History of Art (Bryn Mawr)

Department Website:
https://www.brynmawr.edu/hart

The curriculum in History of Art immerses students in the study of visual and material culture. Students learn to interpret through methodologies dedicated to the historical, the material, the critical, and the theoretical. Majors and minors are encouraged to supplement courses taken in the department with history of art courses offered at Haverford, Swarthmore, and the University of Pennsylvania. Majors are also encouraged to study abroad for a semester of their junior year.

Major Requirements

The major requires ten units, approved by the major advisor. These courses should include one or two 100-level "critical approaches" seminars, which also fulfill the departmental writing intensive requirement; three or four 200-level lecture courses; three 300-level seminars; and senior conference I and II in the fall and spring semesters of the senior year.

In the course of their departmental studies, students are strongly encouraged to take classes across geographical, temporal, and cultural subfields and to explore diverse media. Students must complete coursework in at least three of the following fields of study:

  • Ancient and Medieval
  • Renaissance and Baroque
  • Modern, Contemporary, and Film
  • Global/Non-Western.

With the approval of the major advisor, a limited number of courses in fine arts may be counted toward the fulfillment of the distribution requirements. Likewise, a limited number of courses with significant curricular investment in visual and material culture may be counted toward the major requirements, including courses in ancient art offered by the Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology department, in the study of art institutions through the Museum Studies Program, or in architecture by the Growth and Structure of Cities department. Courses in art history taken abroad or at another institution in the United States may also be counted if approved by the major advisor. Generally, no more than two courses based outside of the department of History of Art may be counted toward the major requirements; the remainder of a student's courses in the major should be completed with members of the core faculty in History of Art.

A senior thesis, based on independent research and using scholarly methods of historical and/or critical interpretation must be submitted at the end of the spring semester. Generally 25-40 pages in length, the senior thesis represents the culmination of the departmental experience.

Requirements for Honors

Seniors whose work is outstanding (with a 3.7 GPA in the major at the beginning of the second semester senior year) will be invited to undertake an honors thesis. At the end of the spring semester, two or three faculty members discuss the completed thesis with the honors candidate in a one-half hour oral examination.

Minor Requirements

A minor in history of art requires six units: one or two 100-level courses and four or five courses at the 200 or 300 level. The student's minor program is decided in consultation with the department undergraduate advisor.

Faculty at Bryn Mawr

David Cast
Professor of History of Art

Jeffrey Cohen
Term Professor in Growth and Structure of Cities

Matthew Feliz
Visiting Assistant Professor of History of Art

Sylvia Houghteling
Associate Professor of History of Art

Homay King
Professor and Chair of History of Art on the Marie Neuberger Fund of the Study of the Arts and on The Catherine Fales Fellowship

C.C. McKee
Assistant Professor of History of Art and Director of the Center for Visual Culture

Lisa Saltzman
Professor of History of Art on the Emily Rauh Pulitzer '55 Professorship

Monique Scott
Associate Professor of History of Art and Director of Museum Studies

Jie Shi
Associate Professor of History of Art

Nava Streiter
Visiting Assistant Professor of History of Art

Alicia Walker
Professor of History of Art and Director of the Graduate Group in Classics, Archaeology and History of Art

Courses

HART B103  SURVEY OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

The major traditions in Western architecture are illustrated through detailed analysis of selected examples from classical antiquity to the present. The evolution of architectural design and building technology, and the larger intellectual, aesthetic, and social context in which this evolution occurred, are considered. This course was formerly numbered HART B253; students who previously completed HART B253 may not repeat this course.

HART B110  INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL ART AND ARCHITECTURE  (1.0 Credit)

Nava Streiter

Division: Humanities

This course takes a broad geographic and chronological scope, allowing for full exposure to the rich variety of objects and monuments that fall under the rubric of “medieval” art and architecture. We focus on the Latin and Byzantine Christian traditions, but also consider works of art and architecture from the Islamic and Jewish spheres. Topics to be discussed include: the role of religion in artistic development and expression; secular traditions of medieval art and culture; facture and materiality in the art of the middle ages; the use of objects and monuments to convey political power and social prestige; gender dynamics in medieval visual culture; and the contribution of medieval art and architecture to later artistic traditions. This course was formerly numbered HART B212; students who previously completed HART B212 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B120  HISTORY OF CHINESE ART  (1.0 Credit)

Jie Shi

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is a survey of the arts of China from Neolithic to the contemporary period, focusing on bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese appropriation of Buddhist art, and the evolution of landscape and figure painting traditions.This course was formerly numbered HART B274; students who previously completed HART B274 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B130  RENAISSANCE ART  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

A survey of painting in Florence and Rome in the 15th and 16th centuries (Giotto, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael), with particular attention to contemporary intellectual, social, and religious developments. This course was formerly numbered HART B230; students who previously completed HART B230 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B140  THE GLOBAL BAROQUE  (1.0 Credit)

Global Baroque examines the Baroque style both within and beyond Europe, moving from Italy, France, Spain and Flanders to seventeenth-century India, Iran, Japan and China, the New World, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Kongo. We will study the role of Baroque art in early modern politics, religious missions and global trade; the emergence of princely collections of wonders and cartography; the flourishing of new and wondrous art materials; and the changing role of the artist and artisan in this period. We will consider the Baroque as an invitation for emotional engagement, as a style of power that was complicit in the violence of European colonialism, and as a tool of cultural reclamation used by artists across the world. As a class, we will work to construct an art history of The Global Baroque that also attends to the complex specificities of time and place. This course was formerly numbered HART B240; students who previously completed HART B240 may not repeat this course.

HART B150  NINETEENTH-CENTURY ART  (1.0 Credit)

C.C. McKee

This course takes a transnational approach to the history of art from the Age of Revolution (beginning in the late-eighteenth century) through the industrial globalization of the late-nineteenth century. Lectures, readings and class discussions will engage key artistic and historical developments that shaped art and culture during this period. This course was formerly numbered HART B233; students who previously completed HART B233 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B151  MODERN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course traces the history of modernism from ca. 1890 to ca. 1945. Lectures, readings, and class discussions will engage key artistic and historical developments that shaped art and culture during the modern period. This course was formerly numbered HART B260; students who previously completed HART B260 may not repeat this course.

HART B160  THE GLOBAL PRESENT  (1.0 Credit)

Lisa Saltzman

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course navigates the global geography of art, from 1989 to the present. This course was formerly numbered HART B266; students who previously completed HART B266 may not repeat this course.

HART B161  SURVEY OF CONTEMPORARY ART & THEORY  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This class focuses on European and American art and theory from approximately 1960 to the present. We examine key aesthetic developments including Pop Art, Minimalism, institutional critique, performance, installation, and video. This course was formerly numbered HART B272; students who previously completed HART B272 may not repeat this course

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B170  HISTORY OF NARRATIVE CINEMA, 1945 TO THE PRESENT  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King

Division: Humanities

This course surveys the history of narrative film from 1945 to the present. We will analyze a chronological series of styles and national cinemas, including Classical Hollywood, Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, and other post-war movements and genres. Viewings of canonical films will be supplemented by more recent examples of global cinema. While historical in approach, this course emphasizes the theory and criticism of the sound film, and we will consider various methodological approaches to the aesthetic, socio-political, and psychological dimensions of cinema. Readings will provide historical context, and will introduce students to key concepts in film studies such as realism, formalism, spectatorship, the auteur theory, and genre studies. Fulfills the history requirement or the introductory course requirement for the Film Studies minor. This course was formerly numbered HART B299; students who previously completed HART B299 may not repeat this course.

HART B201  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: MEDIEVAL/MODERN  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course is writing intensive. This course examines intersections between the medieval and modern worlds through art and architecture. Students study medieval works of art and/or architecture as well as their afterlives in the modern era, as realized through revivals of style and form, museum exhibition excavation, alteration and adaptation for reuse, etc. There are no prerequisites for this course. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B205  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: ART, DEATH, AND THE AFTERLIFE  (1.0 Credit)

Jie Shi

This course is writing intensive. This course aims to explore how art was used as a symbolic form to overcome death and to assure immortality in a variety of archaeological, philosophical, religious, sociopolitical, and historical contexts. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B112; students who previously completed HART B112 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B210  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: THE CLASSICAL TRADITION  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is writing intensive. An investigation of the historical and philosophical ideas of the classical, with particular attention to the Italian Renaissance and the continuance of its formulations throughout the Westernized world. This course was formerly numbered HART B104; students who previously completed HART B104 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

HART B215  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: TOPICS IN SOUTH ASIAN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling, Staff

Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World

This course is writing intensive. This course examines the representations of gods, plants, humans and animals in the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Islamic artistic traditions of India. It traces both the development of naturalistic representations, as well as departures and embellishments on naturalism in the painting, sculpture, architecture, metalwork and textiles of South Asia. The course will consider the spiritual, social, political and aesthetic motivations that led artists to choose naturalistic or supernatural forms of representation.This course was formerly numbered HART B102; students who previously completed HART B102 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

HART B220  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: LANDSCAPES, ART, & RACIAL ECOLOGIES  (1.0 Credit)

C.C. McKee

This course is writing intensive. This course uses art, visual, and material culture to trace the plantation’s centrality to colonial and post-colonial environments in the Atlantic World from the eighteenth century to the present, as a site of environmental destruction as well as parallel ecologies engendered by African-descended peoples’ aesthetic and botanical contestation. Objects to be considered include landscape painting, plantation cartography, scientific imagery, environmental art, and ecologically motivated science fiction. This course was formerly numbered HART B111; students who previously completed HART B111 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B235  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: IDENTIFICATION IN THE CINEMA  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This course is writing intensive. An introduction to the analysis of film and other lensed, time-based media through particular attention to the role of the spectator. Why do moving images compel our fascination? How exactly do spectators relate to the people, objects, and places that appear on the screen? Wherein lies the power of images to move, attract, repel, persuade, or transform their viewers? Students will be introduced to film theory through the rich and complex topic of identification. We will explore how points of view are framed by the camera in still photography, film, television, video games, and other media. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. Fulfills Film Studies Introductory or Theory course requirement. This course was formerly numbered HART B110; students who previously completed HART B110 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B275  INTRODUCTION TO MUSEUM STUDIES  (1.0 Credit)

Monique Scott

Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World

Using the museums of Philadelphia as field sites, this course provides an introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of museum studies and the important synergies between theory and practice. Students will learn: the history of museums as institutions of recreation, education and leisure; how the museum itself became a symbol of power, prestige and sometimes alienation; debates around the ethics and politics of collecting objects of art, culture and nature; and the qualities that make an exhibition effective (or not). By visiting exhibitions and meeting with a range of museum professionals in art, anthropology and science museums, this course offers a critical perspective on the inner workings of the museum as well as insights into the “new museology.” Not open to first-year students. Enrollment preference given to minors in Museum Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B281; students who previously completed HART B281 may not repeat this course.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B276  TOPICS IN MUSEUM STUDIES  (1.0 Credit)

Monique Scott

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B248.

HART B310  TOPICS IN MEDIEVAL ART  (1.0 Credit)

Nava Streiter

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B320  TOPICS IN CHINESE ART  (1.0 Credit)

Jie Shi

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2025)

HART B330  TOPICS IN RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE ART  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B323.

HART B340  TOPICS IN MATERIAL CULTURE  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B345.

(Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2025)

HART B346  THE HISTORY OF LONDON SINCE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast, Jeffrey Cohen

Division: Social Science

Selected topics of social, literary, and architectural concern in the history of London, emphasizing London since the 18th century. This course was formerly numbered HART B355; students who previously completed HART B355 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B350  TOPICS IN MODERN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Lisa Saltzman

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B370  TOPICS IN HISTORY & THEORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY  (1.0 Credit)

Lisa Saltzman

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B308.

HART B375  TOPICS IN CONTEMPORARY ART  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B380.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B376  TOPICS IN INTERPRETATION AND THEORY  (1.0 Credit)

C.C. McKee

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B380  TOPICS IN FILM STUDIES  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B334.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B398  SENIOR CONFERENCE I  (1.0 Credit)

C.C. McKee, Sylvia Houghteling

Division: Humanities

This course is open only to History of Art senior majors; permission of the instructors is required for registration. A critical review of the discipline of art history in preparation for the senior thesis. Capstone in the major; culminates in the senior thesis proposal.

(Offered: Fall 2024)

HART B399  SENIOR CONFERENCE II  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker, Jie Shi, Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities

This course is open only to History of Art senior majors; permission of the instructors is required for registration. A seminar for the discussion of senior thesis research and such theoretical and historical concerns as may be appropriate. Interim oral reports. Capstone in the major; culminates in the senior thesis.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B403  SUPERVISED WORK  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker, C.C. McKee, David Cast, Homay King, Jie Shi, Lisa Saltzman, Monique Scott, Sylvia Houghteling

Division: Humanities

Advanced students may do independent research under the supervision of a faculty member whose special competence coincides with the area of the proposed research. Consent of the supervising faculty member and of the major adviser is required.

(Offered: Fall 2024, Spring 2025)

HART B420  MUSEUM STUDIES FIELDWORK  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling

This course provides students a forum in which to ground, frame and discuss their hands-on work in museums, galleries, archives or collections. Whether students have arranged an internship at a local institution or want to pursue one in the Bryn Mawr College Collections, this course will provide a framework for these endeavors, coupling praxis with theory supported by readings from the discipline of Museum Studies. The course will culminate in a final presentation, an opportunity to reflect critically on the internship experience. Prior to taking the course, students will develop a Praxis Learning Plan through the Career and Civic Engagement office. All students will share a set syllabus, common learning objectives and readings, but will also be able to tailor those objectives to the specific museum setting or Special Collections project in which they are involved.

(Offered: Spring 2025)

HART B425  PRAXIS III  (1.0 Credit)

John Muse

Students may register for this course with approval of a faculty supervisor in conjunction with internship projects in the college’s collections and other art institutions in the region.