Beyond Futurism” symposium at CU, etc). Readings will be drawn from Futurist manifestos, contemporary scholarship on Futurism (in English and French or Italian), and recent media theory (Virilio, Kittler, McLuhan, Hayles, et. al.), but students are encouraged to write on related topics from the late-nineteenth century to the present.
(AHIS G8765) Issues in Performance Art
K. Jones
Wedged between the rudiments of theater and the gestures of visual
art, performance art came to prominence at the end of the twentieth
century. Our concentration in this course will be on artists and
practices after 1960. However, we will also consider the roots of
this form in the first part of the twentieth century. Central to our
investigations will be discussions surrounding performance as
catalytic process, as temporal art, and issues of the body as form.
African American performance will be the focus for this semester. We
will also take advantage of Performa09, The Third Biennial of New
Visual Art Performance which takes place November 1-22 and will be
held at various venues around the city.
(AHIS G9107) Problems in Kano Painting
M. McKelway
"Problems in Kano Painting" will begin with the work of Kano Motonobu and will seek to address the question of how this clan of painters managed to secure its position as official painters to Japan's rulers for nearly three centuries--a phenomenon unique in the history of art. We will also explore such topics as the ways in which it expanded its painting repertoire beyond its origins in monochrome ink painting, what is meant by an "academic" painting tradition in the Japanese context, its systems of training, promotion, and the economics of their enterprise, and the institutionalization of the Kano project through the writing of art historical treatises.
(AHIS G6009) Proseminar
R. Krauss
Required course for first-year PhD Students in the Art History Department.
(AHIS G8990) Critical Colloquium
K. Cabañas
Required course for all first-year Modern Art M.A. students. The structure of the colloquium combines reading and analysis of texts by major theorists and critics. Each week discussions focus on key terms and analytical lenses in the history of art and art criticism. The course is designed to allow for guest presentations on particular issues by critics and writers, just as it draws on the expertise and participation of Columbia faculty. The aim is to develop students’ critical thinking and for them to learn directly from leading practitioners writing about modern and contemporary art. In addition to department faculty, writers for Artforum, Grey Room, Parkett, Texte zur Kunst, and October, among other venues, regularly participate in the colloquium.
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