Media Center for Art History
The Media Center explores material culture, vision, media, and pedagogy in the broadest sense to connect faculty research and student learning through the creative application of technology.
The Center's goal is to examine and extend the ways of interpreting images, objects, buildings, and sites and to reinforce Columbia's historic strengths in core education for undergraduate students, graduate student training, and faculty research. Specialized facilities and personnel serve the closely related fields of Archaeology, Art History, and Historic Preservation.
Art Humanities and the Core Curriculum continue to inform and inspire the mission of the Center. Special productions focusing on individual works of art bring fresh insight from Departmental faculty to the broadest university audience of 1000 undergraduate students annually. These programs are also building a legacy of scholarship and teaching for future generations.
A motivated group of faculty principal investigators work with the Media Center to develop, conduct, and administer their projects in the study, interpretation, and conservation of works of art, monuments, or heritage sites. The Center maintains support for field study with faculty and students, whether at the Nara region in Japan, the Bourbonnais in France, or The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Such expeditions are distinctive of the Media Center's work.