ARTH 301
Methods of Art History
Spring 2025
Division I
Writing Skills
Class Details
This course on the methods and historiography of art history offers art-history majors an overview of the discipline. The course surveys influential definitions of the discipline, the evolving tasks it has set itself, and the methods it has developed for implementing and executing them. Works of art will inevitably enter into our discussions, but the main objects of study will be texts about art as well as texts about methods for an historical study of art. The course is designed to offer a pluralistic perspective on key theoretical and methodological approaches to art history. Readings will regularly compare the Western discipline with frameworks from other parallel cultures.Topics include: style and periodization; iconography, narratology, and phenomenology; the social functions of images and the social history of art; the materiality of art; race, gender, and sexuality; the global scope of art and art history.
The Class:
Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3381
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 3381
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation:
six 1,000-word analytical essays plus one 2,000-word writing project. Participation in class discussion. Attendance.
Prerequisites:
any prior ARTH course (one or more 100-level ARTH course[s] recommended). In the absence of prior coursework in art history, permission of instructor is necessary for admission.
Enrollment Preferences:
The course is limited to art-history and (with permission) art history/studio majors. If the course is over-enrolled, preference will be given to senior AH majors, then juniors. Second-year students intending to major in art may enroll with permission.
Unit Notes:
Satisfies the ARTH 301 requirement for the art-history major. Will satisfy the methods/junior seminar requirement for the history/studio major, but students wishing to do so must have permission of instructor to enroll.
Distributions:
Division I
Writing Skills
WS Notes:
Students submit one 1,000-word essay every other week, for a total of six short essays. In addition, they submit a 2,000 writing project at the end of term. The purpose of the essays is to analyze the arguments and rhetoric of influential art-historical scholarship and criticism. The subject of the course, then, is how to write as an art historian. We discuss not only the content of the essays we read and write but also the form, both in class and in office hours.
Class Grid
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ARTH 301 - 01 (S) SEM Methods of Art History
ARTH 301 - 01 (S) SEM Methods of Art HistoryDivision I Writing SkillsMR 2:35 pm - 3:50 pm
3381
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