- Late 19th-21st Century Art and Visual Culture

Catalog description

How did the growing cities, train travel, and social processes associated with modernity shape the production of art? What were the boundaries between art and visual culture, and how did they shift throughout the modern and contemporary eras? If art history has a Eurocentric foundation, how does the discipline contend with today’s globalized and transnational networks of discourse and artistic production? This course introduces students to a global range of art histories from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. As undergraduate scholars, students will develop the skills to “read” works of art in a historically informed, conceptually rigorous, and reflexive manner. Class readings and preparatory assignments invite close engagement with art historical theories and debates through exhibitions, scholarly articles, and online archives. Lectures and class discussions will provide an overview of some of the most well-known movements and theoretical concepts related to these periods. Through an evolving series of weekly written assignments, students will develop their critical stance on art criticism, art historical scholarship, and public programming.