Art History, Theory, & Criticism Undergraduate Studies

A group of students and an instructor discuss a sculpture at the AIC

Undergraduate Overview

Art History is a central part of all students’ education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism offers courses that examine how current and future practices are informed by the histories and theories of art.

From comprehensive surveys of modern and contemporary art at the introductory level to advanced undergraduate seminars, all courses prepare students to speak, write, and think about art and design. Classes address art of all media, design and architecture, visual and material cultures, and contemporary theories of art and culture. The international networks for contemporary art are an important part of the course offerings, and we offer a wide range of classes in Asian, African, Latin American, European, and North American Art.

Contemporary Practices Requirements

All Contemporary Practices students and transfer students must complete: ARTHI 1001, World Cultures and Civilizations: Pre-History-Nineteenth Century, and one other 1000-level Introductory Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art History course before taking more advanced courses within the department.

Bachelor of Arts in Art History

The BA in Art History draws on the depth and diversity of offerings in the scholarly study of art practices that only a major art school connected with a world-class museum can offer. Substantial coursework in Art History, supported by additional coursework in Liberal Arts and in studio departments define the course of study. In their first year, students complete the studio-intensive Contemporary Practices program and introductory Art History surveys as a foundation for beginning their advanced Art History coursework in their second year. In addition to a sequence of research, theory, and methods courses, BA in Art History students choose two (out of three possible) geographic-area pathways on which to focus (with at least three courses in each area).

The degree culminates in the fourth year with a significant research project written in the two-semester senior research methods capstone seminar. In addition to external applicants and transfer students, interested SAIC students from other degree programs may apply for admittance to the BA in Art History program, usually before the beginning of their junior year. Please refer to the BAAH Credit Worksheet.

To apply to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), you will need to fill out an application and submit your transcripts and letters of recommendation. And most importantly, we require a portfolio of your best and most recent work—work that will give us a sense of you, your interests, and your willingness to explore, experiment, and think beyond technical art, design, and writing skills.
In order to apply, we must have the following items:
Online application
Artist’s Statement
Transcripts
Letter of Recommendation
Portfolio
Test Scores
The BA in Art History program has a special application procedure for both external and internal candidates. All applicants must supply a writing sample (see below) to be considered.
Incoming First-Year Students
The application for incoming first-year students requires a five- to seven-page (1,250–1,750 words) writing sample, TOEFL scores when required (min. 96), letter of recommendation, a high school transcript (min unweighted GPA 3.0), a portfolio of five to 10 pieces of visual work, and a personal statement.
For their first year, BA in Art History students take primarily studio courses as part of the year-long Contemporary Practices program. These courses provide students with foundations in art practice and visual thinking that grounds advanced-level coursework in Art History, which begins in the sophomore year.
Transfer Students
The application for incoming transfer students requires a five- to seven-page (1,250–1,750 words) writing sample, TOEFL scores when required (min. 96), letter of recommendation, transcript of courses taken at other institutions (min. unweighted GPA 3.0), a portfolio of five to 10 pieces of visual work, and a personal statement. Transfer applicants are considered individually with regard to the acceptance of previous credit and studio requirements.
A minimum of 66 credit hours are required in residence at SAIC, so most transfer students will apply before their junior year. On admittance, transfer students may petition for Contemporary Practices studio courses to be substituted with other coursework. Most transfer students, however, will take at minimum the core and research studio courses designed for transfers by the Contemporary Practices department.
SAIC Students from Other Degree Programs
Internal applicants are also required to submit a writing sample five- to seven-page (1,250–1,750 words) writing sample, a personal statement, and a transcript of courses at SAIC in order to be considered for a degree change to the BA in Art History. In some cases, an interview may be required.
Because the BA in Art History is substantially different in its credit makeup than other programs at SAIC, most students will have applied for an internal transfer before the end of their sophomore year. Only in exceptional cases will junior-level students be considered for internal transfer.
Internal transfer applicants must submit a single PDF document with contact information, student ID number, personal statement, transcript of courses transferred into and taken at SAIC, and writing sample with illustrations. Unofficial transcripts from the registrar or academic advising are acceptable and should include all courses taken at SAIC as well as those transferred from other institutions. Screen shots or other lists will not be accepted. The transcript should be incorporated into your single application PDF after your cover page with identification, personal statement, and writing sample. This should be sent to the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism’s Undergraduate Coordinator (jlee241@saic.edu).
Writing Sample
The writing sample is one of the most important parts of the application and should demonstrate applicants' ability to express their ideas and knowledge in written form. Successful writing samples will demonstrate clarity of argument, facility with written language and grammar, and an ability to incorporate and cite research materials. Any expository essay that incorporates research will be considered, and a writing sample in art history is not required (though it is encouraged, especially for transfer applicants). Writing samples should be five to seven pages in length (1,250–1,750 words) for incoming first-year applicants and transfers at the freshman or sophomore level. Any student who wishes to apply for transfer into the BA in Art History program at the level of junior should submit a writing sample of at least seven to 10 pages (1,750–2,500 words). Relevant illustrations and bibliography should be included with the text but are not considered when calculating page limits.
Personal Statement
The personal statement is a short statement (around a page) explaining your curiosities, interests, and plans (in intellectual and/or career terms) and why you think the BAAH program would be a good fit for you.
Portfolio
External students must include a visual portfolio as part of their application. In addition to the writing sample, five to 10 pieces of your best and most recent work must be submitted as part of the portfolio. This collection should reflect your interests, skills, and willingness to explore, experiment, and express yourself.
The BA in Art History program incorporates studio practice as essential knowledge for work in art history, and all BA in Art History students take studio classes while at SAIC. Because the first-year studio foundations experience is shared with all SAIC BFA students, incoming applicants should expect to be immersed in visual and creative practices. While the writing sample and transcript are the most important parts of a BA in Art History application, applicants should use the portfolio to demonstrate their facility with visual making. In addition to conventional studio and design work, students may also submit alternative creative practices (for instance, video blogging, website design, or online curation). Transfer applicants with little experience in studio or design practices are encouraged to consider these alternatives. Questions about what can be part of the visual portfolio should be addressed to the Admissions office.
The Admissions office at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is dedicated to assisting you and your family through every step of the college selection process. We are interested in getting to know you—your work, your expectations for college, and your ambitions for the future. We seek students who wish to immerse themselves in an intense interdisciplinary environment, and we hope to challenge the very notion of what art means to you and to our society. SAIC provides a sophisticated education that hones your unique abilities as a contemporary thinker and maker in a global community.

Curriculum

Studio	18
CP 1010 Core Studio Practice I (3) CP 1011 Core Studio Practice II (3) CP 1020 Research Studio I (3) CP 1022 Research Studio II (3) Studio electives (6)
Art History, Theory, and Criticism	51
Foundations ARTHI 1001 Introduction to Art History: Ancient to Modern (3) ARTHI 1002+ Any Introduction to Art History: Modern and Contemporary (3) Research, Theory, and Methods SOPHSEM 2900 Sophomore Seminar in Art History (3) PROFPRAC 3900 Art History Junior Proseminar * (3) ARTHI 4899 Art History Research Methods I: Thesis Methodology Seminar (3) CAPSTONE 4900 Art History Research Methods II: Thesis Writing Seminar (3) Completion of written thesis Area Pathways * Two complete 9 credit hour (3 courses) sequences from three possible areas of focus: 1. Asia 2. Europe and America 3. Southern Continents (Africa and Latin America) Area Pathway I ARTHI 2000-level survey (3) ARTHI 3000-level intermediate course (3) ARTHI 4000-level advanced course (3) Pathway II ARTHI 2000-level survey (3) ARTHI 3000-level intermediate course (3) ARTHI 4000-level advanced course (3) Additional courses Art History courses in pre-modern topics, ARTHI 2000-4000 level* (6) Intermediate or Advanced Courses, ARTHI 3000-4000 level (9) PROFPRAC and CAPSTONE are now required for new incoming students beginning in the 2015-16 academic year. * A list of courses that fulfill this requirement is supplied by the Department. Each semester, the Department offers two smaller seminar-style courses focused on the application of research methods. These can be in any topic, but professors focus on the practice of research and writing with students in this smaller setting. BA in Art History students must take at least one of these courses in their Junior year, which will be designated on the course schedule as ARTHI 3900/PROFPRAC 3900. Courses fulfilling the Junior Proseminar requirement cannot also be used to fulfill the Area Pathways requirements. Students may, however, take more than one Junior Proseminar in their time at SAIC, and any additional proseminars may be used to fulfill other degree requirements.
Liberal Arts	39
ENGLISH 1001 First Year Seminar I (3) ENGLISH 1005 First Year Seminar II (3) Humanities (6) World History (6) Social Science (6) Natural Science (6) Foreign Language (6) Liberal Arts Electives (3)
General Electives	12
Advanced elective courses (2000–4000 level), any department In addition to courses in studio, Liberal Arts, of Art History, other opportunities such as internships taken through SAIC's Cooperative Education may count as electives.
Other Requirements BA in Art History students must complete at least 3 credit hours in a class designated as “off-campus study.” These credits can also fulfill any of the requirements listed above and be from any of the divisions (Art History, studio, Liberal Arts, or general electives).
Total Credit Hours	120

Minimum Residency Requirement for Transfer Students

The minimum number of credits required in residence at SAIC is 66 of the total 120 credit hours. Of those 66 required residence credits, transfer students must take, at minimum, the following at SAIC.

Art History

Two Area Pathways (18)
ARTHI Junior Proseminar (3)
Senior Thesis Course Sequence (ARTHI 4899 and CAPSTONE 4900) (6)
Intermediate or Advanced Courses, 3000-4000 level (12)

Studio

Studio Electives (3)

Bachelor of Fine Arts with Art History Thesis

The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism newly offers SAIC BFA students the option to supplement their studio curriculum with an Art History Thesis. This BFA with Art History Thesis (BFAAHT) is not a distinct degree, but a variant of the BFA degree that students can opt into, enabling their immersion in the faculty and resources of the Art History Department's programs, including the well-known Master of Arts in Modern and Contemporary Art History (MAAH) and Dual-Degree Graduate Program in addition to our existing Bachelor of Arts in Art History (BAAH). BFAAHT students can expect to receive specialized, individual attention in intensive Art History seminars as they develop original thesis projects exploring questions and topics of their own devising. In their senior year, BFAAHT students will take the year-long Art History Senior Thesis seminar that culminates in the Undergraduate Art History Thesis Symposium.

Students who are interested in the BFA: Studio Art with Art History (AH) Thesis should complete the steps outlined below, ideally by the end of the spring semester of their freshman year or in fall semester of their sophomore year:
Step 1: Student confirms with an Academic Advisor that they have at least 12 credits of Art History and/or General Electives remaining to use for the thesis sequence.
Step 2: Student meets with the Art History, Theory, and Criticism Undergraduate Program Director by the end of their freshmen year or beginning of sophomore year.
Step 3: Student applies to the BFA AH Thesis Program by submitting to the AH Undergrad Program Director: 1) their SAIC transcript showing at least 12 credits of Art History and/General Electives remaining; 2) a writing sample that shows the student’s research, writing, and citation ability; and 3) a brief description (1 page) of the student’s proposed thesis topic.
Step 4: If the student is accepted into the program, they should enroll in:
ARTHI 2900 Sophomore Seminar in their sophomore year (3 credit hours)
ARTHI 3900 Junior Proseminar in their junior year (3 credit hours)
CAPSTONE 4899 AH Undergraduate Thesis Seminar I in fall of their senior year; as well as 4900 AH Undergraduate Thesis Seminar II in spring of their senior year (6 credit hours)
Step 5: Completion of thesis must be approved by both the Thesis II instructor and the AH Undergraduate Coordinator. Students are required to make a formal presentation and participate in the Undergraduate Art History Thesis Symposium in the senior year.

Curriculum

Research, Theory, and Methods: 12

SOPHSEM 2900 Sophomore Seminar in Art History (3)
PROFPRAC 3900 Art History Junior Proseminar* (3)
ARTHI 4899 Art History Research Methods 1: Thesis Methodology Seminar (3)
CAPSTONE 4900 Art History Research Methods II: Thesis Writing Seminar (3)
Completion of Written Thesis

Course Listing

Title	Catalog	Instructor	Schedule
World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century	1001 (001)	Rebecca Journey	Wed 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work. The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam.	Class Number 1016	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century	1001 (002)	Mik Czerwinski	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work. The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam.	Class Number 1017	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
World Cultures and Civilizations: Prehistory to the Nineteenth Century	1001 (003)	Sandra F. Racek	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Art has been many things to many people. This class introduces students to the history of art and art-like things on Earth from prehistory to ca. 1800 CE. It covers canonical examples from older scholarship alongside works and contexts emerging in recent art histories. Students will learn to perform basic art historical analysis and research, and the course will prepare them to form personal art histories, applying such art histories to their own work. The course surveys historical art in a global scope, from the beginnings of known culture to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. It introduces students to a range of interdisciplinary frameworks for parsing the production, reception, and conceptualization of art. And it challenges students to think about the relationships between past and present, highlighting how later artists and cultures have engaged earlier art and history. There is a small amount of required reading each week-on average about 20 pages. Written work includes weekly reading responses, two in-class quizzes, an annotated bibliography project, and a take-home final exam.	Class Number 1018	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (001)	Maggie Schuster	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1019	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (002)	Siamack Hajimohammad	Fri 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1020	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (003)	Tamar Kharatishvili	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1029	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 707
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (005)	Christopher Cutrone	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1034	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (006)	Marissa Baker	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1042	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (007)	Tamar Kharatishvili	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 2206	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 707
Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art and Architecture	1002 (008)	Artie Foster	Fri 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. Note: ARTHI 1001 (or its equivalent) is recommended as a prerequisite for ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 2534	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 707
Adv Survey Mod/Cont Art & Arch	1002 (04S)	Donato Loia	Fri 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This is an advanced course that surveys developments in nineteenth and twentieth century art and architecture. It is intended for BAAH students and Scholars Program students. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues, as well as the historical, intellectual, and socioeconomic changes that are reflected or addressed in the works of artists and architects. ARTHI 1201: Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of Modern to Contemporary Art & Architecture is required.	Class Number 1031	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Survey of Design History: Between Object and Ephemera	1015 (001)	Michael Golec	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This lecture course grounds students in basic critical themes in the history of design and design objects. Through lectures, demonstrations, and readings students study the material and discursive conditions of the history of design. Through lecture, readings, discussions, and museum visits, the class highlights a broad range of objects and formats in graphic design, object design, fashion design, and architectural design. Course works includes object analysis assignments, short research paper, and mid-term and final exams.	Class Number 1021	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
Survey of Modern and Contemporary Painting	1017 (001)	Mark Krisco	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This class reveals the fine art, photography and art theories of late 19th century to the present day. The first half of the semester focusing on the period 1851 to the economic crash of 1929; which had been a time of rapid social, economic and political change impacted by revolutions in communication systems, technology and easy availability of reproductions. Students will gain a comprehensive and chronological picture of the major art movements and their engagement with or reaction against previous art and artists. The major artists of the major movements of Impressionism, Cubism, Purism, Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism and Abstraction will be addressed in regards to their aims and achievements.These include - to name the most prominent - Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Picasso, Braque, Leger, Kirchner, Severini, Magritte, Dali and Kandinsky and Mondrian.The class ending with major 20th century artists from Pollock and De Kooning of Abstract Expressionism to Pop artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein to current times and how they relate to this legacy and the concept of an art museum in terms of urban capitalism, Colonialism, Nationalism and Internationalism. This class has weekly reading assignments from two major texts ; one written by art historian Richard Brettell and one written by artist Alex Katz. Written questions about these readings will be assigned as well. The class also often has sketching and student discussions in the museum. There is also one final paper on the artist covered most admired by each student.	Class Number 1038	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture Section	1201 (01S)		Thurs 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM In Person
Description Students will review the materials from the previous week?s lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Prerequisites Corequisite: ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1071	Credits 0	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1427
Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture Section	1201 (02S)		Tues 9:45 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description Students will review the materials from the previous week?s lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Prerequisites Corequisite: ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 1072	Credits 0	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 919
Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture Section	1201 (03S)		Wed 6:45 PM - 8:15 PM In Person
Description Students will review the materials from the previous week?s lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Prerequisites Corequisite: ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 2484	Credits 0	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 205
Discussion Section for Advanced Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art and Architecture Section	1201 (04S)		Thurs 12:15 PM - 1:45 PM In Person
Description Students will review the materials from the previous week?s lecture, both the class's main thematic and conceptual points, and also the names, practices, and places that may be required for quizzes. The TA will also lead workshops in which students exchange ideas about their notebooks, maps, papers, curated projects, or installations. Prerequisites Corequisite: ARTHI 1002.	Class Number 2485	Credits 0	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 501
Issues in Visual Critical Studies	2001 (001)	Kristi Ann McGuire	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course plunges students into content and ideas that universities often leave until graduate school, as we consider the role played by the 'critical' in 'visual and critical studies.' For the past ten years, it has been referred to as 'a primer for the art world.' It will still, mostly, provide you with a working vocabulary and crash course as to bodies of knowledge integral to the study of visual culture. At the same time, to productively engage in a reflective critique of society and culture, it will consider 'texts' from as diverse and contemporaneous a group of scholars, theorists, critics, and cultural producers as possible, from both inside and outside the academic institution. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2502	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Theory Location MacLean 919
Chance and Intentionality	2009 (001)	Patrick Durgin	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description If a society?s order of reasons disempowers its citizens, why not weaponize the irrational? This was the premise of various, systemic reactions against the ?ego? in the midlate 20th century. In Europe, the United States, and former colonies, some of this activity can be read as an extension of the historical avant garde?s investigation of altered states of consciousness and ?madness.? The neo-avant garde sometimes used the tools of rational science to deconstruct its premises, reconstruct the real, and promote a more demotic culture. This course takes an international approach and samples practices and discourses of Dadaism, Surrealism, free jazz, performance and conceptual art, dance, film, ?relational aesthetics,? and experimental poetics. We will place a special emphasis on the way indeterminacy claims to ameliorate conflicts between political commitment and aesthetic quality. Expect to encounter works by Francis Alys, Anthony Braxton, John Cage, Aime Cesaire, Fischli & Weiss, Helio Oiticica, Huang Yong Ping, Jorge Macchi, Jackson MacLow, Gerhard Richter, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Hannah Weiner, and others. Course work will vary but typically includes weekly written responses, moderate reading assignments, listening and viewing, avid participation in class discussions, one creative/curatorial project, one research presentation, and a final essay. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2101	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Community & Social Engagement, Economic Inequality & Class Location Lakeview - 1608
Why Ancient Art and Architecture Matter	2113 (001)	Joana Konova	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Ancient art and architecture often provides the backdrop for National politics and in many countries is the art which one first encounters outside of a museum. This course will introduce students to ancient art and architecture in a way that highlights its modern importance in terms of cultural heritage and the art making practices of modern artists. Readings will address the contemporary relevance of ancient art, the particularities of that artwork, and the way that ancient artwork and the modern art it inspires are a manifestation of cultural values both past and present. Students will be required to present readings to other students on a biweekly basis, take exams based on the artwork presented in lectures, and complete a research project. The research project involves the study of one repatriated artwork's provenience and provenance and the presentation of that research to the class Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1063	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 920
History of Designed Objects	2128 (001)	Lara Allison	Wed 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description The course examines the history of designed objects and their place in a variety of material contexts. Even within our increasingly digitalized existences today, physical objects continue to play a key role in determining our experiences as humans. Our objects are designed by us and at the same time design us by extending the possibilities of what it means to be human and exist in a world. The designed object will be considered under the conditions of global exchange, in relation to questions of health, disease, and the body, as well as urbanism. We will also reflect on the designed object through the lenses of craftsmanship, technology, materials, activism, identity, and cultural heritage. Course participants will read texts relevant to the theoretical and historical aspects of the designed object and its representations, contribute to weekly discussions, conduct object-based analyses, and engage in a series of team and individually written critical writing assignments. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1022	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 302
The Artist as Stylist?: Fashion Signifiers in Art	2143 (001)	Caroline Marie Bellios	Wed 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description If you could only be seen in one outfit for the rest of your life ? what would it be? How would you represent who you are through your choice of silhouette, color, pattern, and texture? In this course we will take a look at art?s ability to freeze moments, and garments, in time. What did the sitter (or the artist) chose to clothe the body? How did fashion and its power of communication function within the time the art work was made? What choices did the artist make to idealize or change their representation of the garments? In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a warrior or a captive in work of the Nazca from ancient Peru? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from 17th century Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama? We will utilize the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and others around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, explore through making, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice. In statues from Ancient Greece fabrics flow around bodies like liquids, 18th century subjects were often painted in swathes of fabric meant to suggest ancient ideals through similar (impossible) textiles, and today Kara Walker uses those same floating fabrics on bodies to critique less than ideal idealists. To 19th century Impressionists the urgency of Modernity could only be represented by using contemporary garments, today Kehinde Wiley dresses a man on a horse in a hoodie. What clues tell us a figure is a king in Incan pottery? How can we read hairstyles in Ukiyo-e paintings from Japan? What do Jeffery Gibson and Nick Cave want us to see when they create coverings for bodies? And what was Amy Sherald trying to tell us about Michelle Obama? We will visit the collections of the Art Institute, The Field Museum, and other collections around the city to look closely, sketch, and research. Students will read, lead discussions, write daily reflections, and develop skills in critical looking leading to two short research papers examining works of their choice. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2314	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Costume Design, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Museum Studies Location MacLean 707
Survey Architectural History II: 1800-now	2192 (001)	Joseph Socki	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course surveys the history of architecture and design, including furnishings, decorative arts and interiors, from Napoleonic Europe until the onset of Globalism in the early Twenty-First Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within the architecture and design of today, with particular emphasis on: nineteenth-century revivalism and industrial architecture; Chicago School, early skyscrapers and the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright; the Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau movements; early twentieth-century Modernism in Europe; Art Deco, the Bauhaus and the International Style; Late Modernism and New Brutalism; Postmodernism; and contemporary twenty-first century Global movements. Through extensive lectures and primary source readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the pioneering and influential architects from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including Friedrich Schinkel, Joseph Paxton, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene and Greene, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Adolph Loos, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, Eero Saarinen, Philip Johnson, Louis Khan, Adrian Smith and S.O.M., Robert Venturi, I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid. Students will complete a combination of in-class and take-home exams along with a final research paper on a topic chosen in consultation with the instructor. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1023	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
Survey of African Art	2400 (001)	Sarah Estrela	Wed 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This introductory course surveys the arts of Africa from prehistoric times to today. Focusing on the region south of the Saharan desert, the course will cover a range of media and practices, including painting, architecture, textile, ceramics, metalwork, and body art from across various cultures on the continent. We will consider major movements in the development of African civilizations, the spread of Islam, colonialism and westernization from the perspective of African artistic initiatives and responses. The course will consider ancient African kingdoms and empires, early contacts with Europeans in the fifteenth century, and problems related to African contemporary art and African artistic identities within a globalized art world. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1024	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity Location Lakeview - 1608
Modern and Contemporary Korean Art	2468 (001)	Yeonsoo Chee	Tues 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course introduces 20th and 21st century Korean through major themes, including the introduction of Western art, the unique formation of Korean Modernism, the Avant-garde art movement, people?s art, feminist art, and the globalization of the Korean art scene. We also address Korean artists working internationally and major thematic Korean art exhibitions held in America. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1925	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
Media Art Histories and Genealogies	2513 (001)	James Connolly	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description An introduction presents an overview of the academic field known as Media Art Histories as well as the specific genealogies of relevant academic disciplines (i.e. of Film Art, Video Art, New Media Art & both filmic and digital Experimental Animation) as well as genealogies of specific media technologies (i.e. cameras, computers and software; electric lights, radio and sound; chemical, magnetic, and digital forms of storage and the industrial and capitalized structures that they require). These interwoven histories of shared theory/practices are investigated in relationship to independent/experimental/art media in contemporary cultures by asking: How do artists develop methods to work with, against, and around these techno-social forms? Readings will include Kittler, Zelenski, Grau, Gunning, Gaudreault, Musser, Schivelbusch, Auge, Adorno, Kluge, and Krackauer. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2236	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Theory Location MacLean 1307
The History Of Furniture	2542 (001)	Joseph Socki	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course is a comprehensive survey of the history of furniture, including relevant information on residential architecture, the decorative arts and interior design, from the Neolithic Era until the Twenty-First Century. Special attention is given to the developments that have remained most influential within furniture design today, with particular emphasis on the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical eras, revivalism in the Nineteenth Century, early Modernism in the Arts & Crafts and Art Nouveau movements, Art Deco, the Bauhaus and the International Style, Mid-Century Modernism, Late Modernism and Postmodernism. Through extensive lectures and readings, special focus in this class is devoted to the relationships between furniture and societal customs throughout history, the rise of furniture?s status as a fine art during the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical periods, the influence of industrialization, mass production and new technologies and materials on furniture manufacturing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, furniture?s role in helping to create and define architectural space within interiors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the role of individual narratives in developing unique identities and meanings for furniture throughout history. Students will complete a series of in-class exams along with a final research assignment analyzing a single object chosen from the Art Institute?s furniture collection. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1025	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
Climate Fiction	2588 (001)	Shawn Smith, Oliver Sann	Tues 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM In Person
Description Science fiction films imagine futures that often comment on the failures of the present. In recent years, “clif-fi,” or science fiction about climate change, has become an increasingly popular sub-genre, and some historical films have been newly understood within this framework. This class will study a wide range of historical and contemporary cli-fi films, including international films, experimental films, and blockbusters, in order to understand how they encourage us to see the escalating crisis of climate change. Each week a film will be screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller, Australia); Snowpiercer (2013, Bong Joon-ho, South Korea); Neptun Frost (2021, Saul Williams, Rwanda); Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan) or The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich, USA), to name a few. Students will be expected to read essays before class, attend film screenings, participate in conversations and other tasks. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2300	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Theory Location Gene Siskel Film Center 203
Climate Fiction	2588 (001)	Shawn Smith, Oliver Sann	Tues 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM In Person
Description Science fiction films imagine futures that often comment on the failures of the present. In recent years, “clif-fi,” or science fiction about climate change, has become an increasingly popular sub-genre, and some historical films have been newly understood within this framework. This class will study a wide range of historical and contemporary cli-fi films, including international films, experimental films, and blockbusters, in order to understand how they encourage us to see the escalating crisis of climate change. Each week a film will be screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015, George Miller, Australia); Snowpiercer (2013, Bong Joon-ho, South Korea); Neptun Frost (2021, Saul Williams, Rwanda); Princess Mononoke (1997, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan) or The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich, USA), to name a few. Students will be expected to read essays before class, attend film screenings, participate in conversations and other tasks. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2300	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Theory Location Gene Siskel Film Center 203
History of Film Animation	2598 (001)	James Trainor	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course covers the history of animated film, from its pre-cinematic beginnings to the beginning of the television era (ca. 1960). It traces the development of the Hollywood studio cartoon, along with parallel developments in European and Japanese animation and experimental and abstract works. Special emphasis is given to the evolution of formal animation techniques and their role in the shaping of the animation aesthetic. Much attention is given to the groundbreaking work of Disney, the Fleischer studio, and the cartoons of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones. European animators are represented by Lotte Reiniger, Oskar Fischinger, and other experimenters. All films are screened chronologically, with a mix of short works and a handful of features. There are weekly readings on the history of animation; a ten-page paper; and a final multiple-choice exam. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1026	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 1307
History Of Performance	2610 (001)	Daniel Merkle	Mon 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This course surveys performance as art throughout the Modern and Postmodern periods?including contemporary and non-Western incarnations?and covers roughly the last one hundred fifty years. Areas of historical and theoretical focus include the philosophy of performance, ethnography, feminism, and the interface of performance with film, video, dance, sculpture, theater, technology, and popular culture. Movements like Futurism, Dada, and Fluxus are explored alongside themes like endurance, performance in everyday life, the culture wars and censorship, performance and AIDS, and postcolonial uses of performance. Key figures such as Carolee Schneemann and Marina Abramovic are analyzed through comparison of documentaries about their work. Any number of seminal performance pieces are screened, including ones by Yoko Ono, Linda Montano, Diamanda Galas, Guillermo Gomez-Pe?a & Coco Fusco, and Anna Deavere Smith. Further historical context comes from essays and movies about AIDS activism and Punk & New Wave. Readings include primary sources, artist interviews, C. Carr's reviews, and noted works in Performance Studies from Richard Schechner, Peggy Phelan, Amelia Jones, and others. Students will attend two performances and write reviews, an annotated bibliography assignment provides opportunity to explore historical and non-western performance topics, and there will be much discussion. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1058	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality Location MacLean 707
20th Century Photography	2622 (001)	Alice Maggie Hazard	Thurs 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description In 1839 a new means of visual representation was announced to a startled world: photography. Although the medium was immediately and enthusiastically embraced by the public at large, photographers spent decades experimenting with techniques and debating the representational nature of this new invention. This course focuses on the more recent history of this revolutionary medium. From the technological advancements that characterized the rise of photography in the commercial world during the 20th century, and the acknowledgement of photography as an artistic medium in its own right, to the digital revolution and its social media applications, we will consider the technological, economic, political, and artistic histories of photography through selected works of art and seminal critical texts. This course considers photography in a global context. We focus on seminal texts and images in order to explore ethical, commercial, artistic, and political issues that make photography essentially important to our contemporary visual culture. The course explores broad range of photographic practices, techniques, and approaches including the work of Hannah Hoch, Martha Rosler, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Dawoud Bey, Gordon Parks, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Shirin Neshat, Wolfgang Tillmans and many more. We regularly visit the collections of AIC and MCoP to enrich our class discussions with private print viewings and exhibition critiques. Students are expected to share an image of their choice in response to the assigned weekly reading. These images are used in class discussion. There also is a final paper, a final presentation, and an in-class test. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2113	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 707
Introduction to Video Art	2670 (001)	Lisa M Zaher	Wed 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online
Description This course is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to the history of video art from its emergence in the late 1960s through our present moment. Students will examine key works and the major historical, cultural, and aesthetic influences on the form. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2102	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Digital Communication Location Online
History of Modern Graphic Design	2730 (001)	Michael Golec	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This general survey of graphic design between the 19th and 20th centuries maps the relationships between graphic design and various commercial and cultural institutions under the broad category of the modern. Students study the issues and problems that faced designers, their clients, and their audiences, in the negotiation of commercial and social changes. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and museum visits, the course examines the cultural, social, economic, political, industrial, and technological forces that have influenced the history of graphic design. Course work includes object analysis assignments, research paper, and mid-term and final exams. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1738	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Graphic Design Location MacLean 707
Art Crit:Write for Mag/News	2751 (001)	Margaret Hawkins	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Using the works of established critics and writers as models and using the museum and Chicago galleries as subject matter, students learn to write concise reviews and essays. Class time is spent discussing art, assigned readings, and students? writing. Students are required to turn in one short written work at the beginning of each class. The goal of the course is to develop students? powers of observation, clarity of language and ability to form and defend opinions about works of art. Readings include Kimmelman, Berger, Schjeldahl, Hickey, Lippard, Barnet, Fried, Wolfe. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1060	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 203
Writing Art History	2900 (001)	Annie Bourneuf	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description The main aim of this intensive course is to learn how to write art history by doing it. Each student will write an original research paper investigating a single, particularly compelling object of her choosing in scaffolded stages over the course of the entire semester, while drawing on a range of library and museum resources and responding to constructive criticism from the teacher and from peers. The course guides students to pose generative questions of their objects, to find and analyze sources, and to make persuasive arguments. We will also at times study the study of art, examining the history of the museum as a framework for such study, and reflecting on as well as using some key analytical moves often used by art historians. We will not only study statements by scholars reflecting on their own methods, but also exemplars of analysis, which we will in turn take apart to figure out how to do such analysis ourselves. While this course is required for the BA in Art History and BFA with Art History Thesis, any undergraduate who wants to write art history is warmly welcome. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Must be a sophomore to enroll.	Class Number 1934	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1427
The Black Atlantic	3012 (001)	Melanie Herzog	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Where is the Black Atlantic? What does it look, smell, taste, and feel like? How does it color our world? This class explores the visual and cultural history of the Black Atlantic?a phrase used to define the relationship between dissonant geographical locations that were forged into relationship with each other through the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We will forge an understanding of how vision, texture, touch, sound, and color owe their meanings through the Middle Passage and its production of arts of the Black Atlantic. Crucial to this class is the artwork of practitioners like Jacob Lawrence, Soly Cisse, AfriCOBRA, Aubrey Williams, Faustin Linyekula, Yinka Shonibare, and Renee Green. We will focus primarily on the visual history and cultural impact of the Middle Passage as discussed through the writings of Afro-Caribbean, West African, Black American, and Black British scholars. We will work with concepts like ?native? visual forms, the coloniality of painting, Negritude, and the anticolonial imagination. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2277	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Politics and Activisms Location Lakeview - 205
New Cultures of Work	3014 (001)	Jefferson Dakota Brown	Fri 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Starting from a historical survey of socialist, feminist, and black radical critiques, this course explores the intensification of work in the 21st century. Course texts trace continuity and change in working conditions through (1) empirical studies and testimonials; (2) theoretical analysis and interpretation; and (3) depictions in art, writing, and film. Topics include waged and unwaged labor, automation and deskilling, and the growing precariousness of employment contracts. The course closes with a consideration of recent debates on creative work, care work, universal basic income, and “fully automated luxury communism.” Assignments include brief but regular written responses and a final paper. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1070	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Digital Communication, Economic Inequality & Class Location MacLean 920
Latinx Art and Visual Culture	3020 (01S)	Deanna Ledezma	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course examines the dynamism and complexities of Latinx artistic and cultural production in the United States from the mid-twentieth century to the present. An imperfect yet ultimately generative identifier, Latinx is a gender-neutral term for people of Latin American and/or Caribbean birth or descent living in the United States. In addition to studying the formation of Latinx identities among artistic and creative practitioners, the course will study the context-specific histories that have shaped the aesthetics, ideological frameworks, and socially engaged practices of Latinx art and visual culture. We will read a variety of texts and publications that debate, conceptualize, and critique Latinx art and visual culture, including academic essays and book chapters, interviews and dialogues, exhibition catalogues, primary documents and manifestos, artists’ books, and zines. Throughout the class, we will investigate issues concerning race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, intersectionality, migration and diaspora, social and political activism, family and kinship, religion and spirituality, art markets, and cultural reclamation. Students can expect to complete weekly reading responses, a midterm exam, a 3-5-page essay on an exhibition or artwork, a final research paper, and a class presentation about their final paper topic. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1062	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Community & Social Engagement Location MacLean 920
Lit Art: Literary styles of describing, interpreting, and explaining works of art.	3025 (001)	David Raskin	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This undergraduate seminar is for all types of writers (critics, creative writers, and scholars) who want to analyze the dimensions of literary and scholarly forms of description, interpretation, and explanation. Poetry, short stories, personal essays, passages from novels, and art-history articles will form the ground for weekly encounters with works of art in the Art Institute of Chicago, as we compare what we read to what we encounter in person. Each class meeting has a tripartite structure, as we compare a literary engagement with a work of art, evaluate a scholarly argument about the same piece or its creator, and personally engage the same or similar work in the Art Institute of Chicago. We will respond to the works of art currently on display, and, as warranted, pair the appropriate scholarship with creative works by writers such as Ada Limón, Victoria Chang, Hilton Als, Diane Seuss, Mark Doty, Hanif Abdurraqib, Wayne Koestenbaum, Vivek Shraya, Cris Kraus, Ben Lerner, Teju Cole, Eileen Myles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Paisley Rekdal, Zadie Smith, Jeffrey Yang, and John Ashbery, among others. Students will write concise analyses of every reading assignment plus a weekly follow-up reflection as preparation for a final hybrid research paper that situates their personal moment of encounter with a work of art in the Art Institute of Chicago within art-historical scholarship. The goal is for students to probe their personal experiences with art for wider cultural implications. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2328	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Museum Studies Location Lakeview - 202
Africa and West Asia: Decolonization and Art	3031 (001)	Tina Barouti	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online
Description What is artistic decolonization? How can art be used as a tool for decolonizing culture? In this course, students will explore ways of approaching these questions through specific case studies that look at artistic practices of Africa and West Asia (Middle East), particularly from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Together we will examine how colonialism affected fine arts pedagogy and the response of visual artists, both modern and contemporary, to this violent encounter. We will analyze how artists engaged with multidisciplinary networks working across “non-Western”contexts to reclaim their identity from colonizers and to envision alternative futures. Students will explore how art is intertwined with socio-political issues and how it can amplify Indigenous, feminine, and queer perspectives. Each week will typically focus on an artistic group or a country-specific case study from Africa and West Asia (Middle East). There will be several guest lectures by curators, academics, and artists. Course work will include written weekly responses to assigned readings, presentations, and a final essay or exhibition project proposal. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1748	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Museum Studies Location Online
Baroque, Decolonized: Image/Music/Text, 1400-1800	3151 (001)	Maria Carrion	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM All Online
Description Ideas of nature that formed globally between 1400 and 1800 intersect with the emergence of the Baroque, and represent a profound field of force configuring human-environmental relations into the present. In many ways, we’re haunted by the shocks and aftershocks of this period: colonization, enslavement, extraction, genocide, pandemic, and mass death reshaped the world. This course provides students with an interdisciplinary point of departure for considering these histories through visual art, literature, and music. Readings and object engagements will vary, but will begin with critical theory oriented towards contemporary concerns but that parallel the historical arc of the course, namely Mark Payne's Hontology: Depressive Anthropology and the Shame of Life (Zer0 Books, 2018). Artists and works studied and that we will study together will focus on those represented in the Art Institute collection, and include Salvator Rosa, Peter Paul Rubens, and Caravaggio, alongside the music of Jacopo Peri and dramatic works of Shakespeare. Yet the course expands the focus of Baroque inquiry, as less a movement than way of thinking at the threshold of creativity, emotion, and awe, to work with diverse contemporaneous modes of indigenous expression in the Hemispheric Americas, including Nahua art produced in the lands now known as Mexico and Pueblo and Diné (Navajo) art created or that otherwise indexes the period under consideration. Course work will include a journal of visual analysis; four one-page essays; an annotated research bibliography; and final seminar paper of eight to ten pages. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1069	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity Location Online
The invisible Cinema: Asian American Cultural Diaspora	3153 (001)	Tatsu Aoki	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description A marginal cinema and history; a course designed for an undergraduate level art history. This course looks at Asian American Cinema experience and historical development as Asian American ethnic cultural diaspora and visionally representations. From political to imaginary, this course will look at works of Asian American representation through cinema and examine the Asian American & pacific Islander American experience as told though cinematic expression such as documentary, short films, feature length narratives, experimental films and mainstream Hollywood releases. Along with weekly viewings of films and excerpts, the course will also discuss Asian American collective identity and social issues, historical background, economy of film production, racism, negative stereotyping, Hollywood whitewashing, cultural appropriation, and media activism. Historically significant artists, filmmakers and producers will be presented for weekly discussion. Some of the artists introduced in the class are: the matinee idol Sessue Hayakawa (1889?1973), to Anna May Wong (1905?1961), Winifred Eaton Reeve, Renee Tajima, Steven Okazak, Wayne Wang, Kelly Saeteurn, Quentin Lee, Justin Lin and others. Weekly viewings of films and journals, One Midterm assignment and one final Paper. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1039	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Community & Social Engagement, Playwriting/Screenwriting Location MacLean 1307
History of Manga	3173 (001)	Ryan Holmberg	Mon 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM All Online
Description This course offers a survey of the history of manga (Japanese comics) from its premodern predecessors to the present. Beginning with narrative picture scrolls in the medieval period, it will touch on forms of humor and political cartooning in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before moving onto multi-page stories, serials, and standalone books within the serially paneled comics medium. Related developments in non-Japanese comics and media like film, animation, illustration, and painting will also be considered. Among the major artists to be considered in this course are: Hokusai, Tagawa Suiho, Tezuka Osamu, Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Shirato Sanpei, Tsuge Yoshiharu, Hagio Moto, Otomo Katsuhiro, Takahashi Rumiko, and Tagame Gengoro. Students will be required to complete weekly readings, including translated manga and historical/interpretive essays, in addition to occasional reading responses, a research paper, and a final exam. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1952	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Books and Publishing, Comics and Graphic Novels, Illustration Location Online
Art of the 1980s	3310 (001)	Simon Anderson	Wed 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description In assessing currents and concepts in contemporary art, this course examines the various elements in all media that have come to define postmodernism. The course places special emphasis on women artists during the 1980s, the European contribution to contemporary art, and the exploration of recent art in Chicago. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2104	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 620
Modern and Contemporary Native American Art	3382 (001)	Risa Puleo	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description In this course, we will explore the ways in which the idea of persistence might be said to characterize modern and contemporary Native American and Indigenous arts practices--including performance, film, video, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and photography, among others. The artists we will examine employ a range of tactics to engage social, cultural, economic, and political relationships as they occupy and articulate Indigenous worldviews and systems of knowledge that are often incommensurable with Settler structures and ideologies. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2358	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class Location MacLean 112
'China/Avant-Garde': Contemporary Chinese Art since the 1970s	3469 (001)	Jennifer Dorothy Lee	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description What counts as ?avant-garde?? Can a work of art be radically new and traditional at the same time? Can it incorporate Western art forms and techniques and still be considered Chinese art? These were questions that Chinese artists coming out of the Cultural Revolution grappled with as they sought to reconcile Chinese artistic traditions and historical realities with Western modern and contemporary art practices. This course takes its name from the seminal 1989 exhibition China/Avant-Garde, which sought to survey the most advanced practices of the day and stake a claim for Chinese avant-garde art in relation to the shifting categories of ?modern,? ?postmodern,? ?contemporary,? ?Eastern,? and ?Western? art. Considering this exhibition and other developments from the late 1970s to the present, we will chronologically study roughly four decades of art and exhibition practices during a period of unprecedented socio-economic, political, and spatial change. We will look at a wide variety of art forms (painting, sculpture, photography, installation, video, performance, conceptual art, socially engaged practices); key exhibitions; and diverse artists including Ai Weiwei, Cai Guo-Qiang, Lu Yang, Song Dong, Xu Bing, Zhang Dali, Zhang Huan, and Yin Xiuzhen, among others. Through weekly lectures, discussions, select readings, and museum visits, students will develop the vocabulary and visual reasoning necessary to analyze a wide variety of challenging artworks, situate them within a historic and theoretical context, and construct informed arguments about them. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2208	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 920
Architecture and Art of the Islamic World	3482 (001)	Maggie Schuster	Tues 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course is a survey covering the major works of architecture and art from the Islamic world. It discusses the architecture of this civilization in greater depth than many surveys of Islamic art, over a period ranging from the beginnings of Islam in the 7th century up to and including the 20th century. Emphasis will be on the major stylistic differences between the building traditions of the Medieval Spain, the Maghreb region, Egypt and Syria, the Seljuq and Ottoman empires in Turkey, Persian and Central Asian architecture, the Mughal empire and lastly Islamic architecture as it has developed in the Far East, in countries such as China, and Malaysia. In addition, the course will also cover the applied arts in Islam, such as ceramics, carving, Oriental carpets, calligraphy and miniature painting. Required work consists of three quizzes and three short research papers of 5-6pages in length each. Two assignments will involve analyzing Arab architecture and non-Arab monuments. The third will cover an area in the decorative arts/painting. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1055	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 920
Modern European Architecture and Theory: 1890-1965	3502 (01S)	Timothy Wittman	Tues 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This course surveys the development of commercial, institutional and residential architecture and interiors in Europe from 1890 to 1965. It examines significant movements and individuals that shaped modern architecture's history through an analysis of the theoretical literature that accompanied the built forms now understood as 'modern.' Seminal texts analyzed include those by Morris, van de Velde, Loos, Gropius, van Doesburg, Le Corbusier, Aalto, Rowe, Stirling and Rossi, among others. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1073	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 620
Dress and Society	3567 (001)	Sandra Adams	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online
Description Dress and Society examines, questions, researches and discusses many interconnections of clothing, cultures and fashions. We will focus upon syntheses occurring from the meeting of dress as individual self-presentation with diverse global, cultural, historic and contemporary contexts. Controversies, ethics, fashion biographies and recently-emerged expressions of human dress and adornment will be explored. Educated opinions will be furthered through museum exhibition visits, visiting artists' talks, critical readings on fashion/social concerns, and weekly viewing of current media articles and images. A Fashion film screening and assigned books on fashion artists' lives will be included. Assignments will include self-introductory illustrated presentation and 2 page museum response essay, fashion book and article readings, concise 'Fashion Now' Media Reports presented weekly, collaborative spoken and illustrated Fashion Book Panel presentations and a final 10 page 'Educated Opinion' Research Paper expanding upon course readings and further research. In-class discussions will occur every week and are integral to this course. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1027	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality Location Online
Surface Tensions: Taxidermy and Contemporary Art	3652 (001)	Giovanni Aloi	Thurs 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description Taxidermy became the most important tool of knowledge of natural history museums during the Victorian period when it fascinated audiences with its hyperrealist aura. Yet, it was never considered a form of fine art. Today taxidermy has entered the gallery space, but not on the merit of its accurate realism. The opposite is true: unrealistic taxidermy is the symptom of a difficult relationship with nature and alterity that marks today's ecological and capitalist global crises. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1931	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
How To Tell The Difference Between Clement Greenberg and CBGB: Modernism vs. Rock and Roll	3663 (001)	Seth Kim-Cohen	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description In the mid-1960s, artists and musicians ran away from home, thumbing their collective nose at the structure and security provided by their modernist parents. On the road and in the streets, in dive bars and coffeehouses, on records and off the record, artists and musicians re-wrote not just the rules of art, but the rules that structured values, ideas, and lives. Rock and roll wasn?t just the soundtrack for these changes, but an active participant. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 1745	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1608
Seeing Hitchcock	3685 (001)	Patricia Erens	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description As one of the world's greatest film directors, Alfred Hitchcock is much more than ''the master of suspense. The semester will be devoted to analyzing Hitchcock's' masterworks as well as his major themes, including sin, the transfer of guilt, voyeurism, unconscious impulses, and gay sexuality. In addition, the class will focus on his visual style, film techniques and contributions to the art of cinema, using various critical approaches, such as psychoanalysis and feminist theory. Finally, the class will look at ways Hitchcock's films have influenced other directors, as well as artists across a wide variety of media. Through weekly screenings, lectures and discussions, students will learn how to critique individual works of art. They will be expected to finish two scholarly articles each week and to come to class prepared to discuss both film and readings in small discussion groups. Titles are sure include Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho, among others. Students should expect to produce three major writing assignments during the semester: a midterm exam, a final exam and a final research paper, plus periodic quizzes and response papers. Through weekly screenings, lectures and discussions, students will learn how to critique individual works of art. They will be expected to finish two scholarly articles each week and to come to class prepared to discuss both film and readings in small discussion groups. Titles are sure include Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho, among others. Students should expect to produce three major writing assignments during the semester: a midterm exam, a final exam and a final research paper, plus periodic quizzes and response papers. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2317	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1428
Contemporary Art House Cinema: Fugue States	3818 (001)	Melika Bass	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Through screenings, lectures, and readings, this course will provide students with an introduction to key filmmakers and films of contemporary international art house cinema. In particular, this class will explore feature-length fiction films that revolve --thematically or structurally--around the idea of the psychological fugue state (a form of amnesia), and/or the fugal musical structure of theme-repetition-variation. Films will be screened and discussed in their relation to national cinemas, cultural histories, genre, and primarily, film form. Through their critical writing, students will explore the ways those films and filmmakers utilize formal elements of cinema, narrative, characterization, thematic elements, and ideological perspectives, and demonstrate how those elements are used both for aesthetic purposes and to create meaning within a film Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement	Class Number 2237	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 1307
The Art Market: Contemporary & Historical Perspectives	4014 (001)	Silvia Beltrametti	Fri 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course examines the relationship between art and the market, by exploring the economic, cultural and institutional processes that shape the meaning and value of art. Using examples drawn from the art trade in ancient Rome, collections formed during theRenaissance, art acquired by young aristocrats during their ?Grand Tour?, the market for modern art in the first half of the twentieth century, and the billion dollar contemporary art business with a specific focus on China, this course explores the relationship between artists and patrons, patterns of shifting taste, the role of dealers and the impact of auction houses on art collecting. We will also test the boundaries of the meaning of ?market? by looking at artwork acquired as a consequence of wartime looting, ethnic cleansing, or through forced exchanges. Students willread historical texts and scholarship connecting the process of artistic creation and the trade industry, and engage in the sustained analysis of individual artworks, as well as the market structures in which such artworks were produced and bought. Primary sources will include excerpts from the work of Cicero, Giorgio Vasari, Denis Diderot. Readings will among others include chapters from Georgina Adam, 'The dark side of the BOOM'; Michael Findlay, 'The Value of Art'; Isabella Graw 'High Price'; Olav Velhuis 'Talking Prices'; and, Clare McAndrew, 'The Art Economy'. I will share recorded interviews with arts professionals and collectors - but we will also meet a number of them in person. In-class film screening: the Price of Everything. In-class participation including weekly response comments to the readings (30%); an in-class case study presentation (10%); and a 15 page paper on a selected artwork (60%). Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1048	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Economic Inequality & Class Location MacLean 608
Botanical Revolutions: The Emergence of Plants in Contemporary Art	4021 (001)	Giovanni Aloi	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Plant?s perceived passivity and resilient silence have relegated the vegetal world to the cultural background of human civilization. However, the recent emergence of plants in the gallery space is an invitation to reappraise this relationship at a time of deep ecological and social crisis. This course focuses on plants to unravel histories of colonialism, address gender biases, racial discrimination, and social injustice. We explore how artists and scholars working at the intersection of art, science, philosophy, and indigenous knowledge are rethinking our relationships with plants in order to envision more sustainable and fairer futures. This course proposes a rich, diverse, and multicultural perspective on the many roles plants play in our lives. It inlcudes lectures, close readings, screenings, museum visits, discussions, collaborative coursework, and contributions by Chicago-based organizations working with local communities and plants. The work of scholars and artist Yota Batsaki, Elain Gan, Vivien Sansour, Vandana Shiva, Mogaje Guihu, Anna Tsing, Monica Gagliano, Eduardo Kac, Jamaica Kinkaid, Derek Jarman, Wangari Maathai, Zayaan Khan, Kapwani Kiwanga, Maria Thereza Alves, Shela Sheikh, Michael Marder, Monica Galliano, Rashid Johnson, Uriel Orlow and many more will provide students with a comprehenisve and global and very contemporary perspective on the subject. Coursework includes weekly reading responses, a formal/final research paper, a test, and a presentation. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1065	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class, Art and Science Location MacLean 608
Keywords: Art and Justice	4023 (001)	Risa Puleo	Mon 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This course adopts the form of Raymond Williams?s Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society to build a vocabulary for abolition. Each week, students will be presented with a pair of related terms that occupy different positions on an ideological spectrum or historical continuum. These keywords include: abolition and reform, punishment and restoration, justice and ethics (and aesthetics); chattle slavery and prison slavery; mass incarceration and prison-industrial complex; human and animal; fugitivity and freedom, and more, all the while learning from artists who use their work as an opportunity for intervening into the criminal justice system and reading texts that relate the history of our current justice system and present practical and theoretical alternative to it. We will also consider the difference between assessment and grading in our collective imagining of an abolitionist pedagogy and artistic / art historical practice. The aim of the course is to help students articulate their positions and investments in relation to their own work and social structures. The artists that we will consider in this course include: Josh Begley, Zach Blas, Chandra McCormick and Keith Calhoun, Jamal Cyrus, Chris Burden, Martin Wong, Tirtza Even, Andrea Fraser, Maria Gaspar, Danny Giles, Coco Fusco and Guerillermo Gomez Pena, Suzanne Lacy, Ashley Hunt, Richard Kamler, Titus Kaphar, Kapwani Kiwanga, Autumn Knight, Deana Lawson, Shaun Leonardo, Prison and Neighborhood Art Project, Trevor Paglen, Jenny Polak, Carl Pope, Jr., Laurie Jo Reynolds, Sherrill Roland, Cameron Rowland,Gregory Sale, Dread Scott, Sable Elyse Smith, Tamms Year Ten, and more. The thinkers we will read include: Frank Wilderson, Angela Davis, Sadiya Hartman, Jared Sexton, Fred Moten and Stefano Harney, Denis Childs, Kelly Michelle Lyte, Michelle Alexander, Sylvia Wynters, Shawn Michelle Smith, Elizabeth Alexander, Rashaad Shabazz, Simone Brown, Michel Foucault, Tony Bennett, Douglas Crimp, and more. Assignments center around the ?intervention? as a concept that links academic writing to direct action campaigns. Weekly assignments include identifying the intervention in the week?s reading and generating discussion questions in advance of class. Throughout the semester, students will also write their own definitions of their choice of keywords. Culminating assignments include a presentation and a final paper (12-15 pages). Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2472	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Community & Social Engagement Location MacLean 111
We'll Fix It In Post: Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Posthumanism	4030 (001)	Seth Kim-Cohen	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description What the heck is postmodernism? Why does it matter? This course will provide detailed answers to these questions while also reviewing crucial interventions in related 'posts' such as poststructuralism and posthumanism. We will examine the systems of thought that predate these posts – modernism, structuralism, humanism – in order to identify how and why thinkers and artists felt the need to push past these systems, inventing new ones. We will trace these legacies into our own moment of contested values and malleable truth in order to seek insights into how to live, make, and think in the twenty-first century. This course is reading-heavy and the readings are heavy readings. We will explore the most influential theorizations of the postmodern from writers including Jean-François Lyotard and Frederic Jameson. We will also read the heavy-hitters of poststructuralism and posthumanism. Folks like: Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Donna Harraway, Gilles Deleuze, Katherine Hayles, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Julia Kristeva. Course work will include weekly reading responses, intensive class discussion, and a final paper. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2324	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class Location Lakeview - 1427
Art and Spirituality	4039 (001)	Donato Loia	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description Throughout human history, a pervasive belief in spirits, gods, and divine forces has profoundly influenced cultures, leaving an indelible mark on their customs and artistic expressions. This course adopts a broad approach, anchored in the selection of artifacts and artworks from the AIC collection. These pieces will serve as portals into a spectrum of theistic and nontheistic spiritual traditions. We will place particular emphasis on sections of the AIC dedicated to the Arts of Africa, Arts of the Americas, and Arts of Asia. Additionally, we will delve into the evolving concept of spirituality in art from the 20th century onwards, with particular attention given to the early 20th century (1900-1950). The culminating project for this course entails the creation of a 10-15 page research paper. Throughout the semester, students will also engage in concise object-based written exercises and participate in museum group presentations. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2473	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Community & Social Engagement, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies, Museum Studies Location MacLean 608
Top:Gilles Deleuze	4060 (001)	Patrick Durgin	Thurs 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course offers an introduction to the thought of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995). Deleuze was one of the 20th century?s most influential critical theorists: almost single-handedly revising the reputation of Nietzsche in France; critiquing psychoanalysis in its postmodern heyday; and devising new approaches to ontology, leftist political theory, and aesthetic theory. To this day, his concepts are frequently deployed in critical theory of all kinds, especially those concepts he developed in collaboration with activist and psychoanalyst Felix Guattari. This course provides an introduction to the reading of Deleuze?s work. The goal of the course is to familiarize you with the contours of his career and acquaint you with his peculiar style of writing. It also acquaints you with a few subsequent elaborations on and critiques of Deleuzian thought. We read Deleuze's book on Francis Bacon's paintings, his book on Henri Bergson, and also excerpts from A Thousand Plateaus, Logic of Sense, and What is Philosophy? We also read critical responses and elaborations of Deleuzian thought. Expect a steady, dense, and provocative reading schedule. Students complete a reading journal, a major term paper, and a collaborative presentation on intersections between contemporary art practice and Deleuze's philosophy. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1054	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 1428
Top: LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Production	4060 (002)	Adam J Greteman	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This studio seminar is centered around intergenerational queer art-making within the context of The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, which is a partnership between The Senior Services Program at The Center on Halsted and faculty members Adam Greteman and Karen Morris of SAIC. This spring course is run as a workshop in which students focus on intergenerational creative production with LGBTQ+ elders. Classes will be held at both SAIC and Center on Halsted. Students and elders will share a meal together after class meetings at Center on Halsted, and take at least one field trip together. A range of artists, works, scholars, and activist groups will be introduced during the first third of the course as students get to know one another and the purpose of the course. This will potentially include the following: Marlon Riggs, Lesbian Avengers, Chase Joynt, ACT-UP, Ron Athey, S.T.A.R., Paul Preciado, E. Patrick Johnson, Mickalene Thomas, and others. Over the course of the latter 2/3rd of the semester, students collaborate with LGBTQ+ elders in small groups to conceive and produce work related to LGBTQ+ experiences, histories, and issues. Each small group decides on topic(s) and medium(s) while working with the instructors to create a list of relevant readings, films, and/or podcasts they will engage as part of the research and production process. Over the course of the semester, students collaborate with LGBTQ+ elders in small groups to conceive and produce work related to LGBTQ+ experiences, histories, and issues. Final projects might take the form of visual art, video, oral history, photography, writing, a podcast, or something else. This work will be showcased on the project’s website (generationliberation.com) and have the potential to be expanded into a range of other educational resources. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2309	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 206
Racial Politics of the US Built Environment, 1619 - 1787	4125 (001)	Alberto Ortega Trejo	Tues 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This seminar examines the formative impact of the Middle Passage and settler colonialism on the shape of the built environment in the territories that came to be the United States. Focusing on the early modern period from the arrival of the first enslaved workers in colonial Virginia to the formation of a new republic founded on the institution of slavery, we examine how the design of buildings and landscapes was inextricably linked to the brutalization of Black Lives and the theft of Indigenous lands. Readings vary but typically engage key sites of cultural and political conflict like plantations, and Indigenous conceptions of built form and land. Discussions chiefly focus on Black and Indigenous spaces and perspectives on space. Assignments vary but generally introduce students to material culture approaches to the study of the built environment, as well as feminist and BIPOC approaches to analyzing the cultural and political meanings of architectural form. Students should expect to produce a research paper or equivalent over the course of the semester. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2364	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Class, Race, Ethnicity, Economic Inequality & Class Location Lakeview - 1427
Sem:Trans* Pictures	4225 (001)	Mickey R Mahoney	Wed 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online
Description This seminar explores the history and culture of transgender and gender non-conforming communities and identities, with a particular focus on moving image work encompassing cinema, television, and new media. Themes and approaches include transfeminist, postgenderist, and queer/trans theories which challenge essentialized notions of gender and sexuality. The course consists of weekly discussions based on screenings of moving image work, as well as critical and theoretical texts that investigate identity, embodiment, technology, and representation as they relate to trans issues. Some of the scholars and artists we will study include Susan Stryker, David Valentine, Zachary I. Nataf, C. Riley Snorton, Paul B. Preciado, Helen Hok-Sze Leung, Sam Feder, Lilly Wachowski, Chase Joynt, Tourmaline, Wu Tsang, Silas Howard, Angelo Madsen Minax, Jules Rosskam, Annalise Ophelian, Zackary Drucker. Course work will include in-class discussions, reading assignments, reading/screening response essays, a midterm critical response essay, and a final research paper. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1028	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Theory Location Online
Art, Media, and Politics in the Weimar Republic	4337 (001)	Annie Bourneuf	Fri 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description In the fraught context of Germany between the end of the First World War and Hitler's rise to power, arguments about politics often turned into arguments about media, and vice versa. Artists and writers saw recently developed media such as film, radio, and the photographically illustrated magazine as transforming not only art, but also politics, sense perception, and the nature of subjectivity. In this course, we study the work of artists associated with Expressionism, Dada, and New Objectivity to understand the relations among aesthetics, politics, and new media at this pivotal moment. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2110	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 920
Mass Demonstration: Art, Politics, and Collective Action in Asia	4452 (001)	Jennifer Dorothy Lee	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description After the death of Mao, protests practices that came to define China's 'Peking Spring' in the late 1970s served not only to articulate everyday citizens' collective demands for new polity, but also to forge their emergent expressions of selfhood and society through art. This course interrogates the ways in which such aesthetic formations--exhibitions of art, societies of painting and photography, poetic performance, documentary and film production--arise from the spontaneity of collective action in the midst of civil unrest and cold war (Hong Kong), or in the aftermaths of revolution and global conflict (Korea, PRC). Examining the simultaneity and mutual constitutions of art and politics that come to define East Asian modernity at key moments throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the course will consider the contradictory and conflicted functions of new art as a medium of social and cultural transformation. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2207	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 608
Asian Art Now	4496 (001)	Nora Annesley Taylor	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description With the rise of contemporary art exhibitions featuring Asian artists in Europe and the United States, not to mention the increased visibility of Asian artists in biennales and triennials around the world, this course will offer students the opportunity to examine more closely the latest trends in art practices around Asia including India, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In order to make the class as current as possible, reading material will be drawn heavily from Asian art magazines, web sites and exhibition catalogues. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1739	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 608
Better Homes and Gardens: Vernacular Art Environments	4512 (001)	Annalise Flynn	Fri 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course explores the rich genre of vernacular art environments' combinations of art, architecture and/or landscape architecture, including religious grottos, spiritual, devotional and mystical sites, gardens, ephemeral yard shows, architectural inventions, expressions of loneliness and survival, artist-built sites of conscience, homes fully transformed, artist's museums, and other created spaces that are site and life specific. The course examines historical and contemporary art environments and issues impacting art from beyond the academic mainstream and its evolving definitions, environments in their social, political and cultural contexts, home and landscape as studios, the viability and longevity of specific sites, and site preservation. Artists explored in this class include women, people of color, economically disadvantaged makers, farmers/rural dwellers, urban dwellers, and immigrants, among others. Artists' sites examined range from Sam Rodia's Watts Towers, Emery Blagdon's Healing Machine, Kea Tawana's Ark, to Ferdinand Cheval's Palais Ideal, and many more. Lectures are supported by video, audio, and a broad range of readings. Developing an awareness and appreciation for vernacular expressions in architecture, architectural cladding and ornament, garden ornament and yard shows, and other ordinary or beyond-ordinary visual arrangements in our shared, adorned environment is a subtext. Students complete readings and exploration and research projects. Add: Sign up for this class requires instructor consent and is by application to Professor Nicholas Lowe. For more details please email nlowe1@saic.edu. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2478	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Museum Studies Location Lakeview - 1507
Anti-Art	4520 (001)	Simon Anderson	Thurs 3:30 PM - 6:15 PM In Person
Description This course considers attacks on art. After brief introductions to ancient & modern iconoclasm, censorship, and cultural suppression the focus is on the more recent phenomena of anti-art as Art. After dada, the idea reoccurred?notably in the 1960s?and sporadically since. Various art-inspired assaults on different aspects of culture are examined; the Situationist International, Fluxus, No!Art, GAAG; strikes by artists in Europe, America, or on international Mail-art circuits; and other less overt attacks on traditional art modes, such as those witnessed in punk and post-punk collaborations. 'Anti-art' also involves new methods of creating, displaying, distributing, considering, critiquing, researching and writing about art: all these avenues will be open to investigation. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2108	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 203
Data, Aesthetics, and Technical Images	4547 (001)	Michael Golec	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description The historian of cultural technologies Mario Carpo characterizes technical drawing systems as instances of data compression, or the translation of three-dimensional objects and spaces into two-dimensional figures. This course addresses Carpo's proposal by examining modern techniques of data compression operative in forms of mechanical drawings, plans for infrastructure, diagrams for assembly, and visualizations of statistical data in forms of charts, graphs, and thematic maps (to name just a few examples). In addition to historical analysis of material techniques for the creation of technical images and data visualizations, the class will examine cultural meanings of an array of informational artifacts, including, but not limited to: early modern printed machine books; encyclopedias of the mechanical arts; engineering drawings from small-scale industrial products to large-scale infrastructural systems; patent drawings; pictographic statistical charts; data portraits; statistical schematics; time-lines; and urban cartography. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1744	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Digital Communication Location MacLean 707
The Shape of Contemporary Dress	4562 (001)	Gillion Carrara	Fri 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description Class content begins with the start of the youth quake of the 1960s and continues until the current day of designers? oeuvres, expanding to such arenas as video art, performance and creation of merchandise. On occasion, a select number of students will participate with an end of year presentation together with students of the Department of Fashion Design. This course is a chronological inquiry into fashion and dress and the relationship to a heritage of the visual arts, politics, literature, gender, and equality. Students will gain recognition of primary sources for analysis relating to art and dress in the Ryerson and Flaxman libraries. The SAIC Fashion Resource Center is a fully comprehensive venue as resource for any project. While individually and as a class, conversations are immediate, since surrounded by publications, garments and related materials in the F R C Study room and Wardrobe. Six assignments progress from the knowledge of history to lives and practices of global designers. Of significance is an exercise of garment examination in the F R C Wardrobe resulting in museum like documentation permitting students to learn vocabulary and accurate assessment. Emphasis is placed on students mastering the skills of writing, presenting visual arts and oral presentation. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2105	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Costume Design Location MacLean 920
Walk That Way	4611 (001)	Lori Waxman	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Walking is the most obvious thing in the world. We all do it. In fact it is a primary way to differentiate human beings from other sentient creatures. And yet, for the past century, artists have made revolutionary, romantic and aesthetic use of this most commonplace gesture. In this class, we consider groups like the Surrealists, the Situationist International and Fluxus, all of whom walked in cities as a means of making vanguard art. We explore the flaneurs who came before them and contemporary artists like Francis Alys and Janet Cardiff, who came after. We look outside urban limits too, at Richard Long and the long history of Romantic walkers and traditional nomads that preceded him. Course work includes a midterm exam and a final paper?and maybe, just maybe, we will go on a couple of walks ourselves. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1066	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 301
The Street: Site and Subject in Photography	4622 (001)	Alice Maggie Hazard	Tues 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This seminar considers the role of the city street in postwar American and contemporary photography and the ways in which such an approach might complicate our understanding of this genre. We will examine: key historical texts; exhibitions like Street and Studio, Strangers, and Bystander that have shaped the definition of street photography to date; and the critical practices of artists (e.g. Robert Adams, Sophie Calle, Hans Haacke, Zoe Leonard, Fred McDarrah, Ed Ruscha) and scholars (e.g. Michel de Certeau, Rosalyn Deutsche, Louis Kaplan) whose works may offer alternatives to that history. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 2315	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 301
Advanced History Of Video	4670 (001)	Chris Reeves	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online
Description This course allows students to develop more sophisticated ways to make sense of the intersection of video art, television studies, and contemporary art practices, and to place video art within the larger sphere of art history. To strengthen students' abilities to understand dialectical thinking as currently applied by art historians, the course includes writings by Thomas Crow, T. J. Clark, and Terry Eagleton, as well as the work of critical theorists working more exclusively in television studies and popular culture. A variety of work is screened each week, from television talk shows to European avant-garde, as well as low budget, grass roots video projects. The class explores how cultural differences are played out in current video art practices in Europe, Central America, and South America. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1732	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Online
Pop Culture Theory: Adorno 'Culture Industry'/Art as Social Experience	4804 (001)	Christopher Cutrone	Fri 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Adorno is well known for his scathing critique of 'culture industry.' But what is usually missed is that Adorno's critique of 20th Century cultural forms was dialectical, concerned with their potential for both emancipation and domination, and was aimed equally at modern practices of 'hermetic' art as well as those of 'popular' culture, anticipating issues in 'post'-modernist cultural criticism. In this course we address the Frankfurt School critical theory of experience and aesthetic subjectivity in modern social life in context, reading works by Benjamin, Kracauer and Marcuse, and then focusing on works by Adorno in considering the analytical and explanatory as well as critical power of certain enduring if problematic and contested categories such as 'commodification' and 'democratization' for a dialectic of modern forms of art and culture as forms of social subjectivity. Course assignments include in-class team presentations on the readings, a midterm paper and a final paper. Prerequisites Prerequisite: Art History Survey Requirement OR Graduate Student	Class Number 1032	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics Location MacLean 707
Senior Thesis II	4900 (001)	David Raskin	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This class is the second component of a two-semester class that equips senior students earning a BAAH or a BFA with Art History Thesis with the skills to develop an advanced art historical research project, in this case: the senior thesis. It provides writers working on independent research projects with structure, guidance, constructive criticism, and a supportive peer community for discussion of their work in progress. Writers meet regularly with the instructor and their classmates to develop their ideas, address problems, and steer their projects to completion. The course combines individual mentoring of students as they engage in the sustained research and writing of a capstone project, with exposing students to a range of art historical professions and coaching students to prepare for careers in art history. The focus of this development from students to professionals, is both on the ethics of professional conduct in the field of art history as well as the content of various art historical careers. To this end, students will research, prepare, and submit one career-related written proposal, such as graduate school application, residency application, conference presentation proposal, publication submission or other. Prerequisites ARTHI 4899 & 3900 course	Class Number 1935	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 501
The Image, Power and Difference	5002 (001)	Lisa M Zaher	Tues 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM All Online
Description Moving from the 19th to the 21st centuries, this course explores various social, political, and cultural uses of visual media in the construction of categories of difference and normativity, with an emphasis on photographic media and moving images more broadly, while presenting an array of creative strategies devised to evade and subvert these exercises of power. The course explores the ways in which visual media is complicit in the production of a wide array of forms of difference, and to the normalization of oppression and inequality. Highlighting key moments in the history of art and visual culture, we will confront head-on the intersecting violences of white supremacy, heteronormativity, misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, and the many other ideologies of oppression, exclusion, and devaluation. Prerequisites This course is primarily for incoming MFA students, and students should only take this survey once.	Class Number 2017	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Online
Contemporary Histories: Fiber	5014 (001)	L Vinebaum	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course locates current practice and discourse in fiber and material studies within a contemporary history of the field. Focusing mainly on the period from the 1950s onward, the course emphasizes important moments in the emergence of Fiber as a field of practice and theory, considered in relation to other contemporary movements in art, politics, global movements, and theory. Rather than explore the contemporary histories of fiber using a linear or temporal progression, the class moves and makes connections across time and place. The class considers fiber's at times marginal status within art and art history, and it also examines and seeks to rectify dominant, Eurocentric narratives both inside and outside of fiber, notably by critically interrogating the fiber's dominant, eurocentric 'canon'. Key themes discussed in the class include colonialisms and colonial violence's, decolonization, 'modernism', 'abstraction', genders, feminisms, labor, globalization, activist and participatory practices, and digital production. readings will vary but will include texts by authors like César Paternosto, Scott Lauria Morgennsen, María Lugones, Lisa Nakamur, Nicole Archer, Walter Mignolo, Margaret Villanueva, Paul Sharrad, Sarah Cheang, Patrick Wolfe, Mary Frame, Fo Wilson, • The Combahee River Collective, Andrea Smith, Okwui Enwezor, and Gelare Khoshgozaran. Visual examples will include numerous works by early fiber artists, contemporary works by artists working in and with fiber,and historical textiles from around the world. Coursework typically includes reading several assigned texts every week, leading and participating in group discussions, weekly reading prompts, a midterm project proposal, and a final text-based project.	Class Number 2228	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Class, Race, Ethnicity Location Lakeview - 203
One Black Artist	5023 (001)	Donato Loia	Tues 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description Quite often, the monographic study has not been afforded to Black artists. In this course, we will do a semester-long 'deep dive' on a single Black American contemporary artist. The choice of artist will change semester to semester. We will read existing studies on a single artist with specific attention to books, articles, and associative literature that helps us unpack the artist's approach to their aesthetic practice. Students will complete weekly assignments to demonstrate reading comprehension and analysis. Students will also do weekly presentations to guide class discussions. As a final project, students will complete a 15-20 page research paper on one artwork by the artist of concern for the semester.	Class Number 2276	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Gender and Sexuality, Class, Race, Ethnicity Location MacLean 816
Who is an Object? Non-Western Ancestors & Gods in Western Museums	5024 (001)	Risa Puleo	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description This course will explore a subset of the canon of 'Art of the Africa, Oceania, and the Americas' —formerly known as 'primitive' art and also known as 'non-Western' art— that is considered animate in their cultures of origin from the perspective of those cultures. Katsina (Hopi), Orisha (Yoruba and Afro-Cuban), pottery and seeds considered to be ancestors; plant, animal, and human bodies held in museum contexts are some of the agents to be considered in this class. The goal off our study of these agents and writings about them is to parse indigenous ontologies from the Western epistemologies and taxonomies that framed these agents as 'fetishes' in the art, anthropology, ethnography, and natural history museums and the disciplines of art history and anthropology. Together, we will read the works of primarily black and indigenous scholars, including Kim Tallbear, Robin Kimmerer, Dylan Miner, Zoe Todd, J. Lorand Matory and more. Participants will be responsible for leading class discussion, a final paper on an object of their choice, and a presentation to the class about that object.	Class Number 2359	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Class, Race, Ethnicity, Exhibition and Curatorial Studies, Museum Studies Location MacLean 111
Critical Terms in Modern Architecture	5122 (001)	Bert Bertram Dingeman Geyer	Wed 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This course examines the formation and circulation of six key terms of modern architectural production and criticism: site, material, structure, detail, program, and environment. Focusing on the period between 1850 and 2000 in the English-speaking world, we will consider how these terms were shaped by the colonial encounter, French and German critical discourse, as well as enmeshed in specific media (e.g. print, radio, tv). Readings vary but typically include core texts by 20th century critics, theorists, and historians like Nikolaus Pevsner, Sigfried Giedion, Reyner Banham, Colin Rowe, Alessandra Ponte, Beatriz Colomina, and Mark Wigley. Discussions also tend to engage projects and texts by Le Corbusier, Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames, Louis Kahn, Zaha Hadid, and Bernard Tschumi. Course work will vary but typically demands active participation in online and in-class discussions, as well as short essays on a contemporary architectural project of the student's choosing culminating in a 4000-word review essay.	Class Number 2337	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 112
Site and Place in the Age of the Anthropocene	5142 (001)	Mechtild Widrich	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description In this reading-intensive seminar, we will consider formations of site specificity since the 1960s. We will learn about art around topics such as borders, migration, resources, and climate change, and we will discuss how non-human agency might change our concept of making art altogether. We will reflect on the term `anthropocene', proposed to understand our current geological period as highly influenced by human activity, and probe its usefulness. How can geographical concepts be applied aesthetically and politically? Scholars we will read include Bruno Latour, Donna Harraway, Kathryn Yussuf, Anna Tsing, Lucy Lippard, and others. Assignments include concept presentations, preparing the readings for the group discussion, research exercises, and a research paper.	Class Number 2205	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Community & Social Engagement, Art and Science, Sustainable Design Location Lakeview - 206
Situation Report	5371 (001)	Simon Anderson	Fri 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Even before the First Conference of International Situationists in 1957, there were stylistic differences and ideological contradictions among the participants. Since then, texts and exhibitions claiming connection to the Situationist International have proliferated. This seminar traces the evolution of those original tendencies that made even a temporary situationist allegiance possible, and follow the trajectories of individual careers. Students explore the images, facts, theories and legends, and compare the heretical ideas and actions of the earliest members of this brief association, to assess the subsequent and current status of the Situationist International.	Class Number 2109	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 112
Colonialism, Orientalism and Primitivism in 19th century India and Southeast Asia	5472 (001)	Nora Annesley Taylor	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course explores the influence of colonial policies on the arts of India, Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia and Indochina prior to the 20th century. Covering theories of colonialism, primitivism and orientalism from Homi Bhabha to Edward Said, it also looks at colonial art exhibitions in London and Paris and examine the concepts of empire, race and exoticism through art works on both sides of the continental divide.	Class Number 2371	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 202
Art and Biotechnology	5515 (001)	Edward Kac	Tues 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online
Description Since the early 1960s the social impact of computer technology has been a dominant issue and since the early 1980s the digital revolution has been provoking profound changes in the way we live. Now, as we move into the twenty-first century, we realize that the next frontier of artistic and technological investigation is biology. The field of biological studies is changing from a life science into an information science. Biosemiotics, for example, is an interdisciplinary science that studies communication and signification in living systems. Biotechnologies are introducing complex ethical issues, such as the patenting and sale of genes. Genetic engineering is transforming forever how society approaches the notion of 'life.' A few contemporary artists have been responding to this change and are already working with modified bacteria, interspecies communication, and hybridization techniques to redefine the boundaries between the artwork and living organisms. This seminar discusses the complex and fascinating relationship between biology and art in the larger context of related social, political, and ethical issues.	Class Number 1043	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Online
Critical Perspectives in Fashion, Body, Garment I	5560 (001)	Sandra Adams	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM All Online
Description This graduate-level seminar proceeds from selected in-depth topics in the history of dress, cross-cultural materials markets and clothing influences, evolution of fashions, aesthetic philosophies, literature and social issues, from diverse ancient cultures to the early 20th century. A focus on historical fashion revivals will relate past styles of art and dress to contemporary fashions and research applicable to students' studio work. Global human experiences of all periods will be relevant and valuable. Learning proceeds from readings both in and out of class, lectures, discussion, museum exhibitions and library research visits, illustrated spoken presentations and several research papers. Reading includes diverse exhibition catalogues, critical and scholarly fashion writing, and recent media articles and illustrations. A film viewing of an historical subject employing period costuming is essential. Synthesis of art and clothing movements is essential. In-class roundtable readings & discussions, exhibition response sheets & sketches, and assigned readings will lead to several thoughtfully-written, well-cited essays and projected illustrated spoken presentations. The first 3 page essay will be autobiographical, another of 6 pages will relate to an historical revival style, film costuming or cross-cultural fashion, textile and technological influences, and the final relevant 15 page paper and presentation topic will be of the student's choosing. A mid-semester interview with each student will help guide their topic choice and research. Research can be relevant to individual or collaborative studio work.	Class Number 1036	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Costume Design Location Online
Extraordinary Bodies: Disability/Art/Design	5575 (001)	Bess Williamson	Mon 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course takes its title from Rosemarie Garland-Thomson?s 1997 book that did much to establish the field of cultural disability studies. The course seeks answers to Garland-Thomson?s queries about how physical and intellectual difference are constructed in cultural production by looking at image, object, and spatial representations of disability from the 19th century to recent times. The course is conducted in seminar style, while also seeking to model accessible formats of academic writing, discussion and exchange. Topics include disability in art and aesthetic histories (Tobin Siebers, Garland-Thomson, Ann Millet-Gallant), museum collections and interpretation (Georgina Kleege, Amanda Cachia), design and technology studies (Christina Cogdell, David Serlin, Ashley Shew), and, throughout the course, access in scholarly and artistic practices and spaces (Aimi Hamraie, Margaret Price). Assignments include in-class presentations, short writings, and exercises exploring accessibility in our lives & work. The course ends with a long-form paper, presented to the class in symposium-style with peer comments and opportunities for ongoing editing.	Class Number 2112	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 919
Singing LeWitt: Conceptualism and Sound	5662 (001)	Seth Kim-Cohen	Mon 8:30 AM - 11:15 AM In Person
Description Recently, the artworld has welcomed sound as an outsider free of the visual burdens of representation, and commodity. Yet, since the start of the twentieth century, sound has also constructed itself conceptually: Duchamp, Robert Morris, Fluxus, Acconci, Nauman, Graham, and Piper. Inspired by John Baldessari's vocal performance of Sol LeWitt's 'Sentences on Conceptual Art,' Singing LeWitt traces the histories of the conceptual and sonic arts in order to recompose the unsung history of sonic conceptualism.	Class Number 1067	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location Lakeview - 203
Intelligent Artifice: A.I. and its Past Lives	5755 (001)	Daniel Ricardo Quiles	Wed 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description This course updates a seminar, ARTHI 5755 'Art and Information Theory,' to offer historical context for the contemporary fascination with Artificial Intelligence, or AI. While we will consider some contemporary art incorporating AI-- a genre still in its infancy-- our primary focus will be the myriad manifestations of autopoiesis-- self-organization, self-correction, self-awareness-- in histories of 20th and 21st-century art, design and computation. Our larger objective will be to consider how cybernetics and other interdisciplinary loci of research in the 20th century have informed our contemporary rhetoric and experience of intelligent machines-- and to anticipate what might be coming next. The seminar's emphasis on machine intelligence will inevitably draw us to the literature and plentiful artwork on other modes of 'non-human' consciousness, including that of plants and animals, which has also received considerable attention from artists. FOR ALL CATEGORIES BELOW, THESE ARE PARTIAL LISTS: Artists: hannah baer, Linda Dounia, Orphan Drift, Memo Atken, Ian Cheng, Refik Anadol, Rashaad Newsome, L[3]^2, Aria Dean, Hito Steyerl, 0100101110101101.org, Mark Tribe, Douglas Davis, Eduardo Kac, Olivier Auber, Gretchen Bender, Roy Ascott, Agnes Denes, Luis Benedit, Hans Haacke, Andy Warhol, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy Authors: N. Katherine Hayles, Meredith Tromble, Dan McQuillan, S. Matthew Liao, Mark Wigley, Sadie Plant, Rosalind Krauss, Margaret A. Boden, Vilém Flusser, Paul Virilio, Jack Burnham, Humberto Maturana, Gregory Bateson, Marshall McLuhan, James Boggs, Norbert Weiner, Alan Turing. Media: openai.com (ChatGPT), bard.google.com, bing.com/create, jasper.ai, midjourney.com, stablediffusionweb.com, Elf.Tech, copysmith.ai, and further A.I. content generators that appear between now and February 2024. In addition to the standard 15-20 pp. term paper that is required at the 5000 level by my department, shorter assignments in this seminar will encourage students to explore, test and play with A.I. chatbots to research its implications for academic research and writing. Likewise, we will also probe A.I. image, music and video generators to examine the technology's capacities at present for future art and design. I will leave maximum for students to explore aspects of these nascent tools that they are most interested in.	Class Number 2375	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Art/Design and Politics, Digital Communication, Social Media and the Web Location MacLean 112
How Critiques Work	5762 (001)	James Elkins	Thurs 12:15 PM - 3:00 PM In Person
Description Art critiques are common around the world. Yet there is almost nothing written about them. How do they work? What are the most successful formats? How can you understand and control your critique? What happens when critiques become violent or coercive? What is the difference between criticism, criticality, critique, the crit, and Kritik? In this class we analyze your critiques in detail, and explore the ways to get the most out of your critique experiences.	Class Number 2454	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 111
Experimental Writing on Art	5991 (001)	James Elkins	Mon 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This is a writing workshop for art historians, critics, visual studies scholars, and art theorists. We bring together three discourses: the often impoverished talk about 'good writing' in art history (Nemerov, Clark, Steinberg); the scattered examples of poststructural writing on art (Schefer, Lebensztejn, Cixous, Pollock, Deleuze); and theories about what counts as 'experimental' essay writing (Adorno, d'Agata, Starobinski, Lopate, Musil, Lukacs, Gass, Montaigne). The course is being developed into a book on 305737.blogspot.com.	Class Number 2111	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 608
Advanced Curatorial Practice: Artists and Curators	6110 (001)	Bana Kattan	Tues 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description This professional curating practicum will examine today’s complexities in making exhibitions in museums and carrying out projects in public spaces. It will give special attention to the interests and needs of artists, and the potential for their voices to affect the cultural climate we live in. Instructors are practicing curators in the Chicago area, and change from year to year. This course will be supplemented by field trips around Chicago and visits with other working curators at varying levels of experience, institutional integration, and methodologies.	Class Number 2313	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Area of Study Public Space, Site, Landscape, Public Space, Site, Landscape Location Lakeview - 1428
Critical Issues in Designed Objects	6120 (001)	Casey C. Lurie	Thurs 6:45 PM - 9:30 PM In Person
Description The production and consumption of material and, some would argue immaterial objects, is at the heart of cultural formation. The course interrogates issues in relation to the everyday and designed objects through our understanding of design and its objects, their significance in daily life and the cultures of production, mediation and interaction. The course also examines the dilemma we face in contemporary practice in labeling objects as craft, art or design. At least one graduate-level Design History course is recommended before enrollment in this course.	Class Number 1041	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location MacLean 112
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (001)		TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2349	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (002)	Annie Bourneuf	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2536	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (003)	Bess Williamson	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2537	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (004)	Daniel Ricardo Quiles	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2538	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (005)		TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2539	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (006)	Jennifer Dorothy Lee	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2540	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (007)	Mechtild Widrich	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2541	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location
Thesis Tutorial II	6999 (008)	Michael Golec	TBD - TBD In Person
Description This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework. Prerequisites Prerequisite: ARTHI 5999.	Class Number 2542	Credits 3	Department Art History, Theory, and Criticism Location

FAQs

Students only begin taking advanced Art History courses in their second year at SAIC. For the first year, BA in Art History students share the campus-wide, first-year student curriculum, which includes intensive foundational training in studio and in visual thinking, composition-based writing courses, and two introductory surveys in art history. The SAIC BA in Art History is unlike conventional majors at liberal arts colleges in its extensive art history requirements (at least 18 courses) and in its solid grounding in knowledge of studio practices. An understanding in how art is made is an essential part of its historical study. While BA in Art History students’ coursework is identical to BFA students in their first year, they will also be included in events organized for all BA in Art History students. All BA in Art History students are advised by a faculty member from the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism.
The BA in Art History program has significantly different degree requirements than SAIC’s other, studio- and design-based degrees. Because of this, there are no automatic degree transfers, and every case must be weighed individually with regard to applicable credits and research and writing skills. There are two deadlines for internal transfers every year: October 15 and March 15. Applications are only considered at these times.
No. SAIC does not have majors. The BA in Art History is a full-fledged degree in Art History, and it is the first nonstudio undergraduate degree at SAIC. It requires a minimum of 41 percent of credits (18 courses) to be taken in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism—far more than a conventional major within a liberal arts degree (usually around 10 courses). Beyond that, the degree is made up of a minimum of 16 percent studio courses, which we believe to be an integral part of study of histories and theories of art.
The BA in Art History is designed to provide students with training in research and writing skills, and at least one class per year will focus on this area of study. A Sophomore Seminar, a Junior Proseminar, and the Senior Thesis Sequence are all required of BA in Art History students.
Sophomore Seminars are required courses for all SAIC undergraduates. They focus on preparing students to embrace a specific direction in their scholarship or in their studio practice. The seminars offer intensive faculty mentoring sessions that help students design a curricular pathway for the final two years of study at SAIC. Most departments at the institution offer Sophomore Seminars. BA in Art History students take the Sophomore Seminar designed by the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism to provide research skills in Art History and to train students to examine the role of art’s histories in light of current practices. Students from programs other than the BA in Art History may also take the Art History Sophomore Seminar.
Each semester, the department offers at least two smaller seminar-style courses focused on the application of research methods. These can be in any topic, but professors focus on the practice of research and writing with students in this smaller setting. BA in Art History students must take at least one of these courses in their junior year. Courses fulfilling the Junior Proseminar requirement cannot also be used to fulfill the Area Pathways requirements.
Students may, however, take more than one Junior Proseminar in their time at SAIC, and any additional Proseminars may be used to fulfill other degree requirements. The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism distributes a list of Junior Proseminars each semester.
The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism offers more than 200 courses a year, from introductory surveys to graduate seminars. Most of the course offerings are generally divided into three major geographic areas, which correspond to three area pathways in the curriculum:
• Asia
• Europe and America
• Southern Continents (Africa and Latin America)
BA in Art History students choose two of these areas on which to focus. In both of these two area pathways, students must complete a three-course sequence of 2000-, 3000-, and 4000-level courses. Students develop their thesis topic as the culmination of one of these two area pathways of study and pursue it during the Senior Thesis Sequence in their final year. Each pathway requires three courses (9 credit hours).
For instance, a student who chooses a pathway in Asian art might fulfill its requirements by taking Survey of Asian Art (ARTHI 2450), Buddhist Ideas in South and Southeast Asian Art (ARTHI 3473), and Asian Art Now (ARTHI 4496). Once a pathway is completed, students may continue to take courses in that area with their art history elective credits. A list of courses in each pathway is distributed by the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism to BA in Art History students.
The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism focuses on modern and contemporary art in a global framework. While the majority of its offerings focus on art of the last 150 years, it also has a significant number of courses that address the longer histories of art. BA in Art History students are required to take at least six credit hours of courses that focus on topics before the mid-19th century in addition to ARTHI 1001: Introduction to Art History: Ancient to Modern. The Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism distributes a list of premodern courses each semester.
In order to graduate with a BA in Art History, all students must complete a written thesis developed over the course of the fall-spring Senior Thesis Sequence. In the fall of their senior year, students take ARTHI 4011: Senior Thesis Methodology Seminar that focuses on advanced writing and research skills as well as topic development. In the spring, BA in Art History students work closely with a faculty member in ARTHI 4012: Senior Thesis Writing Seminar to complete and submit the written document. These classes cannot be taken out of sequence or substituted. They are only offered each once a year.
Any student who anticipates graduating mid-year should plan to take the Senior Thesis Sequence in preceding academic year. In other words, two of the three of a BA in Art History student’s last three semesters must be taken over a full academic year at SAIC.
Theses are generally 35 to 50 pages in length and should demonstrate the student’s deep knowledge on a topic in art history of their choosing. They should include all relevant images and be formatted according to established guidelines. All theses are due by the last day of the spring semester in order for the student to graduate.
Once admitted, all BA in Art History students will be advised by the Director of Undergraduate Programs in Art History or another faculty member from the department. BA in Art History students should meet each semester with their Art History adviser to determine course selections and discuss the development of their research interests. In addition, BA in Art History students are also encouraged to take advantage of SAIC’s Office of Academic Advising for any assistance with school-wide curricular requirements and credit audits. There will also be possibilities for graduate student mentors for advanced BA in Art History students.
Courses designated in the SAIC curriculum as “off-campus study” can be found in studio, Liberal Arts, and Art History. These credits can be taken in one of the many study abroad trips organized by SAIC each winter and summer term, in a designated class during the regular semesters that has a substantial off-campus component or be fulfilled through internships coordinated by SAIC’s Cooperative Education Program. BA in Art History students are required to take three of their credit hours in off-campus courses. These credits may come from any division and may also be used to meet other degree requirements.
SAIC is a non-grading institution, and students in the BA in Art History program will not receive traditional grades for coursework. Students may request written evaluations for each class, but this is the responsibility of the student to solicit and maintain these records. Any students applying for graduate school, internships, or other opportunities may request from the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism a statement of principle about its non-grading philosophy. Students who intend to make such applications are encouraged to keep copies of their research papers and exams for further information about their success at SAIC.
Existing students who are pursuing an exchange semester or summer courses abroad may petition Academic Advising to have foreign language courses transferred to SAIC to meet the 9-credit-hour language requirement. Final approval to take language classes off-campus is determined by the Department of Liberal Arts. During the semesters, students may also petition to take advanced foreign languages and foreign languages not offered by SAIC at nearby Roosevelt University. (Those students should contact the Study Abroad Office.)
No. The foreign language requirement is in place to insure that students have basic ability to engage with research materials in other languages. Consequently, only study in written languages fulfills this requirement.

Take the Next Step

For questions about applications for first-year and transfer students, visit the undergraduate admissions web page or contact SAIC's Office of Admissions at admiss@saic.edu or 800.232.7242. Current SAIC students should contact arthistoryba@saic.edu.

Upcoming Admissions Events

Jul27

Summer at SAIC

We invite you to join us on campus for an informative and fun day featuring our "Art School 101" presentation, one-on-one meetings with our faculty and admissions counselors, a guided tour of our state-of-the-art campus and our loft-style residence halls, and a Chicago style lunch for you and your guests!

Saturday, July 27 10:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. CDT at 280 South Columbus Drive Chicago, IL 60603

Undergraduate Overview

Undergraduate Overview

Bachelor of Arts in Art History

Bachelor of Fine Arts with Art History Thesis

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Department

Location

Description

Prerequisites

Class Number

Credits