Courses Fall/Winter 2018-19

SUMMER 2019

May-June

ARTH 1100 – Art and Society: Prehistory to the Renaissance

July-August

ARTH 1101 – Art and Society: Renaissance to the Present
ARTH 3705/4705 – Selected Museum Exhibition (Gauguin’s Portraits)

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“Course Summaries” will be listed below as they become available – simply click on the course title to view the course summary information. Special Topics courses may vary from year to year.

Please note:

the TIME and LOCATION of courses is published in the Public Class Schedule
OFFICIAL COURSE DESCRIPTIONS are available in the Undergraduate and Graduate Calendars
the OFFICIAL COURSE OUTLINE will be distributed at the beginning of the term

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: Instructor: Morgan Currie

Description: This course is a broad historical survey of different artistic traditions from prehistory to the Renaissance that explores how works of art were produced, and the roles that they played in their societies. Principle theories of art from the ancient and medieval worlds will also be introduced. Students will gain the ability to recognize images from a wide range of times and places, and their relationships with the societies and cultures where they originated. Course activities develop basic formal and contextual analysis skills that are valuable in today’s image-saturated world.

Textbook: TBD

Evaluation:

Visual analyses: 25%

Midterm test: 25%

Final Exam: 35%

Tutorial participation: 15%
: Instructor: Sheena Ellison

Description: This course offers a survey of Western art from the Renaissance to the present. Students will gain familiarity with a selection of canonical artists, artworks, and movements from the history of art. Our study of specific artworks will help students to understand the interplay between art and society, forming an understanding of how these works respond to and reflect on the cultures that produced them. Students will develop their art historical skills by engaging, analyzing, interpreting, and criticizing artworks, while taking advantage of the wonderful artistic resources available in the National Capital Region.

Textbook: TBD

Tentative evaluation format:

Midterm Test

Research Paper

Final Exam

Tutorial participation

Course format: One 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial each week.
: Instructor: Sheena Ellison

Description: This course will focus on the development of art historical skills. Students will learn and practice different tools for analyzing various types of visual material. Each week, we will focus on a different topic from the history of art which provides access to a new way of looking. Class will visit local galleries and museums to practice these skills while looking at artwork in person.

Selected readings will be posted online in accordance with copyright regulations.

Tentative evaluation format:

Reading reports

Midterm evaluation

Writing assignment

Class participation
: Instructor: Peter Coffman

Format: 2 lecture hours, 1 tutorial hour per week.

Description: This survey of Western architecture to approximately 1600 serves as a foundation to subsequent courses in art, architecture, and architectural history, and can also be a stand-alone exploration of history viewed through the lens of the built environment. It covers everything from Neolithic tombs to Greek and Roman temples to medieval castles to Islamic palaces to Renaissance churches and palazzi – with a great deal in between. In all cases, the buildings will be situated on a broad cultural and historical landscape, connecting them to the ideas, events, and circumstances that originally gave them meaning.

Evaluation: Quiz, tutorial participation and attendance, midterm, short essay, exam.

Course text: TBA
: Instructor: Jessica Basciano

Description: The experience of architecture in our daily lives is distinct from that of other art. Beyond providing shelter, architecture expresses culture and shapes behavior. This course examines the history of the built environment, including religious and public monuments, vernacular structures, urban spaces, and gardens, from 1600 to the present, with a focus on Europe and the Americas. Construction materials and techniques are considered, as are the roles in building projects of architects, builders, clients, and users. Themes of architecture and politics, religion, economics, technology, and gender are explored from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students learn to read plans, describe buildings, and interpret buildings as cultural artifacts.

Format: 2 lecture hours, 1 tutorial hour per week

Evaluation: TBA

Required Text: TBA
: Instructor: Brian Foss

Description: This course surveys art made in Canada since c.1900, looking at leading artists through the lens of major themes in 20^th-century and contemporary art and society. How have artists tried to define “Canada” in their art? What questions have they asked about the relationship between personal identity, group or regional identity, and Canadian identity as a whole? How have they expressed interests in gender, race, and social responsibility? In other words, how has 20^th-century and contemporary art in Canada tried to make sense of this huge country during more than a century of extreme changes both in how art itself has been defined and in how Canada has imagined itself?

Evaluation process: TBA

Required text: TBA
: Instructor: Allan J. Ryan, New Sun Chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture

Associate Professor, Art History/Indigenous and Canadian Studies

Contact: allan.ryan@carleton.ca, website: www.trickstershift.com

Description: This course presents a selective survey of pre-contact, historic, and contemporary arts of Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast, the American Southwest, and the Arctic regions of North America. The goal of the course is to develop a familiarity with the richness of Native American artforms in their regional diversity and temporal depth, from time immemorial to the present day, in a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, architecture, pottery, textiles, jewelry, graffiti, tattoos, and even cartoons. The role art plays in expressions of political power, group identity, cosmological belief, and presentation of the individual self will be explored. Throughout the course, specific attention will be paid to the impact of colonialism, gender, touristic commodification of artistic styles, and the creation of “art” as a special category of cultural production.

Required texts (available at Haven Books, corner of Sunnyside and Seneca):

Berlo, Janet Catherine and Ruth B. Phillips, Native North American Art, 2^nd Edition (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)

Whiteford, Andrew Hunter. North American Indian Arts. Golden/St. Martin’s Press.

Images viewed in class will be made available on the course website as PowerPoint files. Additional readings will be placed on the course website with a running list of Indigenous events happening in the local community that you are encouraged to participate in. Videos viewed in class will be available online or placed on reserve in the MacOdrum Library.

Tentative Grading breakdown: Percentage of term mark

Short report on Canadian Museum of History visit: 15%

Two short reports on attendance at two public Indigenous events: 10%

Midterm exam: 30%

Gallery research assignment: 15%

Final exam: 30%
: Instructor: Stephane Roy

A core course that focuses on hands-on experience of the techniques, materials and institutions of art history through lectures and workshops on subjects such as art historical research and writing, the materials of art, professional skills, and site visits to art institutions. Restricted to Honours Art History Majors.

Evaluation (tentative):

Three reaction papers (3 x 20%)

Assignment (25%)

Participation (15%)

Course format: 3-hour weekly lectures/field trips
: Instructor: Birgit Hopfener

This course provides an introduction to Chinese art history and its cultural foundations.

Based on close examinations of art objects and their respective cultural, historical, religious, and socio-political contexts of production, the seminar introduces bronzes, ink painting, calligraphy, ceramics, garden culture, and Buddhist sculpture as central research subjects of Chinese art history. We will learn about media, materials, and techniques of Chinese art and how the worldviews of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism have constituted specific concepts of art. The course introduces students to pre-modern art but also examines how modern and contemporary artists have been critically engaging with traditions by re-inventing them.
: Instructor: Morgan Currie

This course is a historical overview of the principal trends and ideas in Islamic art and architecture from the time of the Prophet Muhammed to the end of the fifteenth century. It begins with the establishment of Islam in the seventh century, its relationship with the wider world of Late Antiquity, and the specific demands that the new religion placed on visual culture. From there, we will examine the role of art and architecture in expressing and shaping the cultures and dynasties that made up the Islamic world. The material is rich and varied, including monumental mosques and palaces, delicate miniatures, fine metal and glasswork, textile and calligraphic arts, and sculpture. Individual classes will introduce major stylistic trends through representative works, then explore how these relate to social, cultural, and religious themes.

Textbook TBD.

Evaluation:

Midterm test 30%

Research Essay 30%

Final Exam 40%
: Instructor: Stephen Inglis

Introduction to the art and architecture of the Indian subcontinent with reference to Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka and the international influences of ideas, materials, and techniques over time.

Survey of major monuments and works of art of different regions, periods, and styles from cave drawing to contemporary art, with an emphasis on the religious, social, and historical contexts of the artists’ production. The aim is to provide students with a broad understanding of the arts of South Asia and with opportunities to do further research, not only in the classical arts of architecture, sculpture, and painting but also in the rural and popular arts.

Thematic Focus: Interpreting the arts as a living system

Hybrid forms: identify Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Muslim, Sikh, and Christian influences

Continuity: identify artistic ideas and skills that persist into the present

Courts and schools: study the arts patronage system

Empire and nationalism: representations in the colony and in the new India

Inspiration: trace influences on contemporary artists

The course will enable students to:

Recognize and interpret Indian art traditions

Discuss the historical, political, and religious movements represented in the arts of India

Understand aspects of the role of the artist in India
: Instructor: R. Klebanoff
: Instructor: Jessica Basciano

The course is a study of the history of buildings, urban spaces, and gardens in Europe from 1400 to 1750, beginning with the Renaissance and ending with the Rococo. Students analyze in depth key buildings by major architects such as Brunelleschi, Michelangelo, Bernini, Le Vau, and Wren. Methodological debates are addressed, as are themes of the architectural profession; patronage, including that of women; the revival of ancient forms; the transformation of cities into modern capitals; and architectural treatises and print culture.

Evaluation: TBA

Required Text: TBA
: Instructor: Justina Spencer

A survey of European painting, graphic art, sculpture, and architecture from the Rococo to Neoclassicism.

Evaluation: TBA
: Instructor: Jill Carrick

This course explores the great visual breakthroughs of early 20th century European modern art. Through a focus on movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Russian Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism, this course investigates what one historian perceptively described as the “demolition of the received visual order”. How did modern art re-imagine the world? What was modernism, the avant-garde, and expressionism? How did artists represent desire and sexuality, political change and social contestation, and the dramatic technological transformations of their century?

Assessment will include a midterm and final exam or take-home assignment. Details to be announced at the beginning of the semester.
: Instructor: Robert Evans

This course offers an overview of photography, from its invention in the nineteenth century to the present, where photographs have become ubiquitous. This course aims to address various photographic developments alongside theoretical and cultural texts about the ways in which photographs have been mobilized, theorized, and given meaning.

Assessment will include one short creative paper, one longer research paper, a midterm, and a final exam.

The course text is Naomi Rosenblum, A World History of Photography, 4th ed.
: Instructor: Jessica Basciano

This course examines how architects, builders, designers, patrons, and users responded to the changing conditions of modernity–to the social, economic, cultural, and political factors affecting life in the twentieth century. Students discuss ideas and projects related to the notion of “modern architecture” (or “modern architectures”), how the “Modern Movement” was conceptualized, and how and why it was critiqued. Themes explored include: architecture as a representation of modern ideas, the impact of modernization on architecture and the urban fabric, the politics of built (and virtual) forms, and the place of history in modernity.

Evaluation: TBA

Required Text: TBA
: Instructor: Peter Coffman

Format: one three-hour meeting per week.

Prerequisite: Restricted to students in the BA Honours or General History and Theory of Architecture program.

Description: This is a course about looking at and writing about architecture. Through a series of site visits and a variety of in-class exercises, students will develop skills and methods for interpreting and analyzing the built environment. Given the hands-on nature of the course, participation in field trips and classroom activities is mandatory.

Evaluation: Short written assignments, design/visual assignments, and in-class assignments.

Course Text: TBA
: Instructor: Andrew Waldron

Cross-listed as ARCH 4002

Calendar description: Canadian architecture from the seventeenth century to the present day, covering both stylistic and technological developments. Building styles, methods, and materials in the context of social and economic conditions and construction techniques.
: Instructor: Birgit Hopfener

The seminar offers an introduction to contemporary Chinese art and art history since the beginning of the reform period in 1979. It focuses on the art historical, socio-political, and infrastructural conditions under which art has been produced in the People’s Republic of China and exhibited in China and beyond. To develop an understanding of major transitions in the intellectual and artistic realms in China, the course surveys central figures, movements, and issues of Chinese contemporary art. We will examine a range of topics, such as the legacy of socialist realism, avant-garde discourses, re-inventions of traditions, critical engagements with and cultural translations of Western art and art history, practices of critical historiographies of Chinese art, gender and politics of the body, socially engaged art discourses, effects of the art market, the development of a professional infrastructure for contemporary art in China by private initiators, and the impact of official cultural policy since the beginning of the “Museum Age” in the year 2000.
: Instructor: Mitchell Frank

This course explores art and architectural history’s methods, practices, and problematics. We will examine the historical and theoretical foundations of art and architectural history from the Renaissance through its development as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century, up to the mid-twentieth century. Focusing on such major figures, we will study the traditional tools of the discipline, including biographical approaches, theories of form and style, content and iconography, feminism, and Marxism. Special attention will be given to museums as institutions of collection, display, and education.

Assessments will include reading reports, a mid-term test, and a final essay.
: Instructor: Peter Coffman

Required course, restricted to HTA majors.
: Instructor: R. Klebanoff
: Instructor: Jessica Basciano

Empires often leave substantial traces on the built environment. This course examines some of these traces and how imperial ideology has been made manifest through architecture. In lectures and discussions, students investigate the architectural impact of empires from ancient Rome to the twentieth century.

Evaluation: TBA

Required Text: TBA
: Instructor: Morgan Currie

Cross-listed with ARTH 4809

The seventeenth-century in Rome was a period of social and religious turmoil and tremendous artistic creativity. Artists explored the power of visual rhetoric to overwhelm viewers in the service of a self-absorbed aristocracy and a Church defined paradoxically by both worldly corruption and intense mystical faith. No figure epitomized this landscape like Gianlorenzo Bernini, a sculptor, architect, playwright, theatre designer, and occasional painter who dominated the Roman art world for nearly seven decades. This course will use Bernini’s life and work as a lens to explore the relationships between art, society, and authority in this turbulent time. Major contemporary artists like Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Alessandro Algardi, and Nicolas Poussin will also be examined.

Evaluation

This is a split-level course meaning students can enroll at the 3000 or 4000 level. Students at the 3000 level will be evaluated on the basis of a midterm and final exam as well as a term paper of approximately eight pages. 4000 level students will not sit the tests but will write a seminar-type paper of approximately sixteen pages for the research experience and some short response pieces during the term.
: Instructor: Morgan Currie

Cross-listed with ARTH 4809

The seventeenth-century in Rome was a period of social and religious turmoil and tremendous artistic creativity. Artists explored the power of visual rhetoric to overwhelm viewers in the service of a self-absorbed aristocracy and a Church defined paradoxically by both worldly corruption and intense mystical faith. No figure epitomized this landscape like Gianlorenzo Bernini, a sculptor, architect, playwright, theatre designer, and occasional painter who dominated the Roman art world for nearly seven decades. This course will use Bernini’s life and work as a lens to explore the relationships between art, society, and authority in this turbulent time. Major contemporary artists like Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Alessandro Algardi, and Nicolas Poussin will also be examined.

Evaluation

This is a split-level course meaning students can enroll at the 3000 or 4000 level. Students at the 3000 level will be evaluated on the basis of a midterm and final exam as well as a term paper of approximately eight pages. 4000 level students will not sit the tests but will write a seminar-type paper of approximately sixteen pages for the research experience and some short response pieces during the term.
: Instructor: Trina Cooper-Bolam

This course explores manifestations in architectural theory and built form of the recurrent societal concerns and pressures that set oscillating movements of recourse and invention in motion across Modern Western history, leaving the indelible marks of Western cultural endurance. Through illustrated lectures, readings, seminar discussions, and site visits, we will both examine articulations, iterations, and renegotiations of key architectural terms such as system, expression, ornament, function, and space, and explore variable constructions of the city, utopia, and the future.

Format: Weekly 3-hour lecture/seminar

Evaluation: will be based on participation, case studies, group presentations/facilitation panels, and an essay.

Course texts:

Required texts made available through ARES or cuLearn

Recommended: Forty, Adrian. Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. Vol. 268. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
: Topics in Contemporary Indigenous Art: Creative Engagement with Indigenous Self-Portraits: A Discourse on the Nature of Self-Representation

Instructor: Dr. Allan J. Ryan, New Sun Chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture, Associate Professor, Art History/Indigenous and Canadian Studies

Contact: allan.ryan@carleton.ca; www.trickstershift.com

Course description:

This course will take as its primary referent, About Face: Self-Portraits by Native American, First Nations and Inuit Artists, the catalogue to an exhibition of contemporary Indigenous self-portraits co-curated by the instructor, and shown at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2005-2006. Still the only exhibition of its kind, this body of work will be considered in light of the history of Indigenous self-representation, from its early focus on communal and socio-political identities to the emergence of more individualistic portrayals in the late 19^th and early 20^th century; and in light of the history of North American Indigenous experience as recounted in Thomas King’s immensely engaging book, The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Interdisciplinary thinking is strongly encouraged.

This course is more broadly about the construction of personal identity and its public presentation, and the implementation of Indigenous pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning that privilege holistic and experiential learning, the construction of safe and sacred spaces, relationality, personal narratives, and writing from the heart. As such, a primary component of the course is the creation and presentation of a student self-portrait viewed in conversation with those of fellow classmates and the Indigenous artists discussed in the course.

This class is unlike any other class you are likely to take. As one student wrote, quoting from the Wheelwright Museum comment book: “‘The show is beautiful, dynamic and will stay with me for a long time.’ That’s the way I feel about this course. I am truly grateful for this course, the experience I had here was unlike any other and the stories I heard will stay with me.”

Course format: lectures, guest speakers, videos, seminar discussion and class presentations.

Required texts:

Exhibition catalogue, About Face: Native American, First Nations, and Inuit Self-Portraits, Zena Pearlstone and Allan J. Ryan, curators. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 2006. Available from the instructor. ($35)

The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative, Thomas King, Anansi, 2003. Available from Haven Books (Seneca and Sunnyside) or as an online e-book.

Supplementary resources (articles, books, images, DVDs) will be placed on the course website, on reserve in the MacOdrum Library, or in some cases, may be borrowed from the instructor’s personal library.

Tentative Course Evaluation:

1. Class presentation on one piece of work in the About Face exhibition, in the context of the curatorial essay, the artist’s other work, Thomas King’s The Truth About Stories, and comments in the museum visitor guest book. A one-page summary of the main points in the presentation is to be provided to the rest of the class. (20% of term mark)

2. A 9-10 page essay based on the class presentation, along with a minimum of 10 illustrations, to be submitted no more than two weeks after the presentation. (25% of term mark)

3. Two part final assignment:

3a) Student self-portrait in any medium presented to the class in the last two weeks. (20% of term mark)

3b) A 10-12 page reflective essay that discusses the various artists, exhibition self-portraits, readings, class presentations, videos, and personal experiences that have informed the creation of the self-portrait. (25% of term mark)

4. Class participation: Everyone is expected to contribute to class discussions. (10% of term mark)

* Students taking the class for graduate credit will be expected to produce longer assignments.

Prerequisite: The Art History prerequisite may be waived if, by the Winter term, the student has taken, or will be taking concurrently, a course on Indigenous Peoples in another department. A course override may be required in order to register.
: Instructor: Anna Khimasia

This course looks at the relationship between live performance art and its documentation. For many years performance art was often described and defined by its ephemerality, its liveness, its immediacy. However, more recent writing suggests that performance is not ephemeral, that it always leaves something behind. We will look at performance photographs and video in tandem with critical discourse about performance documentation, liveness, performativity, ephemerality, presence, and photographic archives as we begin to unravel some of the complications of the relationship between photographic documentation and the live event.

Assignments: TBD
: Instructor: Jessica Basciano

This course examines modern sacred architecture, a topic whose importance in architectural history is only just being recognized. Focusing on religious buildings, including churches—which receive the most attention, synagogues, mosques, and temples—the course also addresses sacred spaces such as museums and memorials. Students approach the subject through diverse case studies of buildings by Pugin, Richardson, Wright, Le Corbusier, El-Wakil, and Shim, among others. The examples are global, with an emphasis on Europe and the United States, and date from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century. Students examine ways in which religious buildings are traditional and use historical styles, especially the Gothic and Romanesque, as well as ways in which they are modern and innovate with materials and technology. Students investigate architectural collaboration between architects, artists, clients, users, and religious advisors. And they explore the architectural, social, religious, and political conditions of sacred architecture from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Evaluation: TBA

Required Text: TBA
: Instructor: Hilary Grant

What is the role of the historic built environment in contemporary society? How is the past used in the present? And what can you do to influence the use of architectural history in the public sphere?

This course aims to answer these questions, fostering a dialogue around heritage as a social, cultural, and political phenomenon. Over the semester, you will be introduced to core practices within built heritage management and their intellectual underpinnings, from evaluation and regulation to conservation and interpretation. The course will also cover major critiques leveled against Canada’s current heritage system, inviting you to challenge conventional practice and question the future of our past.

Evaluation process, whether exams, papers, quizzes, etc. TBA

Required text: TBA
: Instructor: Morgan Currie

Cross-listed with ARTH 3809

The seventeenth-century in Rome was a period of social and religious turmoil and tremendous artistic creativity. Artists explored the power of visual rhetoric to overwhelm viewers in the service of a self-absorbed aristocracy and a Church defined paradoxically by both worldly corruption and intense mystical faith. No figure epitomized this landscape like Gianlorenzo Bernini, a sculptor, architect, playwright, theatre designer, and occasional painter who dominated the Roman art world for nearly seven decades. This course will use Bernini’s life and work as a lens to explore the relationships between art, society, and authority in this turbulent time. Major contemporary artists like Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Alessandro Algardi, and Nicolas Poussin will also be examined.

Evaluation:

This is a split-level course meaning students can enroll at the 3000 or 4000 level. Students at the 3000 level will be evaluated on the basis of a midterm and final exam as well as a term paper of approximately eight pages. 4000 level students will not sit the tests but will write a seminar-type paper of approximately sixteen pages for the research experience and some short response pieces during the term.
: Instructor: Morgan Currie

Cross-listed with ARTH 3809

The seventeenth-century in Rome was a period of social and religious turmoil and tremendous artistic creativity. Artists explored the power of visual rhetoric to overwhelm viewers in the service of a self-absorbed aristocracy and a Church defined paradoxically by both worldly corruption and intense mystical faith. No figure epitomized this landscape like Gianlorenzo Bernini, a sculptor, architect, playwright, theatre designer, and occasional painter who dominated the Roman art world for nearly seven decades. This course will use Bernini’s life and work as a lens to explore the relationships between art, society, and authority in this turbulent time. Major contemporary artists like Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, Pietro da Cortona, Alessandro Algardi, and Nicolas Poussin will also be examined.

Evaluation:

This is a split-level course meaning students can enroll at the 3000 or 4000 level. Students at the 3000 level will be evaluated on the basis of a midterm and final exam as well as a term paper of approximately eight pages. 4000 level students will not sit the tests but will write a seminar-type paper of approximately sixteen pages for the research experience and some short response pieces during the term.
: Instructor: Mitchell Frank

Topic: Museums and Art Education

This seminar will focus on the ways in which museums have reached out to the public in various ways as art educators. The course will begin with readings on art education (Ruskin, Dewey, etc.) and then examine particular case studies of museum projects, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Seminars in Art (1958-60), an at-home “assisted self-education” program. The course will include visits and work at the library and archives of the National Gallery of Canada to explore the art education programs created by our national museum.

Evaluation (subject to change):

Participation 10%

Short Writing Assignments 25%

Seminar Presentation 15%

Final Essay 50%

Readings: Coursepack of selected essays and book chapters.

Class Format: 1 class 3 hours per week
: Instructors: S. Roy and M. Frank

ARTH 5010 is a full-year course for incoming MA students in Art History. The course combines critical theory with practical skills, both aimed to provide students with a solid foundation for graduate study in Art History.

Over the course of the year, you will read widely in current Art Historical theory, produce a research paper drawing on theory, encounter key research resources and tools, produce a catalogue entry based on primary and secondary research, write a detailed research proposal, and learn to write and present an academic conference paper.
: Instructor: Carmen Robertson

Issues of Cultural Mediation and Representation: Defining Beauty: Towards Indigenous Aesthetics

Pathways toward articulating Indigenous aesthetics emerge from deep considerations of cultural epistemologies and ontologies. In this seminar, through a series of readings, observations, and oral narratives, notions of Indigenous aesthetics in relation to tangible contemporary and traditional art expressions will be explored. Connections to land and to story are key components of this seminar.

Textbooks: TBA

Evaluation: Papers
: Cartographies, mappings and diagrams of/in contemporary arts in the global context

Instructor: Birgit Hopfener

ARTH 5115W cross-listed with CLMD 6103W

The course considers how contemporary visual art as well as other art genres such as film, literature, music and theatre work have been adopting cartographic, diagrammatic and mapping practices and strategies to reflect on issues of global situatedness.

Based on close readings of art works and related (art-) historical and culture theoretical publications, we will examine how artists have been working on, with and through new spatial and temporal structures, relationships and contexts of an interconnected yet contested global world. We will discuss various artistic articulations that discuss today’s heterogeneous global (art) world, its multiple and intertwined histories and structures, and the concomitant questioning of a Eurocentric binary order of center and periphery.
: Cross-listed with CLMD 6104 and ANTH 5807

Museums and Difficult Histories

Instructor: Ruth Phillips

This course will explore the growing prominence in world museology of museums that represent histories of oppression and genocide. We will trace the development of commemorative strategies following the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and examine the mixture of memorialization, revisionist history, therapeutic intents and future-oriented social activism that inform such museums. We consider recent representations of colonial oppression and Indigenous residential schools in Canada in relation to these histories and the insights provided by the theorizations in anthropology, trauma studies, art history, and other disciplines.