Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
ARTH 100-301 The Art of Forgery: From Cuneiform Tablets To Fake News Nicholas Herman R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM The primary goal of the freshman seminar program is to provide every freshman the opportunity for a direct personal encounter with a faculty member in a small sitting devoted to a significant intellectual endeavor. Specific topics be posted at the beginning of each academic year. Please see the College Freshman seminar website for information on current course offerings https://www.college.upenn.edu/node/403. Course is available to Freshmen.
Course Online: Synchronous Format
Freshman Seminar 		https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 102-401 World Art: 1400 To Now David Young Kim
Julie N Davis 		WF 01:00 PM-02:00 PM This course is an introduction to the visual arts in a global context over the period from the early 1400s to the present. The content of the class varies according to the expertise of the instructors but will introduce students to selected and significant moments in artistic production in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres. Offering a broad historical overview of key techniques, movements, and artists, this course will cover aspects of art production around the world during an era of increasing economic exchange, colonization, and industrialization. Looking at painting, sculpture, architecture, and prints, as well as new media such as photography and film, the course will respond to the following questions: How does artistic practice change in this period? Who owns art? What is the role of the artist in society, and where is art made, exhibited, and consumed? Other topics to be covered are art's crucial role in the period's political debates and social transformations, including modernization and technological advances, as well as art criticism's import in forming public opinion. An introduction to art history, this course offers a wholly new perspective on the arts and cultures in this era of artistic innovation. This course fulfills Sector III: Arts and Letters and counts towards the History of Art major and minor requirements. VLST232401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) Crse Online: Sync & Async Components
Registration also required for Recitation (see below)
ARTH 107-601 Television and New Media Jeremy Felix Gallion M 05:00 PM-08:00 PM How and when do media become digital? What does digitization afford and what is lost as television and cinema become digitized? As lots of things around us turn digital, have we started telling stories, sharing experiences, and replaying memories differently? What has happened to television and life after New Media ? How have television audiences been transformed by algorithmic cultures of Netflix and Hulu? How have (social) media transformed socialities as ephemeral snaps and swiped intimacies become part of the "new" digital/phone cultures? This is an introductory survey course and we discuss a wide variety of media technologies and phenomena that include: cloud computing, Internet of Things, trolls, distribution platforms, optical fiber cables, surveillance tactics, social media, and race in cyberspace. We also examine emerging mobile phone cultures in the Global South and the environmental impact of digitization. Course activities include Tumblr blog posts and Instagram curations. The final project could take the form of either a critical essay (of 2000 words) or a media project. CIMS103601, COML099601, ENGL078601 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 108-401 World Film Hist To 1945 Meta Mazaj TR 03:00 PM-04:30 PM This course surveys the history of world film from cinema's precursors to 1945. We will develop methods for analyzing film while examining the growth of film as an art, an industry, a technology, and a political instrument. Topics include the emergence of film technology and early film audiences, the rise of narrative film and birth of Hollywood, national film industries and movements, African-American independent film, the emergence of the genre film (the western, film noir, and romantic comedies), ethnographic and documentary film, animated films, censorship, the MPPDA and Hays Code, and the introduction of sound. We will conclude with the transformation of several film industries into propaganda tools during World War II (including the Nazi, Soviet, and US film industries). In addition to contemporary theories that investigate the development of cinema and visual culture during the first half of the 20th century, we will read key texts that contributed to the emergence of film theory. There are no prerequisites. Students are required to attend screenings or watch films on their own. COML123401, CIMS101401, ENGL091401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 108-402 World Film Hist To 1945 William D Schmenner MW 03:30 PM-05:00 PM This course surveys the history of world film from cinema's precursors to 1945. We will develop methods for analyzing film while examining the growth of film as an art, an industry, a technology, and a political instrument. Topics include the emergence of film technology and early film audiences, the rise of narrative film and birth of Hollywood, national film industries and movements, African-American independent film, the emergence of the genre film (the western, film noir, and romantic comedies), ethnographic and documentary film, animated films, censorship, the MPPDA and Hays Code, and the introduction of sound. We will conclude with the transformation of several film industries into propaganda tools during World War II (including the Nazi, Soviet, and US film industries). In addition to contemporary theories that investigate the development of cinema and visual culture during the first half of the 20th century, we will read key texts that contributed to the emergence of film theory. There are no prerequisites. Students are required to attend screenings or watch films on their own. CIMS101402, COML123402, ENGL091402 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) Course is available to Freshmen and Upperclassmen.
Crse Online: Sync & Async Components
ARTH 109-401 World Film Hist '45-Pres Julia Alekseyeva W 02:00 PM-03:30 PM Focusing on movies made after 1945, this course allows students to learn and to sharpen methods, terminologies, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film. Beginning with the cinematic revolution signaled by the Italian Neo-Realism (of Rossellini and De Sica), we will follow the evolution of postwar cinema through the French New Wave (of Godard, Resnais, and Varda), American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (including the New Hollywood cinema of Coppola and Scorsese), and the various other new wave movements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as the New German Cinema). We will then selectively examine some of the most important films of the last two decades, including those of U.S. independent film movement and movies from Iran, China, and elsewhere in an expanding global cinema culture. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and generic organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the Paramount Decision of 1948 to the digital convergences that are defining screen culture today. There are no perquisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, a final exam, and active participation. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes). COML124401, CIMS102401, ENGL092401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) Course is available to Freshmen and Upperclassmen.
Crse Online: Sync & Async Components 		https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 109-402 World Film Hist '45-Pres Filippo Trentin TR 10:30 AM-12:00 PM Focusing on movies made after 1945, this course allows students to learn and to sharpen methods, terminologies, and tools needed for the critical analysis of film. Beginning with the cinematic revolution signaled by the Italian Neo-Realism (of Rossellini and De Sica), we will follow the evolution of postwar cinema through the French New Wave (of Godard, Resnais, and Varda), American movies of the 1950s and 1960s (including the New Hollywood cinema of Coppola and Scorsese), and the various other new wave movements of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as the New German Cinema). We will then selectively examine some of the most important films of the last two decades, including those of U.S. independent film movement and movies from Iran, China, and elsewhere in an expanding global cinema culture. There will be precise attention paid to formal and stylistic techniques in editing, mise-en-scene, and sound, as well as to the narrative, non-narrative, and generic organizations of film. At the same time, those formal features will be closely linked to historical and cultural distinctions and changes, ranging from the Paramount Decision of 1948 to the digital convergences that are defining screen culture today. There are no perquisites. Requirements will include readings in film history and film analysis, an analytical essay, a research paper, a final exam, and active participation. Fulfills the Arts and Letters Sector (All Classes). CIMS102402, ENGL092402, COML124402 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) Crse Online: Sync & Async Components
ARTH 127-401 Material Past Dig World Jason Herrmann TR 01:30 PM-03:00 PM The material remains of the human past -objects and spaces- provide tangible evidence of past people's lives. Today's information technologies improve our ability to document, study, and present these materials. But what does it mean to deal with material evidence in a virtual context? In this class, students will learn basic digital methods for studying the past while working with objects, including those in the collections of the Penn Museum. This class will teach relational database design and 3D object modeling. As we learn about acquiring and managing data, we will gain valuable experience in the evaluation and use of digital tools. The digital humanities are a platform both for learning the basic digital literacy students need to succeed in today's world and for discussing the human consequences of these new technologies and data. We will discuss information technology's impact on the study and presentation of the past, including topics such as public participation in archaeological projects, educational technologies in museum galleries, and the issues raised by digitizing and disseminating historic texts and objects. Finally, we will touch on technology's role in the preservation of the past in today's turbulent world. No prior technical experience is required, but we hope students will share an enthusiasm for the past. CLST127401, NELC187401, ANTH127401 Course Online: Synchronous Format
ARTH 209-601 African Art Stephanie Michelle Gibson MW 06:30 PM-08:00 PM This selective survey examines a variety of the circumstances of sub-Saharan African art, ranging from imperial to nomadic cultures and from ancient times to contemporary participation in the international market. Iconography, themes and style will be considered, as will questions of modernity, religious impact, tradition and colonialism. AFRC209601 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 217-401 Chinese Painting Nancy R S Steinhardt MWF 10:00 AM-11:00 AM Study of Chinese painting and practice from the earliest pictorial representation through the late twentieth century. Painting style forms the basis of analysis, and themes such as landscape and narrative are considered with regard to larger social and cultural issues. The class pays particular attention to the construction of the concepts of the "artist" and "art criticism" and their impact on the field into the present. Visits to look at paintings at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, PMA and/or local collections. EALC227401, EALC627401 Course Online: Synchronous Format
Registration also required for Recitation (see below) 		https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 225-401 Greek Art and Artifact Ann L Kuttner This course surveys Greek art and artifacts from Sicily to the Black Sea from the 10th century BCE to the 2nd century BCE, including the age of Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Public sculpture and painting on and around grand buildings and gardens, domestic luxury arts of jewelry, cups and vases, mosaic floors, and cult artefacts are discussed. Also considered are the ways in which heroic epic, religious and political themes are used to engaged viewers' emotions and served both domestic and the public aims. We discuss the relationships of images and things to space and structure, along with ideas of invention and progress, and the role of monuments, makers and patrons in Greek society. CLST220401, ARTH625401, AAMW625401 Course Online: Asynchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 232-401 Byzantine Art & Arch Ivan Drpic TR 10:30 AM-12:00 PM This course offers a wide-ranging introduction to the art, architecture, and material culture of Byzantium--a Christian, predominantly Greek-speaking civilization that flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean for over a thousand years. Positioned between the Muslim East and the Latin West, Antiquity and the Early Modern era, Byzantium nurtured a vibrant and highly sophisticated artistic culture. With emphasis placed upon paradigmatic objects and monuments, we will examine an array of artistic media, from mosaic and panel painting to metalwork, ivory carving, book illumination, and embroidery. We will consider the making, consumption, and reception of Byzantine art in a variety of contexts: political, devotional, ritual, and domestic. Topics include the idea of empire and its visual articulation; court culture; the veneration of images and relics; patronage, piety, and self-representation; authorship and artistic agency; materiality and the sensory experience of art; the reception of the pagan Greco-Roman past; and the changing nature of Byzantium's interactions with neighboring cultures. ARTH632401, AAMW632401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 267-601 Latin American Art Hilary Renee Whitham TR 06:00 PM-07:30 PM The numerous traditions of Latin American art have been formed from the historical confluence of Indigenous, European, African, and Asian cultural traditions, each one impacting the others. This course serves as an introduction to these hybrid New World art forms and movements by both providing a large chronological sweep (1492-present) and focusing on several specific countries, including Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Peru, and Argentina. LALS267601 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 291-401 East Asian Cinema Chenshu Zhou MWF 11:00 AM-12:00 PM This survey course introduces students to major trends, genres, directors, and issues in the cinemas of East Asian countries/regions, including Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Charting key developments over more than a hundred years from the early twentieth century to the present, this course examines films as aesthetic objects, asking questions about film form, narrative, and style. It also pays attention to the evolution of cinema as an institution (e.g. modes of production, circulation, and exhibition) in different cultural and political contexts. Weekly course materials will include both films (primary sources) and analytical readings (secondary sources). By the end of the course, students are expected to gain broad knowledge of East Asian cinema, develop skills of film analysis, and apply these skills to perform historically informed and culturally sensitive analysis of cinema. Prior knowledge of East Asian languages is NOT required. ARTH691401, CIMS291401, EALC106401, EALC506401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 294-401 Art Now Jonathan D Katz MW 10:00 AM-11:00 AM One of the most striking features of today's art world is the conspicuous place occupied in it by the photographic image. Large-scale color photographs and time-based installations in projections are everywhere. Looking back, we can see that much of the art making of the past 60 years has also been defined by this medium, regardless of the form it takes. Photographic images have inspired countless paintings, appeared in combines and installations, morphed into sculptures, drawings and performances, and served both as the object and the vehicle of institutional critique. They are also an increasingly important exhibition site: where most of us go to see earthworks, happenings and body-art. This course is a three-part exploration of our photographic present. ARTH694401, ENGL063401, GSWS294401, VLST236401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components
Registration also required for Recitation (see below)
ARTH 295-401 Cinema and Media: Global Film Theory Meta Mazaj
Karen E Redrobe 		R 10:30 AM-12:00 PM This course will provide an introduction to some of the most important film theory debates and allow us to explore how writers and filmmakers from different countries and historical periods have attempted to make sense of the changing phenomenon known as "cinema," to think cinematically. Topics under consideration may include: spectatorship, authorship, the apparatus, sound, editing, realism, race, gender and sexuality, stardom, the culture industry, the nation and decolonization, what counts as film theory and what counts as cinema, and the challenges of considering film theory in a global context, including the challenge of working across languages. There will be an asynchronous weekly film screening for this course. No knowledge of film theory is presumed. ENGL305401, CIMS305401, ARTH695401, GSWS295401, COML299401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 300-301 Undergrad Methods Sem Ivan Drpic R 03:00 PM-06:00 PM Topic varies. This course, required for history of art majors, acquaints students with a wide variety of historical and contemporary approachees to studying art, architecture, material culture, and visual culture. Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 340-301 Topics in Medieval Art: Art in the Time of Dante Sarah M. Guerin W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topics vary from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Art in the Time of Dante. 2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). While his Divine Comedy is the pinnacle of medieval literary arts, Dante was himself interested in the masterpieces of visual arts of his own time -- in Italy and abroad. Prominent artists like Cimabue and Giotto are mentioned in his texts, as well as such notorious figures linked to artistic production as the usurer Reginaldo degli Scrovegni or the mercenary Castruccio Castracani. Dante witnessed some of the most dramatic events of the Middle Ages, from the transfer of the papacy to Avignon to the salacious affair of the Tour de Nesle in France -- together we will examine the visual culture of this tumultuous time. Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 350-301 Topics in South Ren Art: Chiaroscuro David Young Kim W 05:00 PM-08:00 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Chiaroscuro. In this seminar we will explore the artistic technique known as "chiaroscuro," the contrast between light and shadow so as to produce effects of volume and relief. While we will grapple with chiaroscuro as deployed in architecture, drawings, and prints, our focus will be all the tenebrist paintings of Caravaggio. If the lit bodies in Caravaggio's paintings project out boldly in relief, does anything remain and speak in the surrounding darkness? Course Online: Synchronous Format
ARTH 356-401 Freud's Objects Liliane Weissberg MWF 11:00 AM-12:00 PM How do we look at objects? And which stories can objects tell? These are questions that have been asked quite regularly by Art Historians or Museum Curators, but they take a central place within the context of psychoanalytic studies as well. The seminar "Freud's Objects" will offer an introduction to Sigmund Freud's life and times, as well as to psychoanalytic studies. We will focus on objects owned by Freud that he imbued with special significance, and on of Freud's writings that focus on specific objects. Finally, we will deal with a re-interpretation of the "object" in psychoanalytic theory, via a discussion of texts by British psychoanalysts such as Melanie Klein and Donald Winnicott. CLST254401, GRMN254401, ENGL095401, COML252401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 373-301 Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism Michael Leja M 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Jackson Pollock and Abstract Expressionism. Jackson Pollock is widely considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. This seminar will examine reasons why his paintings are held in such high regard. We will look closely at his work, study important primary documents - letters, statements, interviews, etc. - and discuss influential interpretations that emerged during his lifetime and since. We will also examine the larger artistic phenomenon that emerged in New York during the 1940s - Abstract Expressionism - in which Pollock's art was central. The paintings of other artists associated with this classification, including Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and others, will be studied. Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 388-401 Spiegel-Wilks Seminar: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Post-Black Gwendolyn D Shaw TR 12:00 PM-01:30 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Postmodern, Postcolonial, Post-Black. The end of the last century saw a shift in the way contemporary artistic practice was conceived. This class will consider the work and writings of key artists and thinkers of the last 50 years who have tackled issues of race, class, consumption, marginality, nationality, and modernism. AFRC388401, LALS389401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 389-401 Topics Film Studies: Cinema and Politics Rita Barnard W 03:30 PM-06:30 PM This topic course explores aspects of Cinema Studies intensively. Specific course topics vary from year to year. See the Cinema Studies website at <http://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/> for a description of the current offerings. CIMS392401, COML391401, ENGL392401 Course Online: Synchronous Format
Benjamin Franklin Seminars
ARTH 389-402 Arts of Abolition and Liberation Julia Alekseyeva
Chi-ming Yang 		R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This topic course explores aspects of Cinema Studies intensively. Specific course topics vary from year to year. See the Cinema Studies website at <http://cinemastudies.sas.upenn.edu/> for a description of the current offerings. COML391402, ENGL392402, CIMS392402 Course Online: Synchronous Format
Benjamin Franklin Seminars 		https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 440-401 African Art, 600-1400 Sarah M. Guerin TR 01:30 PM-03:00 PM This course examines the flourishing civilizations of the African continent between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the "Age of Discovery." Although material remains of the complex cultures that created exceptional works of art are rare, current archaeology is bringing much new information to the fore, allowing for the first time a preliminary survey of the burgeoning artistic production of the African continent while Europe was building its cathedrals. Bronze casting, gold work, terracotta and wood sculpture, and monumental architecture - the course takes a multi-media approach to understanding the rich foundations of African cultures and their deep interconnection with the rest of the world before the disruptive interventions of colonialism. AFRC440401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 529-401 Hellenistic Cities Mantha Zarmakoupi W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Hellenistic Cities. A new form of city and of urban life developed and spread during the Hellenistic period. The new political social and economic conditions resulting from the victories of Alexander the Great and the emergence of the Macedonian kingdoms deeply affected civic life and form. Hellenistic cities were not independent poleis but subject to absolute monarchs and were open to all residents regardless of their geographical origins. Civic life assumed a cosmopolitan character and the urban setting became an arena for the propaganda of the Hellenistic rulers. This course will examine the architectural and urban developments of the Hellenistic period together with central political institutions and religious and social practices that were associated with them. In studying a diversity of visual, material and textual evidence - such as urban form, architectural and sculptural monuments, as well as literary sources and epigraphic evidence - the course will address both the structure of the urban fabric and the socio-political situation of the Hellenistic polis. The purpose of the course will be to shed light on the principles of urban planning as well as the realities of civic life in the Hellenistic period. AAMW529401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 559-401 Myth Through Time and in Time Shira N. Brisman
Ann L Kuttner 		T 03:00 PM-06:00 PM The textual and physical remains of Greek and Roman culture and belief as 'myth' entranced the post-antique European world and its neighbors. Makers, patrons and viewers manipulated those survivals to challenge and speak to a contemporary world. This course focuses on how and why artists and their patrons engaged the mythic and examines the various areas of political and religious life that sought animation through an evocation of narratives from the past. Readings and case studies will engage with very late antique, medieval, and early modern art, turning to the modern and contemporary as well. Moving to the modern lets us examine, among other things, how artists address the exclusionary histories of the past, to enable critiques of myths of supremacy by one gender, race, or culture over others. AAMW559401, COML559401, GRMN559401, CLST559401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 573-401 Cultures of Reading in Imperial Russia D. Brian Kim W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topic for Spring 2021: Cultures of Reading in Imperial Russia What did it mean to be a reader in imperial Russia? What did people read, and to what ends? How was literacy cultivated, and what were the social implications? In this course, students will read several canonical works of nineteenth-century Russian literature that thematize and foreground the act of reading: as a pursuit undertaken for the betterment of self, society, nation, and world; as a light pastime for the bored or underemployed; but also as an enterprise fraught with potential for moral or civic ruin. In addition to closely investigating allusions to the specific texts and authors read by literary characters, we will also examine the reading habits of our own authors as both consumers and producers of literary culture. We will consider these dynamics against a backdrop of constant fluctuations in educational policies, the book market, and the circulation of texts within and beyond Russia as we work together to develop an understanding of the imperial Russian reading public(s). ENGL573401, GRMN573401, REES683401, COML570401 Undergraduates Need Permission
Course Online: Synchronous Format
All Readings and Lectures in English 		https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 577-401 Ecological Thinking in Art and Architecture Daniel A Barber
Mantha Zarmakoupi 		R 01:30 PM-04:30 PM This seminar will address the diverse narratives of ecological thinking in the history of art, architecture, and urban planning during the 20th century. The course will contextualize and interrogate contemporary disciplinary discourses as well as historical assumptions related to ecological thinking in art and architectural history and environmentally-conscious practices. By mapping received trajectories of Eco Art, Ecocritical Art History, and Ecological Histories of Architecture and Urban Planning, the course will work from a subtly hidden foundation of eco-historical knowledge that connects these fields of inquiry, while also critiquing these trajectories and seeking to provide more focused and robust alternatives for knowledge production in the present. It aims to attract students from the School of Arts and Sciences and the Weitzman School of Design in a discussion on the interconnected histories of art and architecture during the 20th century. ARCH713401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 579-301 Arts and Crafts Decorative Arts, 1875-1940 David L Barquist W 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Arts & Crafts Decorative Arts, 1875-1900. This seminar will offer an overview of American decorative arts of the Arts & Crafts Movement, broadly conceived. It would explore the role of British antecedents, the Centennial Exposition as a catalyst for design reform, the growth of different regional centers (New England, the Midwest, the South, California), the movement's relationship to modernism in the first decades of the 20th century and its relationship to the Studio Craft movement of the post-World War II era. Issues to be addressed include the challenge of defining Arts & Crafts "style(s)," disconnects between theory and practice, relationships between handicraft and factory production, roles of women and amateurs, and tensions between artistic elites and advocates for social and political reform. Major firms and figures to be highlighted include Rookwood Pottery, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Gustav Stickley, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Special attention will be paid to Arts & Crafts artists in the Philadelphia area: William L. Price and Rose Valley, Henry Chapman Mercer and the Moravian Tile Works, the New Hope School, and Wharton Esherick. Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 580-401 Sexuality of Postmodernism Jonathan D Katz W 05:00 PM-08:00 PM This course is fundamentally concerned with why so many of the defining artists of the postwar generation were queer, indeed such that one could plausibly claim that postmodernism in American art was a queer innovation. Centrally, most of these artists raise the problem of authoriality and its discontents. Deploying a combination of social-historical and theoretical texts, we will approach the problem of the disclaiming of authoriality in post war American art, focusing on the works of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly, Robert Indiana, Louise Nevelson, Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, Leon Polk Smith and not least Andy Warhol. Central to this course will be the continuing salience of the "death of the author" discourse, pioneered in literature by Barthes and Foucault, and in art by every one of the artists we will be examining. What, in short, is the relationship between the rise of an anti-biographical, anti-authorial theoretical framework, and the lived histories of so many queer authors? In asking this question, we are of course self-consciously violating the very premise of one key strand of postmodernist critique--and in so doing attempting to historicize a theoretical frame that is strikingly resistant to historical analysis. (Undergraduates interested in the course should contact Professor Katz.) GSWS578401 Course Online: Synchronous Format
ARTH 632-401 Byzantine Art & Arch Ivan Drpic TR 10:30 AM-12:00 PM This course offers a wide-ranging introduction to the art, architecture, and material culture of Byzantium--a Christian, predominantly Greek-speaking civilization that flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean for over a thousand years. Positioned between the Muslim East and the Latin West, Antiquity and the Early Modern era, Byzantium nurtured a vibrant and highly sophisticated artistic culture. With emphasis placed upon paradigmatic objects and monuments, we will examine an array of artistic media, from mosaic and panel painting to metalwork, ivory carving, book illumination, and embroidery. We will consider the making, consumption, and reception of Byzantine art in a variety of contexts: political, devotional, ritual, and domestic. Topics include the idea of empire and its visual articulation; court culture; the veneration of images and relics; patronage, piety, and self-representation; authorship and artistic agency; materiality and the sensory experience of art; the reception of the pagan Greco-Roman past; and the changing nature of Byzantium's interactions with neighboring cultures. ARTH232401, AAMW632401 Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 691-401 East Asian Cinema Chenshu Zhou MWF 11:00 AM-12:00 PM This survey course introduces students to major trends, genres, directors, and issues in the cinemas of East Asian countries/regions, including Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Charting key developments over more than a hundred years from the early twentieth century to the present, this course examines films as aesthetic objects, asking questions about film form, narrative, and style. It also pays attention to the evolution of cinema as an institution (e.g. modes of production, circulation, and exhibition) in different cultural and political contexts. Weekly course materials will include both films (primary sources) and analytical readings (secondary sources). By the end of the course, students are expected to gain broad knowledge of East Asian cinema, develop skills of film analysis, and apply these skills to perform historically informed and culturally sensitive analysis of cinema. Prior knowledge of East Asian languages is NOT required. ARTH291401, CIMS291401, EALC106401, EALC506401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 695-401 Cinema and Media: Global Film Theory Meta Mazaj
Karen E Redrobe 		R 10:30 AM-12:00 PM This course will provide an introduction to some of the most important film theory debates and allow us to explore how writers and filmmakers from different countries and historical periods have attempted to make sense of the changing phenomenon known as "cinema," to think cinematically. Topics under consideration may include: spectatorship, authorship, the apparatus, sound, editing, realism, race, gender and sexuality, stardom, the culture industry, the nation and decolonization, what counts as film theory and what counts as cinema, and the challenges of considering film theory in a global context, including the challenge of working across languages. There will be an asynchronous weekly film screening for this course. No knowledge of film theory is presumed. ARTH295401, GSWS295401, COML299401, ENGL305401, CIMS305401 Crse Online: Sync & Async Components https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 794-301 Tpcs in Contemporary Art: Portraiture Now Gwendolyn D Shaw M 02:00 PM-05:00 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. For the Spring 2021 semester, the topic will be: Portraiture Now. This graduate seminar examines approaches to portraiture by contemporary artists in the United States and beyond, with a focus on artists of color. We will consider painting, sculpture, photography, prints, drawings, time based media, and conceptual portraiture. Course Online: Synchronous Format https://pennintouchdaemon.apps.upenn.edu/pennInTouchProdDaemon/jsp/fast.do