Each semester nearly 500 undergraduate and graduate students take a course in our department either as concentrators or to supplement their educations in the humanities. Courses in HIAA intersect with study in visual art, global cultures, science, and technology studies, and the built environment. These courses expand --and challenge-- current understandings of the cultural past. We are dedicated to the study of diverse cultures on their own terms, to the analysis of materials in their own visual languages, and to the humanistic value of our discipline. Fall courses focus on a wide range of geographies and time periods.
Below is a sampling of courses that have recently been added or revised. For the complete list of offerings, go to the Courses page of the HIAA website.
- Decolonizing Space and Visual Cultures: This graduate seminar explores scholarly debates about decolonizing space and visual cultures in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.
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Constructing the Eternal City: Popes and Pilgrims in Early Modern Rome: The course examines painting, sculpture, architecture and printing in the context of the unique urban character of Early Modern Rome: site of ancient myth, religious pilgrimage, and a cosmopolitan court with power and influence across both visible and invisible worlds
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Art and Technology from Futurism to Hacktivism: We will pay equal attention to technology as a medium and the ways artists responded to broader technological change.
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Authority, Identity, and Visual Culture in Colonial Latin America: This course will consider the ways in which visual culture in colonial Latin America functioned as leveraging tools, means to assert authority and/or identity, ways to maintain the status quo, and forms of resistance.
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Indigenous Art, Issues and Concepts: We will address the concept of indigeneity through legal and sociopolitical frameworks, and continue with museological display of indigenous art across time, seeing how museums are working to better contextualize their anthropological collections.