HART B102  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: NATURALISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL IN SOUTH ASIAN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling

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.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B104  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: THE CLASSICAL TRADITION  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

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

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.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B107  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: SELF AND OTHER IN THE ARTS OF FRANCE  (1.0 Credit)

Steven Levine

Division: Humanities

A study of artists’ self-representations in the context of the philosophy and psychology of their time, with particular attention to issues of political patronage, gender and class, power and desire.

(Typically offered: Every Year)

HART B108  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: WOMEN, FEMINISM, AND HISTORY OF ART  (1.0 Credit)

Division: Humanities

An investigation of the history of art since the Renaissance organized around the practice of women artists, the representation of women in art, and the visual economy of the gaze.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B110  CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: IDENTIFICATION IN THE CINEMA  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King, Staff

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

An introduction to the analysis of film through particular attention to the role of the spectator. Why do moving images compel our fascination? How exactly do film 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 its viewers? In this course, students will be introduced to film theory through the rich and complex topic of identification. We will explore how points of view are framed in cinema, and how those viewing positions differ from those of still photography, advertising, video games, and other forms of media. Students will be encouraged to consider the role the cinematic medium plays in influencing our experience of a film: how it is not simply a film’s content, but the very form of representation that creates interactions between the spectator and the images on the screen. Film screenings include Psycho, Being John Malkovich, and others. Course is geared to freshman and those with no prior film instruction. Fulfills History of Art major 100-level course requirement, Film Studies minor Introductory course or Theory course requirement.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Spring)

HART B112  ART, DEATH, AND THE AFTERLIFE  (1.0 Credit)

Jie Shi

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.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Spring)

HART B212  MEDIEVAL ART & ARCHITECTURE  (1.0 Credit)

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.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B217  INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC ART AND ARCHITECTURE  (1.0 Credit)

This course traces the development of Islamic art and architecture beginning with the emergence of Islam in the early seventh century and ending with the Mongol invasion and the fall of the Abbasid Empire in the mid-thirteenth century. Special attention is paid to issues of particular importance to medieval Islamic art, including aniconism (the rejection of figural imagery in artistic production), the role of script as an expressive art form, and the relationship of early Islamic art to the artistic traditions of other late antique and medieval cultures. Prerequisites: At least one course in History of Art at the 100 or 200 level, or a course in Middle Eastern Studies at the 100 or 200 level is recommended but not required.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B218  BYZANTINE TEXTILES IN LIFE AND DEATH  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker, Staff

This course explores the manifold uses and meanings of textiles in early Byzantine visual and material culture as well as their afterlife as objects of collection and display in the modern era. Students will undertake original research on early Byzantine textiles from the collection of Philadelphia University. Assignments will develop skills in museological writing, including documentation for collection databases and object exhibitions. Prerequisites: Previous coursework in History of Art, Archaeology, Museum Studies, or History is recommended, but not required.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B226  PERSPECTIVES ON AFRICAN ART  (1.0 Credit)

This course is an exploration of a selected range of art that represent the role and place of art in Africa and demonstrate the changes in artwork over time. The course begins with an examination of what defines the art of Africa, and proceeds to seek an understanding of its philosophical underpinnings and aesthetics. It then conducts a cultural as well as an historical exploration of selected art traditions on the continent. The course will emphasize the diversity of African aesthetics as well as highlight the similarities and differences between African people within and across various artistic practices in secular and non-secular settings.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B230  RENAISSANCE ART  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities

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.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B240  THE GLOBAL BAROQUE  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling

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.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B250  NINETEENTH-CENTURY ART IN FRANCE  (1.0 Credit)

Steven Levine

Division: Humanities

Close attention is selectively given to the work of Cézanne, Courbet, David, Degas, Delacroix, Géricault, Ingres, Manet, and Monet. Extensive readings in art criticism are required.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B253  SURVEY OF WESTERN ARCHITECTURE  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast, Staff

Division: Humanities

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.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B260  MODERN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

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

This course traces the history of modern art from the mid-nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century. Lectures, readings and class discussions will engage key artistic and historical developments that shaped art and culture during the modern period.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B272  SINCE 1960: CONTEMPORARY ART AND THEORY  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities

Lectures and readings will examine major movements in contemporary art, including Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Performance, Postmodernism, and Installation Art. We will examine the dialogue between visual works and critical texts by Roland Barthes, Claire Bishop, Frederic Jameson, Adrian Piper, and Kobena Mercer, among others.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B274  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.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B279  EXHIBITING AFRICA: ART, ARTIFACT AND NEW ARTICULATIONS  (1.0 Credit)

At the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian natural history museum played an important role in constructing and disseminating images of Africa to the Western public. The history of museum representations of Africa and Africans reveals that exhibitions—both museum exhibitions and “living” World’s Fair exhibitions— has long been deeply embedded in politics, including the persistent “othering” of African people as savages or primitives. While paying attention to stereotypical exhibition tropes about Africa, we will also consider how art museums are creating new constructions of Africa and how contemporary curators and conceptual artists are creating complex, challenging new ways of understanding African identities.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B281  MUSEUM STUDIES: HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE  (1.0 Credit)

Staff

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.”

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Fall)

HART B299  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 through contemporary cinema. 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.

(Typically offered: Every Fall)

HART B301  TOPICS IN EXHIBITION STRATEGIES  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker, Carrie Robbins, Staff

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B306  FILM THEORY  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King

An introduction to major developments in film theory and criticism. Topics covered include: the specificity of film form; cinematic realism; the cinematic “author”; the politics and ideology of cinema; the relation between cinema and language; spectatorship, identification, and subjectivity; archival and historical problems in film studies; the relation between film studies and other disciplines of aesthetic and social criticism. Each week of the syllabus pairs critical writing(s) on a central principle of film analysis with a cinematic example. Class will be divided between discussion of critical texts and attempts to apply them to a primary cinematic text. Prerequisite: A course in Film Studies (HART B110, HART B299, ENGL B205, or the equivalent from another college by permission of instructor).

(Typically offered: Every Fall)

HART B311  TOPICS IN MEDIEVAL ART  (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B316  MUSEUM STUDIES FIELDWORK SEMINAR  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling, Staff

Division: Humanities

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 poster presentation, an opportunity to reflect critically on the internship experience. Prior to taking the course, students will develop a Praxis Learning Plan through the LILAC 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 2019; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B318  CULTURAL PROPERTY AND MUSEUMS  (1.0 Credit)

Camilla MacKay

Division: Humanities

This course examines cultural heritage and the concept of cultural property in relation to museums and collections. We will consider the development of national and international laws in the 20th and 21st centuries to protect cultural heritage, museum responsibilities, and case studies on topics including the looting of archaeological sites, the fate of art during war, nationalism and politics, restitution of art, and fakes and forgeries.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B323  TOPICS IN RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE ART  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B325  CARE AND CONSERVATION OF CONTEMPORARY ART  (1.0 Credit)

Marianne Weldon

Division: Humanities

This course explores the ethics, principles, analysis and materials used in art conservation. Case studies, guest lectures, and museum visits will then introduce the unique problems involved in preserving, conserving and exhibiting contemporary art. There will be some hands on/lab component activities. Prerequisites: At least one previous HART course at Bryn Mawr College. Understanding of basic chemistry helpful.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B334  TOPICS IN FILM STUDIES  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Typically offered: Every Fall)

HART B340  TOPICS IN BAROQUE ART  (1.0 Credit)

Christiane Hertel

Division: Humanities

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B345  TOPICS IN MATERIAL CULTURE  (1.0 Credit)

Sylvia Houghteling

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B350  TOPICS IN MODERN ART  (1.0 Credit)

Matthew Feliz

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

This is a topics course. Course content varies.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Year)

HART B355  TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF LONDON  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast

Division: Social Science

Selected topics of social, literary, and architectural concern in the history of London, emphasizing London since the 18th century.

(Typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B370  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.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B373  CONTEMPORARY ART IN EXHIBITION: MUSEUMS AND BEYOND  (1.0 Credit)

Carrie Robbins

Division: Humanities

How does the collection and display of artwork create meanings beyond the individual art object? In recent decades, enormous shifts have occurred in exhibition design as artwork projected from the walls of the museum, moved outdoors to the space of the street, and eventually went online. We will study an array of contemporary exhibition practices and sites in their social and historical contexts, including the temporary exhibition, “the white cube,” the “black box,” museum installations, international biennials, and websites. During the seminar, we will examine how issues such as patronage, avant-gardism, globalization, and identity politics have progressively brought museums and other exhibition spaces into question.

(Typically offered: Every Year)

HART B374  TOPICS: EXHIBITION SEMINAR  (1.0 Credit)

Carrie Robbins, Christiane Hertel

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Students will gain practical experience in the production of an exhibition: conceiving a curatorial approach, articulating themes, writing didactics, researching a checklist, designing gallery layout, producing print and web materials, developing programs, and marketing the exhibit. Prerequisite: At least one previous HART course at Bryn Mawr College.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Only Once)

HART B380  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.

(Offered: Fall 2018, Spring 2019; typically offered: Occasionally)

HART B398  SENIOR CONFERENCE I  (1.0 Credit)

Homay King, Sylvia Houghteling

Division: Humanities

A critical review of the discipline of art history in preparation for the senior thesis. Required of all senior majors.

(Offered: Fall 2018; typically offered: Every Fall)

HART B399  SENIOR CONFERENCE II  (1.0 Credit)

David Cast, Jie Shi, Matthew Feliz

Division: Humanities

A seminar for the discussion of senior thesis research and such theoretical and historical concerns as may be appropriate. Interim oral reports. Required of all majors; culminates in the senior thesis.

(Offered: Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Spring)

HART B403  SUPERVISED WORK  (1.0 Credit)

Alicia Walker, David Cast, Homay King, Jie Shi, 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 2018, Spring 2019; typically offered: Every Semester)

HART B420  PRAXIS FIELDWORK SEMINAR  (1.0 Credit)

Jennifer Spohrer

In this Praxis course, students will learn to critically evaluate augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications by developing their own AR/VR museum installation. The classroom component will include readings, guest lectures, and discussion topics in public history, conceptual art, and museum studies, and critical exploration of AR/VR and location-based technologies currently used in these fields. The majority of this course consists of a fieldwork component, in which students will develop an augmented- or virtual-reality installation of their own. Students will learn project management, design thinking, Unity development, and other digital competencies needed to successfully develop their museum installation. Prior experience with programming and/or Unity is advantageous but not required. If you are unsure about whether this course would work for you, please contact us or attend an info session. Pre-registered students should attend an info session on November 27 at 4PM in Canaday 315 to complete their Praxis learning plan.

(Typically offered: Every other Year)

HART B425  PRAXIS III  (1.0 Credit)

Staff

Students are encouraged to develop internship projects in the college’s collections and other art institutions in the region.