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Confirm course times, discussion section times, and call numbers on the Directory of Classes.
All Columbia seminars (with "AHIS" prefix) require an application. Columbia seminar applications are due on Friday, November 20, 5:00PM in 826 Schermerhorn Hall. The application form can be found here. Download the Undergraduate Seminar Application for Barnard as a RTF.
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.
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(AHIS BC1001) Introduction to the History of Art II
A. Higonnet
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 V3205) Introduction to Japanese Painting
M. McKelway
A survey of the multifaceted forms of Japanese painting from antiquity through the early modern period. Major themes to be considered include: painting as an expression of faith; the interplay indigenous and imported pictorial paradigms; narrative and decorative traditions; the emergence of individual artistic agency; the rise of woodblock prints and their impact on European painting in the nineteenth century.
(AHIS V3250) Roman Art & Architecture
F. de Angelis
The architecture, sculpture, and painting of ancient Rome from the 2nd century B.C. to the end of the Empire in the West.
(AHUM V3340) Art in China, Japan & Korea
D. Delbanco
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
N. Podday & S. Kaligotla
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 W3464) Later Italian Art
W. Hood
This course offers an overview of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Italy from about 1475 to about 1600. It concentrates on artists in four geographical areas and periods: (1) Florence in the late-15th and early-16th centuries (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo); (2) Rome from 1502 to about 1534 (Bramante, Michelangelo, Raphael); (3) Florence from 1520 to 1565 (Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini); and (4) Venice from about 1500 to 1588 (Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, Jacopo Sansovino).
(AHIS W3607) Latin American Artists: Independence to Present
K. Jones
The course looks at works produced in the more than 20 countries that make up Latin America. Our investigations will take us from the Southern Cone nations of South America, up through Central American and the Caribbean, to Mexico in the north. We will cover styles from the colonial influences present in post-independence art of the early 19th century, to installation art from the beginning of the 21st century. Along the way we will consider such topics as the relationship of colonial style and academic training to forging an independent artistic identity; the emergence and establishment of a modern canon; experimentations in surrealism, neo-concretism, conceptual art, and performance. We will end the course with a consideration of Latino artists working in the U.S.
(AHIS BC3642) North American Art & Culture
E. Hutchinson
Examines North American painting, sculpture, photography, graphic art and decorative arts from the colonial period until World War I. Artists discussed include West, Copley, Cole, Spencer, Powers, Aragon, Duncanson, Church, Homer, Eakins, MacNeill, Whistler, Cassatt, Moran, Tanner, and Muybridge.
(AHIS W3645) Twentieth Century Architecture & City Planning
M. De Michelis
This undergraduate lecture course is an introduction to the crucial and peculiar topics in the history of modern (western) architecture of the twentieth century. The course does not systematically cover all the major events, ideas, protagonists, and buildings of the period. It is organized around thematic and sometimes monographic lectures, which are intended to represent the very essential character of modern architecture from its beginnings around 1900 until some more recent developments at the end of the century.
(AHIS W3650) Twentieth Century Art
B. Joseph
The course will examine a variety of figures, movements, and practices within the entire range of 20th-century art—from Expressionism to Abstract Expressionism, Constructivism to Pop Art, Surrealism to Minimalism, and beyond–situating them within the social, political, economic, and historical contexts in which they arose. The history of these artistic developments will be traced through the development and mutual interaction of two predominant strains of artistic culture: the modernist and the avant-garde, examining in particular their confrontation with and development of the particular vicissitudes of the century’s ongoing modernization. Discussion section complement class lectures. Course is a prerequisite for certain upper-level art history courses.
(AHIS BC3654) Institutional Critique
R. Deutsche
Examines precedents for institutional critique in the strategies of early twentieth-century historical avant-garde and the post-war neo-avant-garde. Explores ideas about the institution and violence, investigates the critique and elaboration of institutional critique from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and considers the legacies of institutional critiques in the art of the present.
(AHIS BC3673) Intro to the History of Photography
A. Alberro
Focuses on the intersection of photography with traditional artistic practices in the 19th century, on the mass cultural functions of photography in propaganda and advertising from the 1920s onwards, and on the emergence of photography as the central medium in the production of postwar avant-garde art practices.
(AHIS BC3681) Late 20th Century Art
A. Alberro
Examines the history of contemporary artistic practices from the mid-1970s to the present. Focusing on the interrelationships between the emerging concepts of postmodernism and the idea of contemporary art, the course addresses a wide range of historical and methodological questions. These include the evolving idea of artistic autonomy, the changing role of cultural institutions, the shifting relationship of high art and mass culture, the impact of new technologies on cultural production, and the emergence of new audiences for art.
(AHIS G4085) Andean Art & Architecture
E. Pasztory
Open to undergraduates. Survey of the art of the Andes from earliest times until the Spanish conquest. Emphasis on the nature of Andean tradition and the relationship between art and society.
Columbia University undergraduate seminars require an application, which are due on Friday, Novmber 20, 5:00 pm in 826 Schermerhorn Hall. The application form can be found here. Download the Undergraduate Seminar Application for Barnard as a RTF.
(AHIS W3895) Major's Colloquium
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 BC3031) Imagery and Form in the Arts
R. Deutsche
Operation of imagery and form in dance, music, theater, visual arts and writing; students are expected to do original work in one of these arts. Concepts in contemporary art will be explored. Enrollment limited to 15 students. Note: No application is necessary for this course.
(AHIS W3828) Leaves of Gold: The Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts
J. Kingsley
Books written and illuminated on parchment are among the most evocative and complex records of life in the Middle Ages. This course will consider manuscripts made in the Latin West from 500 to 1500, the span of time in which the handwritten codex dominated the production of writing. We will examine the books of the Middle Ages thematically with special consideration given to the purposes for which books were made and illustrated. Consequently historical text, patronage, and reception will be stressed throughout. Several sections held in the rare books and manuscripts library, along with visits to local museums will serve to familiarize students with actual manuscripts from the Middle Ages.
(AHIS W3865) Paris: Capital of the 19th Century
A. Higonnet
PLEASE NOTE: APPLICATION DUE TO 826 SCHERMERHORN. A travel seminar on Paris in its nineteenth-century heyday. Painting, prints, architecture, urban planning, fashion, romance, revolutions and death will all be studied. Assignments will include novels about Paris. During spring break, the class will travel to Paris to experience the city.
(AHIS W3885) Intellectuals, Gods, Kings, & Fishermen
I. Mylonopoulos
During the Hellenistic period (330-30 BCE), themes that were considered uninteresting, even inappropriate for the viewer of Classical and Late Classical sculpture became extremely attractive: old people, hard working peasants, old drunken prostitutes, fishermen in the big harbours, or persons ethnically different from the Greek ideals became the subject of the Hellenistic sculpture in the round that also produced images of serene divinities and dynamic members of the elite in an entirely Classical tradition. Besides Athens, new cultural and artistic centres arose: Alexandria in Egypt, Antiocheia and Pergamon in Asia Minor, or Rhodes. Despite its importance as the birthplace of all arts, Athens did not dominate anymore the artistic language, so that an unprecedented variety of styles characterises the sculptural production of the Hellenistic period. The seminar will study the sculpture of the Hellenistic period as an extremely imaginative and dynamic artistic expression without the Classical bias. The styles of the various Hellenistic artistic centres will be individually analysed based on representative works and then compared to each other and to the sculptural traditions of the Classical period, so that Hellenistic sculpture can be understood both as a continuation of the Classical and especially Late Classical sculpture and as an artistic and intellectual revolt against the ideals of the past.
(AHIS W3904) Aztec Art & Sacrifice
E. Pasztory
This seminar explores the issues of art and sacrifice in the Aztec empire from the points of view of the sixteenth century and modern times.
(AHIS W3921) Patronage and the Monuments of India
V. Dehejia
Exploration of the multiple aspects of patronage in Indian culture -- religious, political, economic, and cultural. Case studies focused on specific monuments will be the subject of individual lectures.
(AHIS BC3941) Contemporary African Photo
I. Brielmaier
Explores the development of contemporary photographic and video practices as they relate to Africa. Organized thematically, it focuses on the individual case studies, artists, and exhibitions that comprise the dynamic and international realm of contemporary photography and video by artists living on and off the African continent.
(AHIS BC3948) The Harlem Renaissance
E. Hutchinson
Attendance at the first class is mandatory. Introduction to the paintings, photographs, sculptures, films and graphic arts of the Harlem Renaissance and the publications, exhibitions, and institutions involved in the production and consumption of images of African-Americans. Focuses on impact of Black northward and transatlantic migration and the roles of region, class, gender, and sexuality.
(AHIS W3954) The Architecture of the Long 19th Century
Z. Celik Alexander
Nineteenth-century European architecture was not only a series of historicist styles, as polemicists of the Modern Movement would have us believe, but also the architecture of revolutions and counter-revolutions, utopias and dystopias, and order and anarchy. This course follows the arc of the long nineteenth century from the French Revolution to the First World War to examine the ethical question at the heart of architectural modernism. How did buildings, cities, and landscapes (as well as theories produced about them) propose to change or uphold the social order in nineteenth-century Europe? How did architecture participate in the making of the modern world in which we live today?
(AHIS W3956) Medieval Art at the Cloisters
S. Murray
Meeting at the Cloisters, this seminar will provide the opportunity to work directly with the works of art themselves. Having introduced the works of art and located them in their present context, we will use the works as a means of passage to the principal periods and great themes of medieval art.
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(AHIS G4085) Andean Art & Architecture
E. Pasztory
Open to undergraduates. Survey of the art of the Andes from earliest times until the Spanish conquest. Emphasis on the nature of Andean tradition and the relationship between art and society.
(AHIS G6117) Early Chinese Calligraphy
R. Harrist
The history of calligraphy from earliest times through the Song dynasty, with special emphasis on the interaction of the state and the innovations of individual calligraphers.
(AHIS G124) Modern and Contemporary in China
J. Rajchman
In what ways does the existence of a ‘contemporary art’ or contemporary situation in art require us to rethink the very idea of ‘modern’ (or ‘postmodern’) art, its methods and its geographies? In this lecture we take Mainland China as a focus and laboratory for this question, at once critical and curatorial. We look back to the peculiarities of the ‘modern’ period (since the Boxer Rebellion), the intellectual debates about modernity, the Cultural Revolution and its current aftermath. We examine a current sinological surrounding the nature and fate of ‘traditional’ Chinese painting and look at the problem of urbanism in contemporary work. In the process, we examine a series of methodological questions involved in the study of a ‘contemporary Chinese art’ with the participation of historians, curators, and critics working in this emerging field. Related lectures and events in New York are suggested. The Seminar is open to qualified students in different disciplines and departments.
(AHIS G6133) Eccentricity and Sinophilia: Edo Period Painting
M. McKelway
An examination of Japanese painting of the Edo period (1603-1868) that investigates major texts and modern studies of such artists as Ike Taiga and Itō Jakuchū, and considers how the social background, personal networks, religious faith, and literary expertise of painters found expression in their art. Using Tsuji Nobuo's Kisō no keifu (The Lineage of Eccentricity) and more recent publications in western languages as a guide for weekly discussions, the course will concentrate on painters active in mid-Edo period (late 17th-18th century) Kyoto and Edo.
(AHIS G6687) Dada & Surrealism
R. Krauss & N. Elcott
Long neglected, Dada and Surrealism have emerged as twin pillars in recent revisionist histories of modern art. This graduate lecture course puts the two movements in dialogue through a unique pedagogic structure: consecutive lectures by Professors Krauss and Elcott will converge on related topics—e.g. psychotechnics and psychoanalysis, Surrealist photography and Dada montage. Each lecture will be followed by an exchange between the professors and will open onto a discussion with the students. Readings include seminal historical and critical texts as well as recent scholarship. Additional topics include: origin myths and manifestos, obsolescence and mediums, women in Dada and Surrealism, and Marcel Duchamp.
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All graduate seminars require an application. Applications are due by Monday, December 1, 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 G8274) Imperial Spaces
F. de Angelis
This interdisciplinary seminar will investigate the fora of imperial Rome, focusing on the interaction between architectural space, figural decoration, and human activities that took place there. Images, archaeological remains, historical and literary texts, will be studied jointly in order to understand the functioning of these key places of Rome's public life, as well as their relationship with the exercise and display of power. Permission of the instructor required.
(AHIS G8450) Michaelangelo and his Rivals: Problems in 16th Century Sculpture
W. Hood
This seminar investigates the instances and character of Michelangelo's encounters with other artists from his earliest years until his old age. In particular it examines the notion, largely invented by Michelangelo himself, that he was the greatest, as well as most influential, sculptor of his day. In particular, we investigate Michelangelo's mature dialogues with other sculptors: Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino, Benvenuto Cellini, Baccio Bandinelli, Bartolomeo Ammanati and Niccolo Tribolo.
(AHIS G8537) Cultural Production and the Creation of Medieval France
S. Murray
This seminar provides a case study of the complex relationship between architectural production and the emergence of French national identity in the twelfth century. It is hoped that some of the content developed by particpants may be used in an interactive database called "Mapping Gothic France."
(AHIS G8545) Rubens
D. Freedberg
An examination of the life and works of Peter Paul Rubens in the light of the most recent scholarship.
(AHIS G8574) Labrouste & French Architecture
B. Bergdoll
Description to Come.
(AHIS G8694) Spectral Modernity/Cinematic Spectres
J. Crary
This course will evaluate a range of recent arguments about the spectral relation of cinema to its own past and to crucial features of 20th century modernity. It will consider some of the aesthetic, technological, and political elements which constituted the century of cinema in the light of the so-called "death of film," the spread of digital media, and of corporate-led globalization. Films by Godard, Kluge, Syberberg and Debord will be core objects for discussion of the unstable status of cinema and its relation to the catastrophes of recent history. Related topics may include work by Pedro Costa, Claire Denis, Alexander Sokurov, Bela Tarr, Tsai Ming-Liang, Manoel de Oliveira, Jia Zhang-ke, Lucrecia Martel, Amos Gitai, Chantal Akerman, Harun Farocki and others. Limited to 15 students. Required screening meets Wednesdays 4-6. The content of this course changes each time it is offered.
(AHIS G8698) Problems in Contemporary Art
B. Joseph
Problems in Contemporary Art focuses on a particular movement, or moment, within contemporary art practice in the post-War period. This year will focus on pop art—Warhol, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, and others—revisiting and questioning its canon from a theoretical and historical perspective predicated on its reception in the work of figures such as Mike Kelley, Dan Graham, and Hélio Oiticica.
(AHIS G8702) Contemporary Art & Contemporaneity
A. Alberro
This course studies what contemporary art might mean today. Is it a new kind of artistic production? A new type of spectatorship? Or should one look to new patterns of patronage, or new forms of distribution and exhibition, when trying to come to grips with contemporary art? Particular attention will be paid to the role of the past within contemporary art. Is contemporary art the name of an art historical period that has succeeded modernism? Or is it a kind of modernism that has outlived its time?
(AHIS G8737) How Images Think
Z. Bahrani & K. Moxey
If the social history of art dedicated its work to the way in which works of art were produced and received within their own historical context, there is a new interest in how the image escapes its original circumstances and structures its reception over the course of time. This approach uses “art” to question some of the received assumptions that underlie our conception of “history.” We will discuss texts drawn from a number of different fields in the humanities (e.g. philosophy, anthropology, philosophy of history, science studies, visual studies, and art history), that address the “work” of the image. How do images shape their own reception? Can sensitivity to the “presence” of the image be reconciled with approaches that stress its ideological and political function? What is lost and what is gained when images are treated as if they had “lives” of their own?
(AHIS G8807) The Body in the Art of India
V. Dehejia
This seminar explores the centrality of the human form, male and female, human and divine, in the artistic tradition of India. It focuses on the idealized and stylized body which was never based on studies from life, and establishes the vital importance of adornment, a concept associated with auspiciousness. It raises questions about the use of the phrase “sacred space,” pointing out that such spaces invariably carried imagery that had little or nothing to do with the sacred.
(AHIS G8940) On Spaces
M. De Michelis
The notion of “space” is very peculiar for architecture in modern time: in a certain sense it could be described as a modern architectural neologism. Space addresses in a very direct way the issue of human perception –and experience- of the world. It was the German architect and theorist Gottfried Semper who proposed that “spatial enclosure” was the fundamental feature of architecture and therefore was able to provide a solution to the growing anxiety which was worrying architecture since the “crisis” of classical orders around the eighteenth century. This seminar will discuss the different phases, the changing theories, protagonists and representations of space. Introductory lectures and student presentations on specific study-cases will support a discussion in depth.
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(AHIS G8991) Curatorial Colloquium
K. Cabañas
The Curatorial Colloquium is taken in the second semester of study and is required for the completion of the MA in Modern Art: Critical and Curatorial Studies. The course introduces students to the history, theory and practice of object collection and display as well as to exhibitions such as Documenta and the various international biennials. The course is designed to allow for guest presentations on particular issues by curators and museum professionals, 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 in the exhibition and display of modern and contemporary art. In addition to department faculty, curators from MoMA, the Whitney, the International Center for Photography, and other institutions regularly participate in the colloquium.
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Bergdoll, Benelli, Di Palma, Klein, Reynolds, Rosand, Strother
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