Title Instructor Location Time All taxonomy terms Description Section Description Cross Listings Fulfills Registration Notes Syllabus Syllabus URL Course Syllabus URL
ARTH 0127-401 The Material Past in a Digital World Jason Herrmann TR 1:45 PM-3:14 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. ANTH1303401, CLST1303401, HIST0871401
ARTH 0500-301 First Year Seminar: Origins of Art: Thinking About The Earliest Images Made By Humans Holly Pittman T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM The primary goal of the first-year seminar program is to provide every first-year student the opportunity for a direct personal encounter with a faculty member in a small setting devoted to a significant intellectual endeavor. Specific topics are posted at the beginning of each academic year. Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
ARTH 0500-302 First Year Seminar: Beyond Mapping the Land: An Introduction to Landscapes of the Middle East Maryam Athari M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM The primary goal of the first-year seminar program is to provide every first-year student the opportunity for a direct personal encounter with a faculty member in a small setting devoted to a significant intellectual endeavor. Specific topics are posted at the beginning of each academic year. Arts & Letters Sector (all classes) https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 1020-401 The Artist in History,1400-Now Shira N. Brisman MW 12:00 PM-12:59 PM This course is an introduction to the history of art in a global context from the early 1400s to the present. Lectures will introduce students to significant moments in artistic production in both the Western and Eastern hemispheres through focused studies on crucial ​aspects of exchange between cultures and continents. Covering an era of increasing economic ​transactions, ​imperial conquests, and industrialization, this course will build recursively through themes such as: the emergence of authorial identity and models of artistic collaboration, the ​traffic of artistic materials and techniques and their adaptation in different cultural settings, and the foregrounding of art to both document and initiate political change. Developing vocabularies to discuss painting, sculpture, architecture, and prints, ​as well as photography and film, students will learn to ​analyze art's decisive role during times of social transformation, including modernization, ​colonization, and technological advances​. ​We will also examine the role of broad-reaching ​media and the advent of art criticism in forming public opinion. Assignments will encourage students to think widely across geographies and study intimately local examples in the Philadelphia museums. This course fulfills Sector III: Arts and Letters and counts towards the History of Art major and minor requirements. VLST2320401 Arts & Letters Sector (all classes)
ARTH 1500-401 Eye, Mind, and Image Hammam Aldouri
Ian F Verstegen 		TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM Visual Studies 101 provides an introduction to the collaboration of eye, mind, and image that produces our experience of a visual world. How and what do we see? How do we perceive color, space, and motion? What is an image? Does seeing vary across cultures and time? What can art tell us about vision? Is there a 21st-century form of seeing? This course combines different approaches to the study of vision, drawing from psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, history of art, and fine art. Professors representing two or three disciplines present lectures that demonstrate the methods of their disciplines and draw connections across fields. This course combines different approaches to the study of vision, drawing from psychology, cognitive science, philosophy, history of art, and fine art. Professors representing two or three disciplines present lectures that demonstrate the methods of their disciplines and draw connections across fields. VLST1010401 Nat Sci & Math Sector (new curriculum only)
ARTH 1900-001 What is Contemporary Art? Hannah Feldman
Marina Boban George 		TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM What is contemporary art? When is contemporary art? For whom is contemporary art? Where is contemporary art? And… why does contemporary art matter? This survey introduces us to some central artists, themes, works, and debates currently comprising the history of contemporary art, with a particular focus on the social, racial, and political engagements that have informed artistic developments, as well as how they are historicized in relation to other art and geopolitical events, globally. We consider the ways in which artists have approached, contested, reflected, and reconfigured the problems and possibilities of institutions in order to find critical traction and build historical context. We also look at how globalization, technology, racialization, and capitalism have all shaped artistic production, art criticism, and the art market, while also reflecting upon the temporality of our present and what it is that is “contemporary” to our “now.”
ARTH 2094-401 Dress and Fashion in Africa Ali B. Ali-Dinar TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Throughout Africa, social and cultural identities of ethnicity, gender, generation, rank and status were conveyed in a range of personal ornamentation that reflects the variation of African cultures. The meaning of one particular item of clothing can transform completely when moved across time and space. As one of many forms of expressive culture, dress shape and give forms to social bodies. In the study of dress and fashion, we could note two distinct broad approaches, the historical and the anthropological. While the former focuses on fashion as a western system that shifted across time and space, and linked with capitalism and western modernity; the latter approach defines dress as an assemblage of modification the body. The Africanist proponents of this anthropological approach insisted that fashion is not a dress system specific to the west and not tied with the rise of capitalism. This course will focus on studying the history of African dress by discussing the forces that have impacted and influenced it overtime, such as socio-economic, colonialism, religion, aesthetics, politics, globalization, and popular culture. The course will also discuss the significance of the different contexts that impacted the choices of what constitute an appropriate attire for distinct situations. African dress in this context is not a fixed relic from the past, but a live cultural item that is influenced by the surrounding forces. AFRC2324401, ANTH2024401
ARTH 2180-401 Art and Architecture in Ancient Egypt Valentina Anselmi MW 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This course will be an introduction to the art, architecture and minor arts that were produced during the three thousand years of ancient Egyptian history. This material will be presented in its cultural and historical contexts through illustrated lectures and will include visits to the collection of the University Museum. ANCH1305401, MELC0210401
ARTH 2260-401 Hellenistic and Roman Art and Artifact Ann L Kuttner TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This lecture course surveys the political, religious and domestic arts, patronage and display in Rome's Mediterranean, from the 2nd c. BCE to Constantine's 4th-c. Christianized empire. Our subjects are images and decorated objects in their cultural, political and socio-economic contexts (painting, mosaic, sculpture, luxury and mass-produced arts in many media). We start with the Hellenistic cosmopolitan culture of the Greek kingdoms and their neighbors, and late Etruscan and Republican Italy; next we map Imperial Roman art as developed around the capital city Rome, as well as in the provinces of the vast empire. AAMW6260401, ARTH6260401, CLST3402401, CLST5402401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2280-401 Greek Architecture and Urbanism Mantha Zarmakoupi MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM As the locus of classical architecture and urbanism, the Greek world occupies an important place in the history of architecture and urbanism. This lecture course explores the various periods and different moments of architectural creation during the first two millennia, from the palace complexes of Minoan Crete to the cities of the Hellenistic world (1600-100 BCE), and tackles major concepts, theories and practices of architectural and urban design. In studying a variety of sources - both ancient and modern - lectures examine concepts of organizing space, issues of structure, materials, decoration and proportion. The purpose of the course is to shed light on Greek architectural and urban projects within their social, political, religious, and physical contexts. AAMW6280401, ARTH6280401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2320-401 Byzantine Art and Architecture Ivan Drpic TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This lecture 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. AAMW6320401, ARTH6320401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2780-601 American Art Carolyn J Trench MW 5:15 PM-6:44 PM This lecture course surveys the most important and interesting art produced in the United States (or by American artists living abroad) up through the 1950s. This period encompasses the history of both early and modern art in the U.S., from its first appearances to its rise to prominence and institutionalization. While tracking this history, the course examines art's relation to historical processes of modernization (industrialization, the development of transportation and communications, the spread of corporate organization in business, urbanization, technological development, the rise of mass media and mass markets, etc.) and to the economic polarization, social fragmentation, political conflict, and the cultural changes these developments entailed. In these circumstances, art is drawn simultaneously toward truth and fraud, realism and artifice, science and spirituality, commodification and ephemerality, nationalism and cosmopolitanism, individualism and collectivity, the past and the future, professionalization and popularity, celebrating modern life and criticizing it.
ARTH 2810-401 Modern Architecture,1900-Present Ana Ozaki TR 10:15 AM-11:14 AM The architecture of Europe and America from the late nineteenth century until the present is the central subject of this course, but some time is also devoted to Latin American and Asian architecture and to the important issues of modern city planning. Topics discussed include the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Art Deco, the International Style, and Post-modernism. The debate over the role of technology in modern life and art, the search for a universal language of architectural communication, and the insistent demand that architecture serve human society are themes that are traced throughout the course. Among the important figures to be considered are Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown. The course includes weekly discussion sessions and several excursions to view architecture in Philadelphia. ARTH6810401
ARTH 2871-401 Witnessing, Remembering, and Writing the Holocaust Liliane Weissberg MW 1:45 PM-3:14 PM Witnessing, Remembering, and Writing the Holocaust What is a witness? What do the witnesses of the Shoah see, hear, experience? And how will they remember things, whether they are victims, perpetrators or bystanders? How are their memories translated into survivors' accounts: reports, fiction, art, and even music or architecture? And what does this teach us about human survival, and about the transmission of experiences to the next generation? The course will ask these questions by studying literature on memory and trauma, as well as novels, poetry, and non-fiction accounts of the Holocaust. We will also look at art work created by survivors or their children, and listen to video testimonies. Among the authors and artists discussed will be work by Primo Levi, Paul Celan, Jean Amery, Christian Boltanski, Daniel Libeskind. The course is supported by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives. COML1210401, GRMN1210401, JWST1210401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 2951-401 Russian and East European Art and Cinema since 1900 Kevin M.F. Platt TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM Since the turn of the twentieth century, art and politics have been uniquely intertwined in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and its successor states. In the first decades of the century, across these territories, radical artistic movements such as suprematist abstraction, productivism, constructivist architecture, Bauhaus modernism, and, finally, Stalinist socialist realism sought to support revolutionary social transformation by literally reshaping the social world and human perception. Cinema, too, played its part—Vladimir Lenin, the Communist revolutionary founder of the Soviet Union, famously said that “of all the arts the most important for us is the cinema.” Propelled by this vision, the early USSR became a laboratory for cutting-edge film that sought to transform viewers into a new kind of person. Yet as the century wore on and Soviet socialism gave way first to state terror and then to moribund bureaucratism and cultural conservatism, it was non-comformist underground artists who took the lead in experimental and politically radical art in the region. Finally, in the post-Soviet era, art and cinema in these territories embraced democratic freedoms and market institutions, before finally, in some quarters, returning to revolutionary roots in response to rising authoritarianism. In this broad survey course, we will trace the history of art and film of the region through a series of case studies, including: Erik Bulatov, Sergei Eisenstein, Miloš Forman, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Oleg Kulik, Emir Kusturica, El Lilzitsky, Kazimir Malevich, Jiří Menzel, Kira Muratova, Pussy Riot, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Dziga Vertov, Andrzej Wajda, and others. CIMS0274401, REES0240401
ARTH 2952-401 Global Film Theory Karen E Redrobe TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM 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. ARTH6952401, CIMS3300401, CIMS6300401, COML3303401, COML6592401, ENGL2902401, GSWS3300401, GSWS6300401
ARTH 3000-301 Undergraduate Methods Seminar Ivan Drpic T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. 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.
ARTH 3020-301 Methods of Object Study Nancy E Ash
Thomas J Primeau
Christina Taylor 		R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This immersive hands-on seminar introduces students to methods of analyzing the material, physical, and visual aspects of objects in a museum, gallery, or library context. Students will receive training in curatorial practices, close observational skills, and precise descriptive terminology for materials and techniques. They also will learn about essential tools of conservation and technical analysis. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 3070-401 The Rise of Image Culture: History and Theories Hammam Aldouri W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Today images are everywhere; two centuries ago, they were rare. This seminar considers key historical and theoretical contexts for this change and its social consequences. With the help of some of the strongest critics and theorists of image culture, we will consider five interrelated aspects of the rise of image culture. - First, we will explore how new media and mechanical reproduction has changed the idea of the image over in the free market. - Second, we will explore how images operate through the psyche and gaze and how that operation is tied to social and political power. - Third, we will examine how representations make meaning and form identity in coded systems. - Fourth, we will consider the relationship between visual space and concepts of reality. And finally, we will interrogate how the physical and digital material that images are made from affects their meaning. VLST3030401
ARTH 3280-301 The Parthenon: The Many Lives of a Monument Mantha Zarmakoupi M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This seminar focuses on the Parthenon, the centerpiece of Pericles' building programme on the Athenian Acropolis, to address its design and history, its aftermath as a ruin, its anastylosis as a monument as well as its meaning as national and cultural symbol in the modern period. The Parthenon is arguably a monument of perfection - the culmination of the search for the ideal proportions in Doric temple design in the 5th century BCE - and the course will analyze its architecture to shed light on its design and construction processes, including its architectural refinements. We will also address the history of the building as a ruin and the important work of its restoration as a monument after the 19th century, thereby tackling the aesthetics of "purity" intertwined in the planning of interventions on ancient ruins and elucidating the ways in which such interventions are entwined with national and supra-national debates about cultural identity in the discourses of modernity. The seminar will spend a week in Athens in order to study the Parthenon as well as the current work of the Acropolis Restoration Service, whose recent work has shed light on the design and construction of the monument. Finally, the course also aims to map the intellectual agenda of contemporary art practices that engage with the Parthenon and the Athenian Acropolis. https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 3630-301 Early Modern Art Seminar: Envisioning Abolition Shira N. Brisman M 5:15 PM-8:14 PM This seminar takes a thematic approach to the study of European art produced between 1400-1800. Topics, which change annually, include such offerings as "Art and Law;" "Spectacle, Punishment, and Surveillance;" "Prints and Politics" and "The Subject of Nature." In a given year, we will approach a corpus of objects, images, and performances through a study of three kinds of text: primary sources, secondary art-historical scholarship, and critical theory. Discussions will convene around local museum and library collections.
ARTH 3749-401 In/Visible: Asian American Cultural Critique Bakirathi Mani W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This interdisciplinary seminar examines how popular cultural representations frame Asian Americans as either invisible or hypervisible—our explorations will move across race and national origin, language and class, gender and sexuality. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. ASAM2272401, ENGL2272401, GSWS2272401
ARTH 3800-401 Sexuality of Postmodernism Jonathan D Katz M 10:15 AM-1:14 PM This course is fundamentally concerned with why so many of the defining artists and theorists of postmodernism were queer, indeed such that one could plausibly claim that postmodernism itself was a queer innovation. Centrally, most of these queer figures raise the problem of the authorial as a defining issue. Deploying a combination of social-historical and theoretical texts, we will approach the problem of how and why so much post-war American art problematized the idea of the author, 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 relevance 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. Why, at the very moment that questions of authorial difference, sexual and otherwise, emerged as important in American art did so much criticism deny the authorial role, and why did so many queer artists use that denial to camouflage their authorial voices? In other words, why does a closeted queer artist like John Cage make the performance of silence one of his calling cards? 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. GSWS3780401
ARTH 3850-401 Modernism Seminar: When was Modernism? Jean-Michel Rabate TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This course explores literary modernism as a global and cross-cultural phenomenon. See the English Department's website at www.english.upenn.edu for a description of the current offerings. COML2071401, ENGL2071401, GRMN1304401
ARTH 3873-401 The Animation Of Disney Linda R. Simensky M 3:30 PM-6:29 PM No organization has exerted as much influence on popular culture and the art form of animation as The Walt Disney Company. For decades, Disney films were the standard by which all other animated films were measured. This course will examine the biography and philosophy of founder Walt Disney, as well as The Walt Disney Company’s impact on animation art, storytelling and technology, the entertainment industry, and American popular culture. We will consider Disney's most influential early films, look at the 1960s when Disney’s importance in popular culture began to erode, and analyze the films that led to the Disney renaissance of the late 1980s/early 1990s. We will also assess the subsequent purchase of Pixar Animation Studios and the overall impact Pixar has had on Disney. The class will also look at recent trends and innovations, including live-action remakes and Disney+. CIMS3203401, ENGL0593401
ARTH 3911-401 American Independents Meta Mazaj TR 3:30 PM-4:59 PM This topic course explores aspects of Film History 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 This offerings. CIMS2011401, ENGL2911401
ARTH 3970-401 Spiegel-Wilks Seminar: The Art of Care at the Barnes Foundation Aaron Levy M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. While not having any specific pre-requisites, this seminar in contemporary art is designed for junior and senior majors in art history with some knowledge in the field. When appropriate, it may feature special guests from the art world, international travel, and/or curatorial opportunities. ENGL2663401
ARTH 3970-402 Spiegel-Wilks Seminar: Curating Contemporary Art Emily Zimmerman W 5:15 PM-8:14 PM Topic varies from semester to semester. While not having any specific pre-requisites, this seminar in contemporary art is designed for junior and senior majors in art history with some knowledge in the field. When appropriate, it may feature special guests from the art world, international travel, and/or curatorial opportunities. ENGL2663402
ARTH 4400-401 African Art, 600-1400 Sarah M. Guerin
Sheridan Nicole Marsh 		TR 5:15 PM-6:44 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. AFRC4400401, AFRC6402401, ARTH6401401
ARTH 5010-301 Curatorial Seminar: The First Homosexuals Jonathan D Katz T 5:15 PM-8:14 PM Curatorial seminars expose students to the complexity of studying and working with objects in the context of public display. With the guidance of faculty and museum professionals, students learn what it means to curate an exhibition, create catalogues and gallery text, and/or develop programming for exhibitions of art and visual/material culture.
ARTH 5120-401 Advanced Topics in Buddhism Justin Mcdaniel M 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This is an advanced course for upper level undergraduates and graduate students on various issues in the study of Buddhist texts, art, and history. Each semester the theme of the course changes. In recent years themes have included: Magic and Ritual, Art and Material Culture, Texts and Contexts, Manuscript Studies. Fall 2013 Topic: Buddhist repertoires (idiosyncratic and personal assemblages of beliefs, reflections, wonderings, possessions, and practices) for a large part, material and sensual. Buddhists are often sustained by their collection, production, and trading of stuff amulets, images, posters, protective drawings, CDs, calendars, films, comic books, and even Buddhist-themed pillow cases, umbrellas, and coffee mugs. Aspirations are interconnected with objects. Beliefs are articulated through objects. Objects are not empty signifiers onto which meaning is placed. The followers and the objects, the collectors and their stuff, are overlooked in the study of religion, even in many studies in the growing field of material culture and religion. What is striking is that these objects of everyday religiosity are often overlooked by art historians as well. Art historians often remove (through photography or physical movement to museums or shops) images and ritual implements from their ritual context and are seen as objets d'art. While art historians influenced by Alfred Gell, Arjun Appadurai, and Daniel Miller have brought the study of ritual objects into the forefront of art historical studies, in terms of methodologies of studying Buddhist art, art historians have generally relegated themselves to the study of either the old and valuable or the static and the curated. This course aims to 1) bring a discussion of art into the study of living Buddhism. Art historians have primarily concentrated on the study of images, stupas, manuscripts, and murals produced by the elite, and primarily made before the twentieth century; 2) study art as it exists and operates in dynamic ritual activities and highly complex synchronic and diachronic relationships; 3) focus on the historical and material turn in the study of images, amulets, and murals in Buddhist monasteries and shrines. EALC5501401, RELS5710401
ARTH 5130-401 Ukiyo-e: Beyond the Great Wave Julie N Davis T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM In this seminar we will take a closer look at the prints, paintings, and illustrated books produced in the genre known as "ukiyo-e," the "pictures of the floating world." We'll begin by asking how the "Great Wave" became a global icon and we'll bust the myth of prints being used as wrapping paper. As we learn the history of the genre, from 1600 to ca. 1850, we'll also make critical interventions into that narrative, asking how "ukiyo-e" became a genre within a larger artistic sphere; how publishers collaborated with designers to construct artistic personae; how illustrated books contributed to knowledge formations; and how concepts of authenticity and authorship remain critical to its understanding. This course will also consider how internet resources affect our understanding of the work of art. Students need not have any Japanese language skills, but should have taken related courses in art history or East Asian Studies. Advanced undergraduates and graduate students preferred. EALC7141401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 5200-401 Aegean Bronze Age Art Seminar Elizabeth Shank W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM In this class, we will explore the art and cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age in Greece, a period from roughly 3,300-1,100 BCE. From this time, we have the first evidence of complex society in Greece with three geographically and materialistically distinct groups of people located on the Greek Mainland, the Cycladic islands, and the island of Crete. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but may include and not be limited to the examination of the architecture, pottery, wall paintings, stone carvings, jewelry, seals, weapons and other metalwork, and the iconography of these prehistoric arts. We will also delve into issues of the organization of society and the distribution of power, the role of women and men, trade and the unique position of the (rather small) Aegean world as it existed between two huge powerhouses of the ancient Mediterranean: the Ancient Near East and Egypt. AAMW5200401
ARTH 5220-401 Ancient Iranian Art Seminar: From Bronze Age Iran to Avestan Central Asia Holly Pittman F 8:30 AM-11:29 AM The seminar offered under this rubric addresses a variety of topics focusing on the Art and Archaeology of pre-Islamic Iran. They include focus on Bronze Age Iran, Achaemenid period Iran, Interactions on the Iranian plateau, Interactions between Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf and the Iranian plateau. All focus on material excavated from sites in the region. AAMW5220401, MELC5050401
ARTH 5430-301 Manuscript Illumination Nicholas Herman R 1:45 PM-4:44 PM This course will provide an overview of the history, materials, and techniques of manuscript illumination through the lens of Philadelphia's rich and varied holdings. The course will also chart the sometimes surprising means by which such objects arrived in North American collections from the nineteenth century through to the present. Handling sessions will form a key part of the course. We will begin by examining items at the Kislak Center before venturing to other local institutions including the Free Library and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with possible study-day excursions to New York and Baltimore. Student research assignments will involve the close individual study of a single illuminated manuscript.
ARTH 5505-301 Beauty in Renaissance Art Theory David Young Kim R 5:15 PM-8:14 PM Can we still talk about beauty when referring to works of art? How did art critics in the past broach this most fraught and controversial question? To formulate a working response to these problems, we will examine the writings of art theorists in the Italian Renaissance, among them Cennini, Alberti, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Vasari, de Hollanda, and Bellori, among others. We will practice the skills of close reading, methodical textual analysis, and historicized speculation.
ARTH 6260-401 Hellenistic and Roman Art and Artifact Ann L Kuttner TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM This lecture course surveys the political, religious and domestic arts, patronage and display in Rome's Mediterranean, from the 2nd c. BCE to Constantine's 4th-c. Christianized empire. Our subjects are images and decorated objects in their cultural, political and socio-economic contexts (painting, mosaic, sculpture, luxury and mass-produced arts in many media). We start with the Hellenistic cosmopolitan culture of the Greek kingdoms and their neighbors, and late Etruscan and Republican Italy; next we map Imperial Roman art as developed around the capital city Rome, as well as in the provinces of the vast empire. AAMW6260401, ARTH2260401, CLST3402401, CLST5402401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 6280-401 Greek Architecture and Urbanism Mantha Zarmakoupi MW 12:00 PM-1:29 PM As the locus of classical architecture and urbanism, the Greek world occupies an important place in the history of architecture and urbanism. This lecture course explores the various periods and different moments of architectural creation during the first two millennia, from the palace complexes of Minoan Crete to the cities of the Hellenistic world (1600-100 BCE), and tackles major concepts, theories and practices of architectural and urban design. In studying a variety of sources - both ancient and modern - lectures examine concepts of organizing space, issues of structure, materials, decoration and proportion. The purpose of the course is to shed light on Greek architectural and urban projects within their social, political, religious, and physical contexts. AAMW6280401, ARTH2280401 https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do
ARTH 6320-401 Byzantine Art and Architecture Ivan Drpic TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM This lecture 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. AAMW6320401, ARTH2320401
ARTH 6401-401 African Art, 600-1400 Sarah M. Guerin
Sheridan Nicole Marsh 		TR 5:15 PM-6:44 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. AFRC4400401, AFRC6402401, ARTH4400401
ARTH 6810-401 Modern Architecture,1900-Present Ana Ozaki TR 10:15 AM-11:14 AM The architecture of Europe and America from the late nineteenth century until the present is the central subject of this course, but some time is also devoted to Latin American and Asian architecture and to the important issues of modern city planning. Topics discussed include the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Art Deco, the International Style, and Post-modernism. The debate over the role of technology in modern life and art, the search for a universal language of architectural communication, and the insistent demand that architecture serve human society are themes that are traced throughout the course. Among the important figures to be considered are Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown. The course includes weekly discussion sessions and several excursions to view architecture in Philadelphia. ARTH2810401
ARTH 6952-401 Global Film Theory Karen E Redrobe TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM 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. ARTH2952401, CIMS3300401, CIMS6300401, COML3303401, COML6592401, ENGL2902401, GSWS3300401, GSWS6300401
ARTH 7260-401 Roman Art and Artifact: Age of Augustus Ann L Kuttner W 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This seminar series explores many media and kinds of Roman private and public things, images and monuments (and, sometimes, ancient texts about them) in a range of physical and cultural settings, through an interdisciplinary lens. Special topics range between ca. 400 BCE and 800 CE, from the Hellenistic/ Republican age into the Empire and Late Antiquity, using multiple methodological and theoretical approaches to explore the global Mediterranean world, and its interaction with its neighbors in space and time. Modern archaeologies and the museum institution receive critique. The query "what is Roman about Roman art" continually recurs. AAMW7265401, ANCH7409401, CLST7409401
ARTH 7811-301 Architectural History Seminar: Plantation Architecture Ana Ozaki R 12:00 PM-2:59 PM This course addresses architectural history as a global and contested field. Through different geographies and epistemologies, mainly from the South and their global connections, this class will focus on emerging topics in architectural history, including but not limited to histories of colonialism, empire, racial capitalism, labor and environmental exploitation, extraction, architecture's entanglements with the ongoing climate crisis, and histories of counter-conduct, resistance, collective action, and refusal. Using methods of architectural history in research and visual analysis, the class will assess a combination of primary and secondary sources weekly to contend with themes from political and architectural movements, postcolonial and decolonial critiques, and other theoretical frameworks from marginalized geographies and methods.