Undergraduate Courses | Graduate Courses

Courses typically offered in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture

Unless otherwise noted, all ARH courses are offered for 4 credits. Generally, 100-, 200-, and 300-level courses are primarily lecture format. All courses that count toward our lower-division requirements have accompanying discussion sections. 400-level courses and courses open to graduate students are primarily seminar format.

For a list of course offerings for the current term, please see the UO Class Schedule. Descriptions of courses currently offered in specific terms are available on the current student blog. Courses regularly taught by each faculty member are listed on faculty profile pages.

All undergraduate art history courses are open to UO students. In addition to specialized upper-division courses, the department offers a wide range of 100-, 200-, 300-, and 400-level courses that fulfill education requirements.

Undergraduate Courses

ARH 101 Global Masterpieces: Monuments in Context

An introduction to art and architectural history through examination of thirteen key sites from around the world. Themes include religion, politics, domesticity, and modernity.

ARH 150 Introduction to Visual Culture

Introduces students to a wide variety of methods for looking at and analyzing images and objects of visual culture beyond the rarefied categories of art. Concepts and methods will be drawn not only from art history but also from literary studies, anthropology, archaeology, and media studies. Works examined will include photographs, paintings, advertisements, icons, monuments, and applied arts objects. No previous art history background is necessary. Students interested in all aspects of visual and material culture, including fashion, design and architecture, are welcome.

ARH 204 History of Western Art I: Ancient

A survey of the art and architecture of the multicultural ancient Mediterranean world. It explores the art and architecture of the peoples who interacted in this region: Africans, Christians, Jews, Greeks, Persians, Romans, and others.

ARH 205 History of Western Art II: Medieval to Renaissance

Focuses on the major artistic developments in Western Europe during the medieval and renaissance periods, roughly 350 AD–1599 AD. Covering painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative and book arts, we will attempt to define elements of style and to set these within the cultural, political, economic and religious contexts of the times.

ARH 206 History of Western Art III: Baroque to Present

An introduction to the history of European and American art from 1600 to the present. Lectures will be organized chronologically. We will explore movements such as Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Orientalism, the birth of photography, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Bauhaus, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Conceptual art, Pop art, Postmodernism, and contemporary art. Students will be introduced to key art historical terms and will learn basic research and formal analysis skills. Sections will be devoted to discussing critical readings.

ARH 207 History of Indian Art

The Indian Art survey course has been designed to develop a critical appreciation of the major art traditions of South Asia from their inception up to the modern period. The course surveys the visual arts of India and presents the various styles developed in the Indian subcontinent together with their historical, religious and sociocultural contexts. This course has been designed to develop a critical appreciation of the major Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic artistic traditions of India, and will also consider colonial and modern art and architecture. The student is expected to recognize the various trends and learn to explain their development and changes.

ARH 208 History of Chinese Art

Offers a broad consideration of Chinese visual culture, ranging from ancient jades, ritual bronzes, and early tombs, to Buddhist art, landscape painting and gardens, and contemporary responses to tradition.

ARH 209 History of Japanese Art

Explores the history of Japanese art from prehistoric times to the present, covering a wide range of media and styles including early potteries, Buddhist art and its ritual context, the aristocratic arts of the Heian court, arms and armor, Zen gardens and architecture, the tea ceremony, medieval performing art, the prints and paintings of the Floating World, postwar avant-garde movements, and the contemporary art of Murakami Takashi and Kaikai Kiki. Firsthand experience of Japanese art is essential to this course. Students will have an opportunity to study examples of Japanese art up close in the university museum and observe a live performance of traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

ARH 210 Contemporary Asian Art and Architecture

Introduces a variety of projects spanning the diverse cultures of East, South, and Southeast Asia, while considering outsider representations of the “Asian imaginary.” Students learn to analyze key artworks, exhibitions, cutting edge buildings, urban developments, and experimental and popular films from across Asia. Discussions are linked to hotbed social and theoretical issues, such as modernity vs. tradition, Orientalism, nationalism, local vs. cosmopolitan identities, post-colonialism, urbanization, globalization, and the worlding of Asian cities. Students engage materials through a series of multi-media presentations, film screenings, interdisciplinary readings, guest lectures by artists and curators, museum and gallery visits, and creative projects. Transform your world—take a transcultural adventure right here on campus!

ARH 211 Survey of Latin American Arts

In this introductory survey of ancient to contemporary Latin American art, students will learn methods of art historical analysis while acquiring broad historical knowledge of issues that remain central to contemporary art and politics in the Americas.

ARH 314 History of World Architecture I: Prehistory to Medieval

Introductory global survey of the history of architecture from prehistory through the Middle Ages.

ARH 315 History of World Architecture II

Surveys the history of world architecture from roughly 1400 to the present. Key projects will be analyzed in terms of materiality, form and function, patronage and professionalism, and the wider social and cultural discourses of which they were a part.

ARH 316 Gothic Architecture

Surveys architecture in western Europe from c. 1150 to c. 1500, one of the greatest periods of architectural innovation in Europe. It will cover both religious and secular architecture, from soaring cathedrals to civic palaces.

ARH 322 Ancient Greek Art and Architecture

A survey of ancient Greek art and architecture through the Hellenistic period, encompassing works throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Near East.

ARH 323 Roman Art and Architecture

A survey of the art and architecture of Republican and Imperial Rome, encompassing works throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Considering the Roman world as a multicultural space, we’ll explore art and architecture at locations such as Alexandria, Athens, Dura-Europos, Ephesus, Jerusalem, Palmyra, Petra, Pompeii, and Rome.

ARH 327 Medieval Art

Surveys medieval art in western Europe from the 5th to 15th centuries. We will consider a wide variety of media from luxurious manuscripts produced for kings and queens to monumental stained-glass windows that bedazzled soaring cathedrals within their social, political, and cultural contexts.

ARH 341 Italian Renaissance Art

Covers the painting, sculpture and art theory of the Renaissance and Mannerist periods. The years under consideration, spanning from roughly 1300 to 1580, encompass the activity of artists like Giotto, the Lorenzetti, Masaccio, Mantegna, Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Tintoretto and architects like Brunelleschi, Bramante and Palladio. Issues of style, iconography, patronage, liturgical function, social context and the revival of classical antiquity will unite our consideration of the diverse artistic production of the great art centers of Florence, Siena, Lombardy, Venice and Rome. Particular attention will be given to the political function of art, deployed by such canny manipulators as the Medici, the Doges of Venice and the Popes of the Counterreformation. The course also examines the concept of “Renaissance” and the historiography of the Renaissance, from Giorgio Vasari’s 1550 Lives of the Artists to the postmodern era. More broadly, the course aims to hone the visual literacy of students and will also be an excellent preparation for any student considering the Summer Art History/Architecture program in Rome when offered.

ARH 342 Southern Baroque Art

Covers the art of seventeenth century Italy and France. Focus will be primarily on painting and sculpture, though architecture, urbanism, the decorative arts and printmaking will also enter consideration. We will begin with the “reform of mannerism” and with the stylistic revolutions of Caravaggio and the Carracci family. They and others in central Italy (including Domenichino, Guido Reni, Guercino, Artemisia Gentileschi, Pietro da Cortona and GianLorenzo Bernini) established a style that spread across Italy and Europe. France will be represented by the classicist Nicolas Poussin, the pastoral landscapist Claude Lorrain, and the team of artists who served the propagandistic purposes of King Louis XIV at the Château of Versailles.

Artworks will be examined in the context of the political, economic and social history of the time. This is a century in which art and propaganda were often inseparable, so we will ask how the agendas of the patrons affect the form and content of artworks. Likewise, counterreformation theology and religious mysticism also influenced many church commissions. Finally, art theory and the theoretical debates of the time will be examined, as will the relationship of the baroque artist to the examples of nature, to the art of the High Renaissance, and to Classical Antiquity.

ARH 343 Northern Renaissance Art

Covers the painting, printmaking, and art theory of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Netherlands and Germany. This period of exciting developments encompasses the meticulous naturalism of Jan van Eyck, the dynamically moving compositions of Rogier van der Weyden, the dark fantasies of Hieronymus Bosch, the emotive spiritualism of Matthias Grünewald, the virtuoso engraving of Albrecht Dürer, and the peasant genre scenes of Pieter Bruegel. Avenues of examination will include style, technique, iconography, patronage, liturgical function, and the social context of the artwork. Major themes include the status of the artist in society, humanism and renaissance philosophy, the effects of the Protestant Reformation, and the role of imagery in campaigns of religious and political propaganda.

ARH 344 Northern European Baroque Art

Covers northern European art of the seventeenth century, with primary emphasis on the Netherlands. The era of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Rubens and van Dyck, this period is regarded as a “The Golden Age” of Dutch and Flemish art. We will consider key figures and art objects in their political, economic, religious and social contexts, using historical evidence to help understand the content and style of art.

ARH 348 Rome in the Age of Bernini

Examines the city of Rome in the seventeenth century, a period of energetic activity and important development in the visual arts, architecture and urbanism. The central figure of the course (and of the era) is Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1597-1681), a sculptor, painter, architect who possessed a combination of artistic genius and extraordinary organizational skills.

ARH 350 History of Manga

What is manga? How does it work? This course traces the history of Japanese modern comic book (manga) from the nineteenth century to present.

ARH 351 19th Century Art

A survey of major movements in 19th-century European art, including Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Orientalism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Arts and Crafts, and Symbolism. Technical inventions such as photography and lithography will also be discussed.

ARH 352 Art of Enlightenment (Eighteenth-Century European Art)

Explores art and culture of the European Enlightenment. Lectures will be thematic and will cover major stylistic movements, including rococo, chinoiserie, genre painting, neoclassicism, and romanticism, and topics such as the birth of the museum, the industrial and political revolutions of the age, colonialism and empire, gender, and science and technology.

ARH 353 Modern Art, 1880-1950

Introduces students to major works and movements in modern art roughly from the last three decades of the nineteenth century to the end of the Second World War. Movements include Impressionism, Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Cubism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, De Stijl, Dada, Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism.

ARH 354 Contemporary Art

An introductory survey of art in the West since World War II. It will address the ambitions and contexts of Abstract Expressionism, Post-War European painting, Happenings, Fluxus, Situationism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Performance Art, Video Art, New Media Art, and more. Special attention will be paid to artists’ writings and to theories of modernism and post-modernism. This course will also introduce students to various critical approaches and historical models applied to the analysis of visual culture since 1945. Students will develop skills in viewing and writing about art and will be introduced to critical frameworks for relating art to larger social, cultural, and political concerns.

ARH 358 History of Design

Explores major developments in modern and contemporary design (including product design, architecture, urbanism, technology, fashion, propaganda and protest aesthetics), considered historically, critically, and in global perspective.

ARH 359 History of Photography

An introduction to the history of photography from its origins in the nineteenth century up to the present. Lectures will be organized both chronologically and thematically. We will explore topics such as the origins and precursors of photography; the relationship between photography and nature; its relationship to painting, sculpture, and architecture; mass culture and reproduction; photographic portraits; photographing the microscopic, the invisible, and spirits; scientific truth; naturalism and pictorialism; chronophotography; photographic trickery; medicine and race; landscape, survey, and exploration photography; documentary photography and photojournalism; postmodernism and conceptual photography; the New Topographics; and the advent of large-format and digital photography. Special attention will be paid to issues in landscape photography.

ARH 384 The Art of Death in China

Examines Chinese mortuary art and architecture, especially from the neolithic period through the Han dynasty, which ended in 220 CE; some later examples of funerary practices, as exemplified by such sites as the Ming imperial tombs and the mausoleum of Chairman Mao, will also be introduced. The class begins with neolithic jade and pottery cultures, and considers the question of the extent to which we can properly refer to this cultural phase as “Chinese.” Subsequently, we will examine burial practices in the bronze age and their further evolution and development in the Han period; we will conclude with a look at later mortuary practices, both among Buddhists and at the imperial courts.

ARH 386 Later Imperial China

A survey of selected aspects of Chinese visual culture from the establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 to the start of the Republic in 1912. The course will examine a wide variety of media (painting, calligraphy, ceramics, textiles, jades, glass, and architecture) as employed at the imperial court, in Buddhist and Daoist temples, and among both the merchant class and the educated élite. In particular, the class will consider some of the many and varied ways in which objects were deployed to make claims about religious, political, and cultural authority.

ARH 387 Chinese Buddhist Art

Intended as an introduction to the history of Chinese Buddhist art. Topics to be covered include sculpture and painting at important cave site; sutra illustration and the evolution of printing; Buddhist architecture; representations of paradise and hell; Chan painting; and later Buddhist art. In addition to the analysis of stylistic features, this course will focus on Buddhism as a cultural force in China, and will look closely at the interactions between “Buddhist” art and “Chinese” art.

ARH 397 Japanese Buddhist Art

Examines Japanese Buddhist art in both its classical forms and its popular manifestations. The course is divided into two parts. The first half of the course will provide a chronological overview of Japanese Buddhist art, to acquaint students with its general characteristics and development. The second half will focus on close examinations of objects to show how Buddhist iconography has been appropriated into secular culture.

ARH 399 Special Studies

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Christianity & Japanese Art
  Traces Japanese art from the 16th century to the present that was inspired by Christianity in some way. Christianity has always been a minority religion in Japan, but it had (and still has) a significant cultural impact. By focusing on Christianity-inspired art, we will explore issues such as Japan's position in Asia as well as the world, ethnic and cultural identity, colonialism and post-colonialism, trauma, etc.
   
• Cities in the Western Imagination
  An introduction to some of the forms, functions, and meanings of cities—mainly European and American—from ancient to modern times.
• Gothic Architecture
  Examines both religious and secular architecture from soaring cathedrals to civic palaces looking at Gothic building through structural, constructional, religious, social, artistic, and economic lenses.
• New Frontiers in Medieval Art
  Explores the diversity of cultures and religious that find expression in the material culture of the Middle Ages. It explicitly focuses on subject outside the dominant, European-centered Christian worldview. Topics may include medieval Ethiopian art, medieval Jewish art, and the role of women in the creation of material culture.
   
• Art, Visual Culture, and Climate Change
  Explores contemporary art and visual culture (e.g., satellite imagery, mass media, science fiction) related to climate change, one of the most pressing issues today. It takes as a starting point the position that climate change—an expansive and unwieldy category—itself poses profound representational challenges.
   
• Intersections of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity: Contemporary Asian American Art
  Examines art works produced by people of Asian descent in contemporary America within an expansive history of Asian American art. Not intended to be an encyclopedic survey of Asian American art, each weekly session will deal with a set of specific art issues and questions based on work of particular artists, architects, or art groups. The course will focus on the works by peoples from China, Korea, exploring similarities and differences in their artistic expression along the lines of nationality, class, and gender. Encompassing various media including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and video art, the course will engage topics such as Asian immigration policies, forging of a pan-Asian coalition in the 1960s, Asian stereotypes, diasporic perspectives on Asian American identity, transnationalism, intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and class, and varying artistic strategies for expressing their concerns. Course meetings will consist of lectures, discussions based on reading, writing assignments, and field trips.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course. When approved by the honors essay advisor, students enrolled in the honors program may take ARH 401 Research to fulfill no more than one of the elective courses (4 credits) in their upper-division major requirements.

Prerequisite: ARH 401. Open only to department majors.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

ARH 407 Seminars

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Gender, Ethnicity, and Status in Greek and Roman Art and Architecture
  Explores intersections of gender, ethnicity, and status in Greek and Roman art and architecture.
   
• Cultural Interactions in Greek & Roman Art & Architecture
  Focusing on case studies, this seminar examines topics such as the representations of different peoples, the Roman reception of Greek art and architecture, art and architecture in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Jewish and Christian art and architecture, and Gandharan art and architecture.
   
• Medieval Rome
  Explores the art, architecture, urbanism, and topography of the city of Rome during the Middle Ages. We examine the radical transitions that Roman artists, architects, and patrons confronted during the course of a revolutionary millennium spanning from 300 to 1,300 CE. During the seminar, students will be asked to evaluate primary and secondary sources, to posit hypotheses and elaborate theories based upon observations drawn from the physical evidence of medieval Rome.
   
• Primitivism
  In this a reading- and writing-intensive seminar, we will critique primitivism as a cultural imaginary in western and global modernities. Designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the seminar will address topics such as metropolitan fantasies of “nature” and “authenticity”; anti-civilizational movements in various forms (anarchical, ecological, etc.); the history of the European imagination of the racial, ethnic and social other; the influence of tribal, children’s and outsider art on modern art; and the relationship between ethnography and colonialism. Students should be prepared to read, summarize and discuss texts.
• Art “After” Feminism
  The title of this seminar—Art “After” Feminism—is a deliberate provocation in an era that has been described as post- feminist. Far from dismissing the paradigmatic importance of feminism in relationship to cultural production however, this course will evaluate the place of feminism “after” the feminist art and activism of the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, a series of exhibitions and events in New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere have reconsidered the feminist legacy in contemporary art in ways that are not necessarily limited to women, and outside of what have conventionally been considered “feminist” issues. This course will begin by considering the revisionist feminist critiques of the 1980s and 1990s which re-evaluated art and aesthetics in relationship to what lies outside the frame of representation. We will examine the ways in which gender is currently addressed by artists, museums, and the academy and explore the interconnectedness of practice and theory through case studies of specific artists, artworks, and exhibitions. Students from all disciplines are welcome.
• The Parthenon Frieze
  Examines perhaps the most controversial work of ancient Greek sculpture: the long frieze that decorated the top of the inner room (or cella) of the Parthenon. In addition to scrutinizing the iconography and possible subjects of the frieze, the course will set the imagery into the historical, social, and religious contexts of Athens during the age of Perikles.
• Portraiture
  Investigates portraiture as a genre. Seemingly the most straightforward category of art, portraits have increasingly been considered as complex in representation. The course will cover both the theory and practice or portraiture from the Renaissance to the present, but with particular emphasis on works and artists from the 18th Century to present. Topics include the problem of "likeness"; the social role of the portrait; portraiture's stylistic conventions and iconographic devices; the portrait studio. For the final paper and presentation students may work on examples from any period or culture in any medium; sculpture, photography, or painting.
• Chinese Landscape Painting
  For the last thousand years, no other subject in Chinese painting has been as popular as landscapes. This course examines the complex, flexible language of landscape painting to understand why.
   
• Women and Contemporary Asian Art
  Examines contemporary East Asian art through the lens of women’s perspective and gender issues. While covering a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and video and digital art, the course will explore how contemporary women artists in China, Korea, and Japan have contested the dominant representation of gender and sexuality and how they have proposed alternative ideas. Emphasis will be placed on the aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the artists and their varying interpretations of gendered subjectivity, femininity, and womanhood. The format of the course will include lectures, discussions based on reading, writing assignments, oral presentations, and field trips.
   
• Architecture in the Expanded Field
  Explores contemporary architecture through the lens of its ever-expanding field, asking what happens when it, for instance, intensifies its engagement with—or takes the form of—experimental research, theory building, civic action, or museum display, along with (or instead of) the design of physical structures. Special attention will be given to the ways that architecture and art newly intersect, whether through direct collaboration, cross-referencing, role-swapping, or the adoption of parallel topics or methods.

ARH 410 Experimental Courses

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Hellenistic Art and Architecture
  Explores Greek art and architecture throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Near East during the time of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kingdoms (ca. 330s-31 B.C.E.). It pays special attention to Egypt and Pergamon, and it deals with topics such as portraiture; court art, luxury, and spectacle; patronage, benefaction, and political art; the Baroque style and emotion; representations of athletes, peasants, and others; narrative, landscape, and space; the birth of art history and criticism; and retrospection, archaism, and classicism.
   
• The Human Figure in Early Greek Art
  Examines the development of Greek art and particularly the human figure from the end of the so-called Dark Age to the beginning of the Classical period (c. 750-480 B.C.). Major themes also include the function and meaning of Archaic sculpture, the nature of Black-Figure and Red-Figure vase-painting, and the social/cultural contexts for the production of Archaic art.
   
• Identity Politics in Asian American Art
  Considers how contemporary Asian American artists have represented, performed and theorized ethnic identity, gender and sexuality in their work.A wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and video art will be explored. Topics to be covered include the emergence of the Asian American movement in the 1960s, stereotyping of Asian American women and men in popular culture, Asian American feminisms and their relation to mainstream American feminism, the debate between feminism and ethnic nationalism, global feminisms, and artists’ varying strategies for expressing their concerns.
• Contemporary Art in the 1960s-1970s
  An introductory survey of major artistic developments in North America and Western Europe during the 1960s-1970s. It will address the ambitions and contexts of pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, feminist art, performance art, video art, land art, and more. Special attention will be paid to the role of the mass media as well as the use of media technologies in artistic production. This course will also introduce students to critical and methodological issues in art history. Students will develop skills in viewing and writing about art and will be introduced to critical frameworks for relating art to social, cultural, and political concerns.
• Ancient Sculpture and the Italian Renaissance
  It is often taken for granted that the rediscovery of the thought, literature, and art of Greek and Roman antiquity was one of the forces that drove European art and culture from the Medieval "Dark Ages" into the Renaissance. This formulation, popular in handbooks until fairly recently, is in fact very crude. Still, there is no question that the study of the art of antiquity occupied Renaissance artists to a particularly high degree, and that many used ancient works as models and exemplars. The course begins with a broad survey of the nature of ancient Greek and Roman art and will then explore the extent to which ancient art survived the end of antiquity and was known in Medieval Italy. It will conclude with a series of "case studies," presented by the students, that explore in detail the impact ancient Greek and Roman art, mythology, and iconography had specifically upon the sculptors of Proto‐Renaissance and Renaissance Italy.
• Italian Renaissance Villa
  Examines the formal and programmatic development, and cultural sources and significance, of the villa type during the Italian Renaissance.
   
• Art of the Eccentrics
  Wondrous, crazy, drunken, one-of-a-kind, awakened, hermit, river folk, playful, creative, geeky; traditional Japanese discourses on art include many ways of describing what one might loosely define as the eccentric. What or who were “eccentrics?” This course will explore the “strange” in Japanese art and the positive and negative connotations of the concept of eccentricity, flashing out the fundamental issues of expected social and gender roles, economic vs. cultural hierarchy, and heterodoxy vs. orthodoxy.
   
• Symbolism & Decadence
  Symbolism and Decadence, the elusive yet pervasive tendency in turn‐of‐the­‐century European painting, sculpture, decorative arts and literature, will be the main subject of this course. Student can expect to read French, German and Russian Symbolist poetry (in translation) while studying manifestations of Symbolism in painting and sculpture (Rodin, the Nabis group, Munch, Klimt, Schiele). Some parallel developments in the decorative arts (Art Nouveau and Jugenstil) and performing arts (Loie Fuller) will also be considered. Central questions include the link between Symbolist iconographies and new formal techniques in art and literature; inter­‐mediality and the notion of Gesammtkunstwerk; the link between art forms and debates in contemporary psychology and culture; and the extent to which turn­‐of‐the­‐century aestheticism contributed to the rise of modernism and the formation of the historical avant‐garde.
   
• Romanticism
  Explores the diverse artists and interests of the Romantic Movement in European art, while critically examining Romanticism as a period term. We will consider developments in landscape, portraiture, and history painting in England, France, Germany, and Spain within their intellectual, historical, and cultural contexts. The course will be organized thematically and will include subjects such as the rise of the sketch, natural history and science, orientalism and ethnography, religion and historicism, and neo-romantic permutations in modern and contemporary art. Attention will also be paid to the development of new media, notably lithography and photography.

ARH 411 Critical Approaches to Art-Historical Study

Introduces students to the history of art history as a scholarly discipline and the variety of methods the discipline employs for art historical research. Students will learn how to distinguish art history from the biographies of artists and connoisseurship. Moreover, they will learn various aspects to the historical study of art such as formal analysis and iconography. The emphasis is on close and critical reading of seminal texts in art history as a discipline, all of which will be discussed in the seminar of a small group of students. Former ARH 300. Required for all art history majors.

ARH 425 Topics in Medieval Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Art & Crusade
  The launch of the first crusade in 1095 and the subsequent conquest of Jerusalem and establishment of the crusader kingdoms initiated profound changes in western European and eastern Mediterranean mentalities.This class considers the Crusade’s impact on artistic production, as an act of vengeance, piety, and mechanism for the exchange of ideas from diverse Christian and non-Christian perspectives.

ARH 440 Museology

Covers the history and theory of museums, from ancient Alexandria to twenty-first century New York. We will engage issues of museum ethics, the role of museums in society, curatorial practice, and the balance between authority and accessibility. While we will give primary attention to art museums, the scope of our inquiry also includes history museums, science museums, natural history museums, and other types of museums.

ARH 453 Topics in Modern Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Surrealism
  Focuses on the surrealist movement in the European interwar period, particularly its impact on literature, painting, sculpture, photography, cinema and exhibition practices. Attention will also be given to diverse strands of surrealism and socio-political contexts. Students are expected to have basic knowledge of modern art as well as advanced skills in reading comprehension and writing.

ARH 457 Topics in Contemporary Art

Changing topics in art and critical theory in Europe and the United States from 1940 to the present.

An exploratory survey of the major debates and discussions that have framed contemporary art since 1985. Because the historicization of the time period and its artistic production is still in flux, the artists and artworks discussed throughout the course are organized by theme, rather than by artistic genre or movement. The course themes reflect key theoretical questions that have emerged in art since 1985, so that this course will also serve as an introduction to postmodern critical theory. Students will develop skills in viewing and writing about contemporary art and will be introduced to critical frameworks for relating art to social, cultural, and political concerns.

ARH 464 American Architecture I

Examines the development of American architecture during the colonial period up to about 1815 and the development of a consciously American architectural expression. It touches on vernacular architectural traditions in Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlements, as well as vernacular forms introduced by other later immigrant groups. Also covered is the history of American urban development. Format: Lecture

ARH 465 American Architecture II

Considers the theorization, production, forms, content, and reception of American architecture—buildings, urban design, landscapes, architectural writing, and photography, etc.—of the nineteenth century. Format: Lecture

ARH 466 American Architecture III

Covers the development of architecture, building technology, and urban planning in the United States from 1890 to the present, examining the work of selected architects, and dealing with the recurrent use of historic imagery by American architects. Format: Lecture

ARH 471 Topics in Latin American Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Precarious Museums
  Invites students to question basic assumptions about art institutions by examining a range of historical and contemporary museum practices in Latin America. We will pay particular attention to the impact—often destructive, but also incredibly generative—of the precarious conditions in which many Latin American museums operate.

ARH 485 Topics in Japanese Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Eccentrics in Japanese Art
  Wondrous, crazy, drunken, one-of-a-kind, awakened, hermit, river folk, playful, creative, geeky: traditional Japanese discourses on art include many ways of describing what one might loosely define as the eccentric. What or who were “eccentrics?” This course explores the concept of the "strange" in Japanese art. By understanding what made these works or artists eccentric, we can conversely define the “norm” or “mainstream” at a given moment in the history of Japanese art, fleshing out the fundamental issues of expected social and gender roles, economic vs. cultural hierarchy, and heterodoxy vs. orthodoxy.
   
• Basara: The Art of Japanese Warriors
  In Japan, “warriors” (samurai) emerged as bodyguards hired by aristocratic families. They became their own masters and leaders of the nation beginning in the thirteenth century, developing distinct forms of visual and performing arts. Sometimes called basara for their flamboyance and extravagance, the warrior aesthetic became an essential component that defined (and still defines) “Japanese” art and culture. This course investigates the artistic practices particularly favored by the warrior class in Zen Buddhism, tea drinking, theatrical performance, fashion, armor, weapons, and more. Topics to be covered include: ideas and ideals of warrior-ness; pride and anxieties of the warrior class and their manifestations in art; definition of masculinity in Japanese culture, etc.

ARH 488 Japanese Prints

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Long 19th Century in Japanese Woodblock Prints
  Co-taught with the Chief Curator of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA), this course examines the changes and continuities found in Japanese woodblock prints of the 19th and 20th centuries through a first-hand study of prints in a local private collection. This course is offered as part of the preparations for a special installation of Japanese woodblock prints scheduled to in the Japanese galleries, JSMA. Students will have the opportunity to take part in the conceptualization process of this exhibition, and may contribute writing to the accompanying labels, text panels, and brochures.
   
• Utagawa School
  In collaboration with the Chief Curator of the JSMA, in this class, students will learn the history of Japanese woodblock prints, featuring key designers such as Hiroshige, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Yoshitoshi, while exploring the methods of exhibition planning. This course is offered in conjunction with preparations for an exhibition on the woodblock prints designed by members of the “Utagawa School.” Students in this course will have the opportunity to take part in the conceptualization of this exhibition and may contribute writing to the accompanying didactic materials.

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Graduate Courses

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

ARH 507 Seminars

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Gender, Ethnicity, and Status in Greek and Roman Art and Architecture
  Explores intersections of gender, ethnicity, and status in Greek and Roman art and architecture.
   
• Cultural Interactions in Greek & Roman Art & Architecture
  Focusing on case studies, this seminar examines topics such as the representations of different peoples, the Roman reception of Greek art and architecture, art and architecture in Graeco-Roman Egypt, Jewish and Christian art and architecture, and Gandharan art and architecture.
   
• Medieval Rome
  Explores the art, architecture, urbanism, and topography of the city of Rome during the Middle Ages. We examine the radical transitions that Roman artists, architects, and patrons confronted during the course of a revolutionary millennium spanning from 300 to 1,300 CE. During the seminar, students will be asked to evaluate primary and secondary sources, to posit hypotheses and elaborate theories based upon observations drawn from the physical evidence of medieval Rome.
   
• Primitivism
  In this a reading- and writing-intensive seminar, we will critique primitivism as a cultural imaginary in western and global modernities. Designed for advanced undergraduates and graduate students, the seminar will address topics such as metropolitan fantasies of “nature” and “authenticity”; anti-civilizational movements in various forms (anarchical, ecological, etc.); the history of the European imagination of the racial, ethnic and social other; the influence of tribal, children’s and outsider art on modern art; and the relationship between ethnography and colonialism. Students should be prepared to read, summarize and discuss texts.
   
• Art “After” Feminism
  The title of this seminar—Art “After” Feminism—is a deliberate provocation in an era that has been described as post- feminist. Far from dismissing the paradigmatic importance of feminism in relationship to cultural production however, this course will evaluate the place of feminism “after” the feminist art and activism of the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, a series of exhibitions and events in New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere have reconsidered the feminist legacy in contemporary art in ways that are not necessarily limited to women, and outside of what have conventionally been considered “feminist” issues. This course will begin by considering the revisionist feminist critiques of the 1980s and 1990s which re-evaluated art and aesthetics in relationship to what lies outside the frame of representation. We will examine the ways in which gender is currently addressed by artists, museums, and the academy and explore the interconnectedness of practice and theory through case studies of specific artists, artworks, and exhibitions. Students from all disciplines are welcome.
   
• The Parthenon Frieze
  Examines perhaps the most controversial work of ancient Greek sculpture: the long frieze that decorated the top of the inner room (or cella) of the Parthenon. In addition to scrutinizing the iconography and possible subjects of the frieze, the course will set the imagery into the historical, social, and religious contexts of Athens during the age of Perikles.
   
• Portraiture
  Investigates portraiture as a genre. Seemingly the most straightforward category of art, portraits have increasingly been considered as complex in representation. The course will cover both the theory and practice or portraiture from the Renaissance to the present, but with particular emphasis on works and artists from the 18th Century to present. Topics include the problem of "likeness"; the social role of the portrait; portraiture's stylistic conventions and iconographic devices; the portrait studio. For the final paper and presentation students may work on examples from any period or culture in any medium; sculpture, photography, or painting.
   
• Chinese Landscape Painting
  For the last thousand years, no other subject in Chinese painting has been as popular as landscapes. This course examines the complex, flexible language of landscape painting to understand why.
   
• Women and Contemporary Asian Art
  Examines contemporary East Asian art through the lens of women’s perspective and gender issues. While covering a wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and video and digital art, the course will explore how contemporary women artists in China, Korea, and Japan have contested the dominant representation of gender and sexuality and how they have proposed alternative ideas. Emphasis will be placed on the aesthetic and conceptual concerns of the artists and their varying interpretations of gendered subjectivity, femininity, and womanhood. The format of the course will include lectures, discussions based on reading, writing assignments, oral presentations, and field trips.
   
• Architecture in the Expanded Field
  Explores contemporary architecture through the lens of its ever-expanding field, asking what happens when it, for instance, intensifies its engagement with—or takes the form of—experimental research, theory building, civic action, or museum display, along with (or instead of) the design of physical structures. Special attention will be given to the ways that architecture and art newly intersect, whether through direct collaboration, cross-referencing, role-swapping, or the adoption of parallel topics or methods.

ARH 510 Experimental Courses

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Hellenistic Art and Architecture
  Explores Greek art and architecture throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Near East during the time of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kingdoms (ca. 330s-31 B.C.E.). It pays special attention to Egypt and Pergamon, and it deals with topics such as portraiture; court art, luxury, and spectacle; patronage, benefaction, and political art; the Baroque style and emotion; representations of athletes, peasants, and others; narrative, landscape, and space; the birth of art history and criticism; and retrospection, archaism, and classicism.
   
• The Human Figure in Early Greek Art
  Examines the development of Greek art and particularly the human figure from the end of the so-called Dark Age to the beginning of the Classical period (c. 750-480 B.C.). Major themes also include the function and meaning of Archaic sculpture, the nature of Black-Figure and Red-Figure vase-painting, and the social/cultural contexts for the production of Archaic art.
   
• Identity Politics in Asian American Art
  Considers how contemporary Asian American artists have represented, performed and theorized ethnic identity, gender and sexuality in their work.A wide range of media including painting, sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and video art will be explored. Topics to be covered include the emergence of the Asian American movement in the 1960s, stereotyping of Asian American women and men in popular culture, Asian American feminisms and their relation to mainstream American feminism, the debate between feminism and ethnic nationalism, global feminisms, and artists’ varying strategies for expressing their concerns.
   
• Contemporary Art in the 1960s-1970s
  An introductory survey of major artistic developments in North America and Western Europe during the 1960s-1970s. It will address the ambitions and contexts of pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, feminist art, performance art, video art, land art, and more. Special attention will be paid to the role of the mass media as well as the use of media technologies in artistic production. This course will also introduce students to critical and methodological issues in art history. Students will develop skills in viewing and writing about art and will be introduced to critical frameworks for relating art to social, cultural, and political concerns.
   
• Ancient Sculpture and the Italian Renaissance
  It is often taken for granted that the rediscovery of the thought, literature, and art of Greek and Roman antiquity was one of the forces that drove European art and culture from the Medieval "Dark Ages" into the Renaissance. This formulation, popular in handbooks until fairly recently, is in fact very crude. Still, there is no question that the study of the art of antiquity occupied Renaissance artists to a particularly high degree, and that many used ancient works as models and exemplars. The course begins with a broad survey of the nature of ancient Greek and Roman art and will then explore the extent to which ancient art survived the end of antiquity and was known in Medieval Italy. It will conclude with a series of "case studies," presented by the students, that explore in detail the impact ancient Greek and Roman art, mythology, and iconography had specifically upon the sculptors of Proto‐Renaissance and Renaissance Italy.
   
• Italian Renaissance Villa
  Examines the formal and programmatic development, and cultural sources and significance, of the villa type during the Italian Renaissance.
   
• Art of the Eccentrics
  Wondrous, crazy, drunken, one-of-a-kind, awakened, hermit, river folk, playful, creative, geeky; traditional Japanese discourses on art include many ways of describing what one might loosely define as the eccentric. What or who were “eccentrics?” This course will explore the “strange” in Japanese art and the positive and negative connotations of the concept of eccentricity, flashing out the fundamental issues of expected social and gender roles, economic vs. cultural hierarchy, and heterodoxy vs. orthodoxy.
   
• Symbolism & Decadence
  Symbolism and Decadence, the elusive yet pervasive tendency in turn‐of‐the­‐century European painting, sculpture, decorative arts and literature, will be the main subject of this course. Student can expect to read French, German and Russian Symbolist poetry (in translation) while studying manifestations of Symbolism in painting and sculpture (Rodin, the Nabis group, Munch, Klimt, Schiele). Some parallel developments in the decorative arts (Art Nouveau and Jugenstil) and performing arts (Loie Fuller) will also be considered. Central questions include the link between Symbolist iconographies and new formal techniques in art and literature; inter­‐mediality and the notion of Gesammtkunstwerk; the link between art forms and debates in contemporary psychology and culture; and the extent to which turn­‐of‐the­‐century aestheticism contributed to the rise of modernism and the formation of the historical avant‐garde.
   
• Romanticism
  Explores the diverse artists and interests of the Romantic Movement in European art, while critically examining Romanticism as a period term. We will consider developments in landscape, portraiture, and history painting in England, France, Germany, and Spain within their intellectual, historical, and cultural contexts. The course will be organized thematically and will include subjects such as the rise of the sketch, natural history and science, orientalism and ethnography, religion and historicism, and neo-romantic permutations in modern and contemporary art. Attention will also be paid to the development of new media, notably lithography and photography.

ARH 511 Critical Approaches to Art History

This graduate seminar explores the theories and the methodologies that are important in the discipline of art history.

ARH 525 Topics in Medieval Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Art & Crusade
  The launch of the first crusade in 1095 and the subsequent conquest of Jerusalem and establishment of the crusader kingdoms initiated profound changes in western European and eastern Mediterranean mentalities.This class considers the Crusade’s impact on artistic production, as an act of vengeance, piety, and mechanism for the exchange of ideas from diverse Christian and non-Christian perspectives.

ARH 540 Museology

Covers the history and theory of museums, from ancient Alexandria to twenty-first century New York. We will engage issues of museum ethics, the role of museums in society, curatorial practice, and the balance between authority and accessibility. While we will give primary attention to art museums, the scope of our inquiry also includes history museums, science museums, natural history museums, and other types of museums.

ARH 553 Topics in Modern Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Surrealism
  Focuses on the surrealist movement in the European interwar period, particularly its impact on literature, painting, sculpture, photography, cinema and exhibition practices. Attention will also be given to diverse strands of surrealism and socio-political contexts. Students are expected to have basic knowledge of modern art as well as advanced skills in reading comprehension and writing.

ARH 557 Topics in Contemporary Art

Changing topics in art and critical theory in Europe and the United States from 1940 to the present.

An exploratory survey of the major debates and discussions that have framed contemporary art since 1985. Because the historicization of the time period and its artistic production is still in flux, the artists and artworks discussed throughout the course are organized by theme, rather than by artistic genre or movement. The course themes reflect key theoretical questions that have emerged in art since 1985, so that this course will also serve as an introduction to postmodern critical theory. Students will develop skills in viewing and writing about contemporary art and will be introduced to critical frameworks for relating art to social, cultural, and political concerns.

ARH 564 American Architecture I

Examines the development of American architecture during the colonial period up to about 1815 and the development of a consciously American architectural expression. It touches on vernacular architectural traditions in Spanish, French, Dutch, and English settlements, as well as vernacular forms introduced by other later immigrant groups. Also covered is the history of American urban development. Format: Lecture

ARH 565 American Architecture II

Considers the theorization, production, forms, content, and reception of American architecture—buildings, urban design, landscapes, architectural writing, and photography, etc.—of the nineteenth century. Format: Lecture

ARH 566 American Architecture III

Covers the development of architecture, building technology, and urban planning in the United States from 1890 to the present, examining the work of selected architects, and dealing with the recurrent use of historic imagery by American architects. Format: Lecture

ARH 571 Topics in Latin American Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Precarious Museums
  Invites students to question basic assumptions about art institutions by examining a range of historical and contemporary museum practices in Latin America. We will pay particular attention to the impact—often destructive, but also incredibly generative—of the precarious conditions in which many Latin American museums operate.

ARH 585 Topics in Japanese Art

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Eccentrics in Japanese Art
  Wondrous, crazy, drunken, one-of-a-kind, awakened, hermit, river folk, playful, creative, geeky: traditional Japanese discourses on art include many ways of describing what one might loosely define as the eccentric. What or who were “eccentrics?” This course explores the concept of the "strange" in Japanese art. By understanding what made these works or artists eccentric, we can conversely define the “norm” or “mainstream” at a given moment in the history of Japanese art, fleshing out the fundamental issues of expected social and gender roles, economic vs. cultural hierarchy, and heterodoxy vs. orthodoxy.
   
• Basara: The Art of Japanese Warriors
  In Japan, “warriors” (samurai) emerged as bodyguards hired by aristocratic families. They became their own masters and leaders of the nation beginning in the thirteenth century, developing distinct forms of visual and performing arts. Sometimes called basara for their flamboyance and extravagance, the warrior aesthetic became an essential component that defined (and still defines) “Japanese” art and culture. This course investigates the artistic practices particularly favored by the warrior class in Zen Buddhism, tea drinking, theatrical performance, fashion, armor, weapons, and more. Topics to be covered include: ideas and ideals of warrior-ness; pride and anxieties of the warrior class and their manifestations in art; definition of masculinity in Japanese culture, etc.

ARH 588 Japanese Prints

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Long 19th Century in Japanese Woodblock Prints
  Co-taught with the Chief Curator of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA), this course examines the changes and continuities found in Japanese woodblock prints of the 19th and 20th centuries through a first-hand study of prints in a local private collection. This course is offered as part of the preparations for a special installation of Japanese woodblock prints scheduled to in the Japanese galleries, JSMA. Students will have the opportunity to take part in the conceptualization process of this exhibition, and may contribute writing to the accompanying labels, text panels, and brochures.
   
• Utagawa School
  In collaboration with the Chief Curator of the JSMA, in this class, students will learn the history of Japanese woodblock prints, featuring key designers such as Hiroshige, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Yoshitoshi, while exploring the methods of exhibition planning. This course is offered in conjunction with preparations for an exhibition on the woodblock prints designed by members of the “Utagawa School.” Students in this course will have the opportunity to take part in the conceptualization of this exhibition and may contribute writing to the accompanying didactic materials.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

* Specialized course. Please speak to an Art History faculty member if you are interested in taking this course.

ARH 607 Seminar: [Topic]

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• GeoAesthetics 
  This graduate seminar examines engagements with geology in art and theory from the early modern period to the present, from a preoccupation with ‘figured stones’ in the 16th-century, to the fascination with the fossil record in the arts of the 19th-century, to earth art’s use of dirt and minerals in the 1960s, and a recent geological turn in contemporary art that has paralleled the rise of the Anthropocene concept. In addition to texts by theorists such as Elizabeth Povinelli, Deleuze & Guattari, and Jussi Parikka, we will examine a wide range of artworks, culminating with Garrick Imatani’s new installation on campus about the Willamette Meteorite, made in conjunction with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.
   
• Art and Nature
  This graduate seminar will explore the intersection of art and nature since the Renaissance. Topics will include organic theories of artistic creation, art versus nature in the cabinet of curiosities and museums, organic form and biomorphism, garden design and land art, biotech art, animals in art, art and ecology, and natural materials, such as stone, wood, pigments, and water.
   
• Performativity and Agency
  Since J. L. Austin’s seminal work, How to Do Things with Words, performativity has grown into an elastic analytical concept embraced and adapted across academic disciplines. This seminar explores the issues surrounding the now (perhaps) overfamiliar “performative paradigm” by taking stock of its multivariate definitions and nuances and evaluating its utility through case studies. To provide a loose thematic focus, the course will feature the question of agency as our secondary concern. Here “agency” is considered not just within the performative acts we examine, but also in terms of how the location of agency is impacted by our very evocation of the performative paradigm in our analysis.

ARH 610 Experimental Courses

Format: Varies. Some are Seminar, others are Lecture or Lecture with Discussion. Offerings vary and reflect the interests of faculty members.

Courses recently taught under this heading include:

• Install Performance
  This theory-based graduate seminar explores the post-1960 art forms of performance and installation art through a series of topics and themes, including: sound, time, memory, the market, ethics, participation, sexuality, exhibition, and more.
   
• Arts of Colonial Mexico
  This course examines the art and architecture of Colonial Mexico, covering the three hundred years of artistic production between the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1521 and Mexican independence in 1821. In addition to studying seminal artworks from the region, we will examine important methodological and theoretical approaches to understanding the relationship between art, society, and colonial politics during this period.
   
• Contemporary Art Theory
  This graduate-level seminar critically investigates major theoretical concepts and debates within the overlapping fields of contemporary art history and practice.

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