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Only show courses available to first-year students.

Course Listing for FINE ARTS - Spring 2026 (ALL: 01/20/2026 - 05/08/2026)

Class No.	Course ID	Title	Credits	Type	Instructor(s)	Days:Times	Location	Permission Required	Dist
2149	AHIS-101-01	Intro Hist of Art West I	1.00	LEC	Triff, Kristin	TR: 10:50AM-12:05PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		A survey of the history of art and architecture from the Paleolithic period to the Middle Ages, examining objects in their cultural, historical, and artistic contexts.
2575	AHIS-103-01	Intro to Asian Art	1.00	LEC	Hatch, Michael	MW: 1:30PM-2:45PM	TBA		GLB1
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		This course surveys 5,000 years of East Asian history and culture through the close analysis of 40 primary artworks. Classes are generally presented in chronological order, and provide a selection of major and minor artistic traditions from China, Korea, and Japan from pre-history to the 21st century. Each class focuses on two objects, and will emphasize the connection between close looking and big ideas, including transcultural exchange, religion, materiality, empire, class, and globalism. As such, this course addresses the basic contribution of art history to the humanities by demonstrating how individual art objects provide evidence for arguments about the cultures of the past.
2532	AHIS-218-01	Art and Its Markets	1.00	LEC	Hatch, Michael	MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 15		Waitlist available: Y		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		The sale of artwork, both contemporary and classical, comprises one of the most fascinating luxury markets in today's economy. It behaves more unpredictably than almost any other market. Many of its goods are non-fungible, and it often requires academic expertise. In this class, students approach art history from a market perspective, addressing topics such as patronage, market diversification, looting, NFTs, and the historical development of the auction house, museum, and gallery systems. Examples are taken from global sources. Students will visit auctions and galleries in New York and will write proposals for the acquisition of actual artworks to nearby museums. As such, this course offers a chance for students to build practical experience with galleries, auction houses, and museums.
2533	AHIS-222-01	The Renaissance Embodied	1.00	LEC	Scanlan, Suzanne	MW: 2:55PM-4:10PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Renaissance depictions of the body range from idealized nudes to decaying, and sometimes ambulatory, corpses. In Europe, artists dissected human cadavers and, for the first time since antiquity, reflected the use of living models in their workshops and studios. In this course, we examine works that embodied early modern ideas about power and dependence, race and class, gender and sexuality, death and disease, the marginalized and the fantastic. Focusing on the artist's studio and early modern practice, we consider a diverse set of bodies as they were represented in paintings, sculpture, drawings, decorative arts, books and prints in relation to contemporary spiritual, political, and social concerns. We also consider ways that artists today incorporate Renaissance models and methods into their studio practice and work.
2965	AHIS-224-01	Understanding Architecture	1.00	LEC	Granston, Willie	MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: Y		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		NOTE: 8 seats reserved for first-year students.
		This course introduces a range of approaches to understand architecture in an historical perspective. Focusing on European and American architecture from 1400 to the present, lectures and discussions will consider how architects have approached the built environment at various times in both urban and rural settings. Lectures and class discussions will discuss ways that buildings, gardens, landscapes, and urban plans have been shaped by cultural values, social beliefs, political and technological developments, rubrics of art, and responses to nature. In addition to situating architecture within historical perspectives, this class provides students with the tools to begin analyzing, understanding, and decoding the landscapes and environments that we inhabit today.
2681	AHIS-232-01	Gothic&Ren Art North Eur	1.00	LEC	Scanlan, Suzanne	MW: 8:30AM-9:45AM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		This course explores the art and architecture of Northern Europe from the 12th-16th centuries, a period marked by dramatic cultural, religious, and social change. Beginning with the rise of Gothic cathedrals and the flourishing of manuscript illumination, stained glass, and sculpture, the course examines how artistic practices shaped and reflected spiritual devotion, civic identity, and political authority. We consider innovations in painting, printmaking, and domestic architecture over time, to flesh out the impact of a shifting art market, changes in patronage and the Protestant Reformation. Students will engage with a wide range of media and materials-from monumental architecture to intimate devotional objects and the emerging technology of print-in order to understand how artists responded to a changing world.
3042	AHIS-244-01	Arch&Urbanism in Span America	1.00	LEC	Triff, Kristin	TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Following the overthrow of the Aztec and Incan Empires, the Spanish Empire instituted programs of political, religious, and social control throughout Central and South America that permanently altered the cultural and artistic landscape of this region. Beginning with the foundation of the city of Santo Domingo in 1502 and ending with the "mission trail" of churches established by Junipero Serra in 18th-century Spanish California, this course will examine the art, architecture, and urbanism that projected the image of Spain onto the "New World." Other issues to be discussed include the interaction between Spanish and local traditions, symbolic map-making, the emergence of a "Spanish Colonial" sensibility, and the transformations of form and meaning at individual sites over time.
2682	AHIS-246-01	Art in the Age of Absolutism	1.00	LEC	Cancelled				ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		During the seventeenth century, Europe underwent a series of civil, religious, and economic upheavals which paradoxically resulted in a period of extraordinarily innovative art. This course begins with the rise of the Roman Baroque, from the disturbing realism of Caravaggio to the multi-media theatricality of Bernini, examining artistic patronage and production in the highly charged political, social, and cultural contexts of Europe during and after the Thirty Years' War. It continues with a study of the broad range of artistic response to these developments in both Southern and Northern Europe, from the elaborate state pageantry of Rubens to the intensely personal portraiture of Rembrandt. Other artists to be studied include Poussin, Le Brun, Zurbaran, Velazquez, Van Dyck, and Vermeer.
2400	AHIS-271-01	Art & Architecture of the US	1.00	LEC	Granston, Willie	TR: 9:25AM-10:40AM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		The course examines major trends in American painting, sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts from pre-colonial times to the early 20th century. Lectures and discussions consider artistic production and meaning, and situate artworks, objects, and buildings within social and cultural frameworks. Topics include Native American arts and material culture, colonial portraiture and architecture, and the development of American artistic output in the Federal period. Themes of politics, race, and understandings of the American landscape will be discussed alongside paintings, material culture, and architecture of the 19th century. This class will situate artworks, buildings, and objects within discussions of class, social hierarchies, and disenfranchisement, and will also consider the interpretation and presentation of these items in public settings like museums and exhibitions.
2207	AHIS-283-01	Contemporary Art	1.00	LEC	FitzGerald, Michael	T: 6:30PM-9:00PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Following the Second World War, artists transformed the avant-garde tradition of their European predecessors to establish a dialogue with the mass media and consumer culture that has resulted in a wide array of artistic movements. Issues ranging from multiculturalism and gender to modernism and postmodernism will be addressed through the movements of abstract expressionism, pop, minimalism, neo-expressionism and appropriation in the diverse media of video, performance, and photography, as well as painting and sculpture. Current exhibitions and criticism are integral to the course.
2619	AHIS-286-01	Modrn Architectur:1900-Present	1.00	LEC	Granston, Willie	TR: 2:55PM-4:10PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		This course surveys broad developments in architecture, design, and urban planning as they relate to social, political, and cultural changes between roughly 1900 and the present. With a focus on Western Europe and America, topics include Viennese Modernism, the legacy of the Arts and Crafts movement, the Bauhaus, the International Style, the birth of Modernism, Brutalism, Postmodernism, and the architecture of the recent past. Close attention will be given to figures including Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Robert Venturi, and Frank Gehry, but the class will also include discussion of important practitioners who have historically been omitted from architectural studies.
2401	AHIS-292-01	History of Photography	1.00	LEC	FitzGerald, Michael	W: 6:30PM-9:00PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 25		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Major developments in European and American photography from 1839 to the present.
2909	AHIS-334-01	Venetian Color	1.00	SEM	Scanlan, Suzanne	T: 1:30PM-4:10PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 15		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		C- or better in Art History 102 or C- or better in any 200 level AHIS course.
		From water to mirrors to Murano glass; from the micro-architecture of liturgical objects and Byzantine spoglia to the paintings of Bellini and Titian, the phenomena of color and light in the material culture of medieval and Renaissance Venice will be examined in this seminar. We will focus on artistic practice and technique from the unique standpoint of a mercantile society situated in a lagoon – a society that looked to the East for many of its cultural and material values.
2187	AHIS-364-01	Architectural Drawing	1.00	LEC	Rothblatt, Rob	W: 1:30PM-4:10PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 16		Waitlist available: Y		Mode of Instruction: In Person
						Cross-listing: ENGR-341-01
		NOTE: 1 seat reserved for a first year student.
		A conceptual and practical introduction to the varied types of architectural drawings used to describe and perceive buildings. Tailored for liberal arts students, topics include geometry vs perception, freehand drawings, foreshortening, drafting measured drawings, understanding plans and sections, 3D parallel projection drawings, and setting up basic perspective views Students study and analyze inspiring drawings and buildings from their related classes, whether Art History, Engineering or Urban Studies. The class is taught as a hands-on studio course. This class serves as a prerequisite for AHIS 365/ENGR 342.
1679	AHIS-365-01	Elements -Architectural Design	1.00	LEC	Rothblatt, Rob	M: 1:30PM-4:10PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 16		Waitlist available: Y		Mode of Instruction: In Person
						Cross-listing: ENGR-342-01
		Prerequisite: C- or better in Art History 364.
		Echoing the curriculum in Architecture Schools but tailored for liberal arts students in a studio setting, this class teaches the basics of architectural design and language. Through sketches, hardline drawings, and model-making, students explore the fundamental principles of hierarchy, proportion, space, light, surface, order, rhythm, contrast, tectonics, craftsmanship and technique. This course includes a series of pedagogically stepped abstract projects, adding complexity and dimensions, understanding and building upon what is successful in each project, culminating with a project exploring and adding the critical concepts of site, context and program. This class is recommended for those who might consider graduate study in architecture.
1145	AHIS-399-01	Independent Study	1.00 - 2.00	IND	TBA	TBA	TBA	Y	ART
		Enrollment limited to 15		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Submission of the special registration form, available in the Registrar's Office, and the approval of the instructor and program director are required for enrollment.
1146	AHIS-466-01	Teaching Assistant	0.50 - 1.00	IND	TBA	TBA	TBA	Y
		Enrollment limited to 15		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor are required for enrollment. Guidelines are available in the College Bulletin. (0.5 - 1 course credit)
2249	AHIS-497-01	Senior Thesis	1.00	IND	TBA	TBA	TBA	Y	ART
		Enrollment limited to 15		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		An individual tutorial to prepare an extended paper on a topic in art history. An oral presentation of a summary of the paper will be delivered in the spring term. Submission of the special registration form, available online, and the approval of the instructor and program director are required for enrollment in this course. (1 course credit to be completed in one semester.)
2958	CLCV-111-01	Intro Classical Art/Archaeolgy	1.00	LEC	Risser, Martha	TR: 1:30PM-2:45PM	TBA		ART
		Enrollment limited to 39		Waitlist available: Y		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Also cross-referenced with ARTHISTORY, URST
		NOTE: 10 seats reserved for first-year students, 10 for sophomores, and 5 for Classical Studies majors.
		A survey of the art and archaeology of the classical world, from the Neolithic period through the Roman Empire. Topics of discussion include sculpture, pottery, painting, architecture, town planning, burial practices, and major monuments, as well as archaeological method and theory.
2365	RELG-321-01	Buddhist Materiality	1.00	SEM	Kerekes, Susanne	MW: 11:30AM-12:45PM	TBA		GLB2
		Enrollment limited to 19		Waitlist available: N		Mode of Instruction: In Person
		Also cross-referenced with ANTH, ARTHISTORY
		If Buddhism preaches non-attachment, what is “Buddhist materiality”? Shouldn’t Buddhists be free of material things? Or, rather, who says they should be?In this course, we take Buddhist “stuff” seriously. Students are encouraged to look beyond modernist ideals of Buddhism as a “rational tradition” of only monks, manuscripts, and mindfulness. To do this, we must decolonialize Buddhism. Then, we consider the agency of nonhumans, not just of humans (i.e., we cover theories of Material Religion). Students will engage in object analysis and close-looking of Buddhist art objects and spirits. Things act upon us, and we(re)act upon them. They shape identity, create meaning, and maintain relationships. Things are never just things. They help us understand what people do in Buddhism, not just what they believe.