Program Requirements
The Honours Art History program provides in-depth training, with emphasis on art historical methods and research, while allowing students flexibility in choosing courses that match their academic needs and interests. It is designed especially for students who anticipate pursuing graduate studies and careers in art history or related disciplines.
Students are encouraged to apply for this program after their first year of study at the University and after completion of no less than 12 credits in Art History. Admission is on a competitive basis. While the Faculty of Arts regulations require a minimum CGPA of 3.0 for Honours programs, the Department requires in addition a program GPA of 3.50 for admission into the program and the awarding of Honours.
Required Courses (6 credits)
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ARTH 400 Selected Methods in Art History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A seminar course dealing with methodological and historiographical issues in Art History.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Bell, Gloria (Fall)
- ARTH 401 Honours Research Paper (3 credits)
Complementary Courses (48 credits)
3-15 credits from the following list, as an introduction to methods, theories, and practices in diverse fields of the discipline:
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ARTH 302 Aspects of Canadian Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of selected subjects relevant to a specific period of art in Canada.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Bishop-Stall, Reilley (Fall)
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ARTH 305 Methods in Art History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An introduction to the main methodologies used in the analysis of the work of art: formalism, iconography/iconology, semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism and postcolonialism.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Hunter, Matthew (Winter)
Prerequisite: Any 200-level Art History course, or by permission of the instructor.
Restriction: Restricted to students in the Major, Minor, Honours and Joint Honours programs in Art History.
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ARTH 315 Indigenous Art and Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of the work of selected First Nations, M茅tis and Inuit artists in Canada.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Bell, Gloria (Winter)
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken or are taking CANS 315 or have taken "Aboriginal Art and Culture" as a CANS or ARTH topics course.
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ARTH 339 Critical Issues - Contemporary Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A critical examination of contemporary art from Abstract Expressionism to Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual art, Land art, and Body art. Focuses on the development and critique of modernism, the dematerialization or art, the blurring of art and popular culture, the artist as shaman, temporality, and aesthetic redefinitions of subjectivity.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Makarova, Evgeniya (Winter)
Prerequisite: one 200-level Art History course recommended, or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 357 Early Chinese Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Survey of Chinese art and visual culture during the pre-imperial and early imperial periods (1500BCE-900CE). A wide range of visual images and media (painting, architecture, inscription, funerary art) will be examined in the historical context of the rise and development of the empire.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: One 200-level Art History or East Asian Studies course, or by permission of instructor.
Restriction: Not open to students taking or who have taken EAST 357.
33-45 credits of complementary courses chosen from among departmental course offerings as follows:
-A maximum of 15 credits may be at the 200 level.
-A minimum of 6 credits must be at the 400 level or above (other than ARTH 490 Museum Internship).
-6 credits should be taken in a language other than English or in courses in one or two related disciplines selected with the written approval of the academic adviser.
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ARTH 200 Introduction to Art History 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Selected introductory survey of the history of art.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 202 Introduction to Contemporary Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A critical survey of contemporary art and theory, from 1945 to the present focusing on pivotal issues such as anti-war politics, feminism, sexual diversity, AIDS awareness, discourse of multiculturalism, debates about modernism and postmodernism, post colonialism, technology, and globalization.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Makarova, Evgeniya (Winter)
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ARTH 204 Introduction to Medieval Art and Architecture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Surveys the arts from late Antiquity to the fourteenth century in Western Europe. Focuses on the body and space to introduce artistic and architectural concepts, practices, and styles from the late Roman, Byzantine and Carolingian empires to monastic and royal patronage of the French Kings.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Moubayed, Anna-Maria (Winter)
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ARTH 205 Introduction to Modern Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : The course is an introduction to the modern period in art history which begins around 1750. It examines the development in both painting and sculpture and relates to changes in the social and political climate of the times.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Makarova, Evgeniya (Fall)
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ARTH 207 Introduction Early Modern Art 1400-1700 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Surveys visual culture of early modern Europe across various social spheres and geographical locations.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 209 Introduction to Ancient Art and Architecture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Survey of ancient art and architecture: pre-historic Europe, ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Focus is on issues of political power, gender, sexuality, race, the formation of individual and group identities, and the relation between the body and social space.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Moubayed, Anna-Maria (Fall)
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ARTH 215 Introduction to East Asian Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Introductory survey of some of the major developments in the visual arts of Japan, China, and Korea. Emphasis will be placed on the diversity of artistic traditions in East Asia and the intersections among these traditions.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Luce, Davin (Fall)
Restriction: Not open to students taking or who have taken EAST 215.
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ARTH 223 Introduction Italian Renaissance Art 1300-1500 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Surveys the changing role of the artwork in Renaissance Italy in its social, political, and religious contexts.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Makarova, Evgeniya (Fall)
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ARTH 225 Introduction to Seventeenth - Century Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Examines the functions and uses of a wide range of visual forms in relation to the European and global expansion of urbanism, absolutism, colonialism, capitalism, diplomacy, slavery, missionary activity, and religious conflict in the seventeenth century.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Vanhaelen, Engeline (Winter)
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ARTH 226 Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Art and Architecture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Paintings, prints, sculpture and architecture produced in Europe in the 'long' eighteenth century, with an emphasis on major artists. Themes include the teaching of art and its display, the emergence of 'publics' for art, and eighteenth-century aesthetics.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Restriction: Not open to students who have taken ARTH 334.
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ARTH 300 Canadian Art to 1914 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Canadian art from the pre-contact period through the colonial and nation-building centuries until the onset of the First World War. Emphasis will be placed on the diverse cultural influences that have been brought into contact in Canada.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 302 Aspects of Canadian Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of selected subjects relevant to a specific period of art in Canada.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Bishop-Stall, Reilley (Fall)
-
ARTH 305 Methods in Art History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An introduction to the main methodologies used in the analysis of the work of art: formalism, iconography/iconology, semiotics, structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism and postcolonialism.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Hunter, Matthew (Winter)
Prerequisite: Any 200-level Art History course, or by permission of the instructor.
Restriction: Restricted to students in the Major, Minor, Honours and Joint Honours programs in Art History.
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ARTH 310 Postcolonialism (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Examines selected art historians who respond to postcolonial theorists and analyse how paintings, sculpture, buildings, and visual culture participated in or resisted European imperialism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 314 The Medieval City (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Towns and cities in the Middle Ages as architectural entities, their urban planning and development; main building types, profane and ecclesiastical: castle, defence works, town halls, houses, cathedrals, churches and monasteries; the role architecture played in forming a society.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 315 Indigenous Art and Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of the work of selected First Nations, M茅tis and Inuit artists in Canada.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Bell, Gloria (Winter)
Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken or are taking CANS 315 or have taken "Aboriginal Art and Culture" as a CANS or ARTH topics course.
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ARTH 321 Visual Culture of the Dutch Republic (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Examination of the functions of visual culture in merchant capitalist society, and the changing status of art, artists and patrons after the Protestant reformation. A wide range of visual imagery (from Rembrandt and Vermeer to popular culture) will be linked with 17th-century economic, historic, religious, colonial, scientific and literary developments.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Vanhaelen, Engeline (Fall)
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ARTH 323 Realism and Impressionism (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : The course is an investigation into Realism and Impressionism, the principal artistic movements between ca. 1840 - 1880.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Hunter, Mary (Fall)
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ARTH 325 Visual Culture Renaissance Venice (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Distinctive visual culture in the context of Venice's singular topography and reputation for licentiousness and toleration.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Henry, Chriscinda Claire (Winter)
Prerequisite: one 200-level Art History course recommended, or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 326 Studies in Manuscript and Print Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Positing a dynamic relationship between manuscript and print culture and social experience, this course focuses on new forms and uses for printed imagery before the electronic age. Issues to be addressed include: the relationship between word and image, reading and viewing practices and visual and textual transmission, the history of the book and the consequences of technological change.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: one 200-level Art History course or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 336 Art Now (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Recent art practices from the 1980's to the present - installation art, new media arts (video, digital and internet art), recent developments in performance, photography, and painting. Introduces students to the key fields of research of current art: postmodernism, representation, visuality, identity, embodiment, sexuality, memory, (bio)technology, intermedia, and globalization.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: One 200-level Art History course or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 338 Modern Art and Theory: WWI - WWII (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of the historical avant-garde (dada, soviet constructionism, and surrealism), Duchamp, and abstraction up to Abstract Expressionism. Examines how post-WWI art practices negotiate the intertwining of aesthetics and revolution, art and mass culture, modernism and modernity, imagined and material space, gender and sexuality, horizontality and verticality.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: one 200-level Art History course recommended, or by permission of the instructor.
-
ARTH 339 Critical Issues - Contemporary Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A critical examination of contemporary art from Abstract Expressionism to Pop art, Minimalism, Conceptual art, Land art, and Body art. Focuses on the development and critique of modernism, the dematerialization or art, the blurring of art and popular culture, the artist as shaman, temporality, and aesthetic redefinitions of subjectivity.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Makarova, Evgeniya (Winter)
Prerequisite: one 200-level Art History course recommended, or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 352 Feminism in Art and Art History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A consideration of the impact of feminism on recent art history, focusing on the examination of gender constructions in art and theory.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 353 Selected Topics in Art History 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Study of a special field in the History of Art and Architecture taught by a visiting scholar.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Praepipatmongkol, Chanon Kenji (Fall)
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ARTH 354 Selected Topics Art History 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Study of a special field in the History of Art and Communications.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 356 Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Examination of modern Chinese art and visual culture from the 1920's to the present. Emphasis will be placed on the formation of the artistic avant-garde in the 20th century and its relation to socialist and post-socialist mass culture.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Restrictions: Not open to students taking or who have taken EAST 356.
-
ARTH 357 Early Chinese Art (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Survey of Chinese art and visual culture during the pre-imperial and early imperial periods (1500BCE-900CE). A wide range of visual images and media (painting, architecture, inscription, funerary art) will be examined in the historical context of the rise and development of the empire.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: One 200-level Art History or East Asian Studies course, or by permission of instructor.
Restriction: Not open to students taking or who have taken EAST 357.
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ARTH 358 Later Chinese Art (960-1911) (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Survey of art and visual culture in later imperial China from Sorlg to Qing dynasties. A broad range of media (e.g. painting, calligraphy, print, architecture) will be examined to explore the development of literati aesthetics and its intersections with the arts of the court, the temple, and the marketplace.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: One 200-level Art History or East Asian Studies course, or by permission of Instructor.
Restriction: Not open to students who are taking or have taken EAST 358.
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ARTH 360 Studies in the Photographic (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : The course provides an introduction to the history of photography while considering its relation to major movements in the history of painting from the time of the invention of photography, in 1839, to the present day.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 368 Studies in Northern Renaissance Art 01 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 411 Canadian Art and Race (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Examination of impact of colonialism on Canadian art and visual culture from contact to the present. Emphasis will be placed on role of racial marginalization and privilege in issues of cultural access, representation, production and reception.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Bishop-Stall, Reilley (Winter)
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ARTH 420 Selected Topics in Art and Architecture 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An advanced study of selected topics in the History of Art and Architecture.
Terms: Fall 2024, Winter 2025
Instructors: Henry, Chriscinda Claire (Fall) Praepipatmongkol, Chanon Kenji (Winter)
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ARTH 421 Selected Topics in Art and Architecture 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Selected topics in art and architecture. Topics vary by year.
Terms: Fall 2024, Winter 2025
Instructors: Hunter, Mary (Fall) Hong, Jeehee (Winter)
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ARTH 422 Selected Topics in Art and Architecture 3 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Selected topics in art and architecture. Topics vary by year.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Moubayed, Anna-Maria (Winter)
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ARTH 425 Arts of Medieval Spain (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : This course examines the arts of medieval Spain from the late antique 'barbarian' invasions through the fifteenth century. Within this broad span, particular attention will be paid to key themes, including historiography, the centrality of pilgrimage for shaping artistic practice, and the concept of 'convivencia' among Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: Any 300-level course or permission of instructor.
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ARTH 430 Concepts - Discipline Art History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Methodologically focused examination of critical concepts for art historical study.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 435 Early Modern Visual Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : A study of the works of Rubens, Van dick and Velasquez.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Vanhaelen, Engeline (Fall)
Prerequisite: one 300-level Art History course recommended, or by permission of the instructor.
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ARTH 440 The Body and Visual Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : An examination of modern and contemporary redefinitions of corporeality in art, theory and visual culture. The course focuses on the dissemination of the body in the context of late capitalism and ongoing developments of image, information and biotechnologies. Interdisciplinary perspective establishing a dialogue between art and science.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Restriction: Not open to students who have taken ARTH 510.
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ARTH 447 Independent Research Course (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Supervised independent research on an approved topic.
Terms: Fall 2024, Winter 2025
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
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ARTH 457 Brushwork in Chinese Painting (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : The seminar takes an in-depth look at the function and meaning of the brushwork in traditional Chinese painting. Analysis of paintings will be combined to close readings of theoretical texts in translation.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Prerequisite: At least one EAST or ARTH course or permission of instructor.
Restriction: Not open to students taking or who have taken EAST 457.
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ARTH 473 Studies in 17th and Early 18th Century Art 04 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Studies in 17th and early 18th century art.
Terms: This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Instructors: There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year.
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ARTH 474 Studies in Later 18th and 19th Century Art 03 (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Studies in later 18th and early 19th-century art.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Hunter, Matthew (Fall)
Prerequisite: Any 200-level Art History course or permission of instructor
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ARTH 490 Museum Internship (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : The Museum Internship is intended to provide direct exposure to museum collections and practical experience in the museum setting for students interested in museum professions. Individually designed in consultation with the professor in charge of internships and the appropriate personnel at one of the Montreal museums.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Johnson, Adrienne (Fall)
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ARTH 501 Advanced Topics in Art History and Visual Culture (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Focused investigation of a special topic in the history of art and visual culture.
Terms: Fall 2024, Winter 2025
Instructors: Bishop-Stall, Reilley (Fall) Bell, Gloria (Winter)
Restriction: Open to graduate students at the MA and PhD levels and advanced undergraduates.
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ARTH 502 Advanced Topics in Art and Architectural History (3 credits)
Overview
Art History : Focused investigation of a special topic in the history of art and architecture.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Hunter, Matthew (Fall)
Restriction: Open to graduate students at the MA and PhD levels and to advanced undergraduates.
Note: In addition to architectural courses given by the Department, program students are encouraged to consider courses given in the School of Architecture and the departments of East Asian Studies and Philosophy which may, upon consultation with the Department, be regarded as fulfilling part of the requirements.
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ARCH 250 Architectural History 1 (3 credits)
Overview
Architecture : The study of architecture and cities from ancient times to 1750.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Henni, Samia (Fall)
(3-0-6)
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ARCH 251 Architectural History 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Architecture : The study of North American architecture and cities from 1950 to the present.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Adams, Annmarie (Winter)
(2-1-6)
Prerequisite: ARCH 250
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PHIL 336 Aesthetics (3 credits)
Overview
Philosophy : An introduction to issues central to aesthetic theory; the nature of aesthetic judgment, perception of the aesthetic object, the nature of the art object.
Terms: Fall 2024
Instructors: Davies, David (Fall)
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PHIL 436 Aesthetics 2 (3 credits)
Overview
Philosophy : An advanced discussion of issues in aesthetics.
Terms: Winter 2025
Instructors: Davies, David (Winter)
Prerequisite: PHIL 336 or written permission of the instructor
