Topics in Global Artistic Communication

Catalog description

Explores a specific time period in art history cross-culturally in Europe, Asia, Africa, and/or the Americas. ART H 427 Topics in Global Artistic Communication (3 per semester/maximum of 6) (IL) This course explores specific time periods and/or issues in global artistic exchange among several diverse cultures. The course may be taken up to two times, if the topics are different. One semester the topic might be "Ca. 1800: Arts and their Global Colonial Contexts." Another semester the topic might be "Global Modernisms ca. 1930," or "Ca. 1600: Global Artistic Exchange in an Era of Increased Contact." Each offering will include theoretical discussion of the goals and challenges of such intercultural study. It will then explore the artistic traditions and responses to foreign contact of diverse cultures. The course will consist of lectures, discussions, and, in many cases, visits to the Palmer Museum of Art for the study of objects in its collection. Through critical reading, listening and looking students will develop an appreciation for the range and diversity of cultural production, and the historical specificity of responses to contact with the unfamiliar. Themes touched upon may include ethnic or religious identity, gender, cultural resistance, rejection or embrace. Learning evaluation may depend upon a combination of class participation, analytical reading, essays or research papers, and examinations.