BARNARD COLLEGE
ART HISTORY DEPARTMENT
SPRING 2016 GUIDE
László Moholy-Nagy, Flower, 1925
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Art History, which is devoted to the study of all the visual arts, is one of the broadest fields in the humanities.
It is concerned not only with the nature of works of art- their form, style, and content - but also with the
social, political, and cultural circumstances that shape them. Introductory level courses encourage a basic and
lifelong understanding and appreciation of works of art. The rest of the curriculum offers a more advanced
and specialized knowledge of art, which can lead to many kinds of careers, including teaching, museum
administration and curating, business positions in galleries or auction houses, publishing, criticism, collection
advising, and conservation, as well as creative careers in any medium. Students in many fields may also find
that art history is relevant to their studies. The department, fortunate in being located in New York City, one
of the world’s great art centers, takes full advantage of the rich resources of the city’s museums and galleries.
Please refer to the Barnard College Art History website ww.barnard.edu/arthist for up to date information on the latest
Art History department news, events, requirements, courses, faculty hours, links, and more. Please feel free to contact the
department if you have any questions.
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MAJOR IN ART HISTORY
The Department offers both a major in Art History and a major in Art History with a concentration in the
Visual Arts. In each case, the student chooses a faculty adviser who assists her in planning a program
incorporating personal interests while meeting departmental requirements.
A minimum of 12 art history courses are required:
1. BC1001 and 1002 Introduction to Art History. This two-course sequence is required.
2. BC3970 Methods and Theories of Art History. To be taken during the junior or senior year.
3. BC3959x and/or BC3960y Senior Research Seminar.
Students write their senior thesis in conjunction with the Senior Research Seminar. (Please see description of the
senior thesis below). Students will develop, research, and write their thesis project in consultation with an
individual faculty member in Art History. They will also attend and participate in group seminars convened
during the academic year in which all students will present their work. Students who plan to study abroad during
their senior year and those who expect to graduate early must begin the senior research seminar sequence in the
second semester of the junior year.
4. Two Seminar Courses in Art History (may also be counted toward the historical and regional distribution
requirement.)
5. Seven elective courses, with the following requirements:
Lecture or seminars courses can be used to fulfill the seven elective requirements. BC1001 and BC1002 or any
other broad survey cannot be used to fulfill this requirement. Courses in film are accepted toward the major
requirements; studio courses are not.
Students must take at least one course in three of four historical periods:
Ancient (up to 400 CE/AD), 400-1400, 1400-1700, 1700-Present
*These chronological divisions are approximate. In case of ambiguities about the
eligibility of a course to fill the requirement, please consult the department chair
or your advisor.
An additional two courses must also be drawn from at least TWO DIFFERENT world regions, as listed
below:
Africa, Asia and the Indigenous Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean/Indigenous Americas, Middle
East
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REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MINOR IN ART HISTORY
The minor in Art History consists of five lecture courses, including BC1001, BC1002, and three courses in the
following areas of which students must have at least one be Non-European.
European and American: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern
Non-European: Chinese, Japanese, Indian, African, Meso-American, and Native American
ART HISTORY SENIOR THESIS REQUIREMENTS
Description: All art history majors write a substantial research paper in their senior year. There are two options for
fulfilling this requirement: Seniors have the option of doing a year-long thesis, or reworking and developing a
seminar paper into a thesis through a one-semester participation in the Senior Thesis Seminar. The Senior Thesis
Seminar would function for those interested in working on a thesis over the course of a year, but those deciding for
the option of expanding a seminar paper would only join the course in the second semester. The one-semester
option is for students who prefer to take another course rather than devote a year to one project.
Senior Thesis Options:
1. Students interested in participating in the year-long Senior Thesis Seminar should write a brief (one-page)
description of their thesis topic and submit it to the appropriate adviser within the first two weeks of the fall
semester. The potential adviser will determine the feasibility of the study in question and accept or decline to
become the student’s adviser. Such a thesis should be approximately 30-50 pages long.
2. Students interested in expanding and enhancing a seminar paper will find a faculty adviser, preferably the
professor with whom they wrote the original paper, willing to help them in its transformation into a thesis.
They will then join the Senior Thesis in the spring semester of their senior year. In this context they will have
an opportunity to present their ideas to the rest of the graduating class as well as members of the faculty so as
to receive comments and suggestions as to how to develop their arguments. One-semester theses should be
approximately 30 pages long.
Grades: Two grades will be awarded in connection with your work on the finished thesis. One will evaluate the
way in which you have fulfilled the requirements of the Senior Research Seminar. That is, your participation and
attendance in the Thesis Colloquium, the energy you have put into the research, the effort you have made in
producing an original and challenging argument as well as a solidly constructed and polished piece of prose.
Since the course is yearlong, students will receive a grade of Y (indicating year long course) for the fall semester
and will receive their grade at the end of the spring term for the year. This grade will be assigned in the usual A
through F spectrum. The other grade will be awarded on the basis of the evaluation of the thesis itself. This
evaluation will consider whether or not the aims of the project were met: was the research sufficient
to warrant the conclusions, is the argument of the thesis original as well as coherent and convincing, was the
writing adequate to the ideas that had to be expressed? Very often the instructor will ask another member of the
faculty to comment on the paper as well. This grade will either be a Pass with Distinction, a Pass or a Fail.
Note on Senior Thesis for Double and Combined Majors:
Please note the distinctions between the Double Major, the Double Major with a Single Essay, and the
Combined Major. In the Double Major students will do all of the required course work for both majors and
write two different Senior Essays that fulfill the requirements of each department. In the Double Major with
Single Essay students do all of the required course work for the two majors and write only one essay read by an
adviser in each major field. In the Combined Major students follow the requirements for coursework for a
combined major and write a single senior essay also read by an adviser in each major field.
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REQUIREMENTS FOR THE MAJOR IN ART HISTORY WITH CONCENTRATION IN VISUAL ARTS
A minimum of twelve courses is required for the major in Art History with concentration in the Visual Arts. Please
note there is a maximum of 30 studio credits including studio courses in other subjects.
1. Seven Art History courses including:
BC 1001 and 1002 Introduction to Art History
One course in 19th or 20th Century Art
BC3031 Imagery and Form in the Arts (Spring)
One seminar in art history
2. Five Studio courses including:
BC3530 Advanced Studio (Fall)
BC3959 Visual Arts Senior Research Project (Spring)
SENIOR PROJECT FOR THE VISUAL ARTS CONCENTRATION
Art History Majors concentrating in Visual Arts may elect to substitute the written Senior Thesis for
the visual arts Senior Project. To do this they must:
1. Notify their adviser of their intention to do so by the end of their junior year.
2. Take Methods and Theories of Art History (BC3970) & the Senior Research Seminar (BC3959 and
BC3960)
Description: The Senior Project in the Art History Visual Arts Concentration is usually scheduled in the last year
of the major. By that time you will have taken a variety of Art History and studio courses, and will have some
idea as to what direction your work should take. Each student is responsible for the installation and dismantling
of her own Senior Project in the Senior Exhibition.
BC3999 Independent Project (Visual Arts senior thesis project) provides the time to accomplish a senior project.
The Senior Project is expected to be a cohesive body of work based on original concepts and executed with some
technical proficiency. An artist statement and project description approximately seven to ten pages in length will
accompany the Senior Project outlining your artistic ambitions. This should include an account of the kind of
meaning you hope your work will have for the viewer as well as a description of the artistic tradition on which
your work is based.
Procedures: When you prepare to fulfill the Senior Project requirement meet with your Visual Arts advisor. This is
done the fall semester of your senior year in conjunction with the Advanced Senior Studio course (BC3530). The
content of your Senior Project should be agreed upon by the Visual Arts instructors and yourself.
Grades: Two grades will be awarded in connection with your work on the Senior Project. One will evaluate the
way in which you have fulfilled the requirements of the Senior Project course, that is, the regularity of your
meetings and the effort you have made in producing an original, cohesive, and well-executed Senior Project.
This grade will be assigned in the usual A through F spectrum. The other grade will be awarded on the basis of
the evaluation of the Senior Project itself. This evaluation will consider whether or not the aims of the project
were met: a pass with distinction, a pass or a fail.
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REGISTERING FOR BARNARD ART HISTORY COURSES
All Barnard and Columbia Art History undergraduate seminars (AHIS BC prefix) are limited to 15 students and
require an application due no later than November 13th at noon. Barnard AH applications are due in the Barnard art
history office, 500E Diana Center The Art History Department will post rosters outside the Barnard Art History
department office, 5th floor Diana Center the week of November 19th. Note: AHIS BC3960 Art History Senior
Research Seminar & AHIS BC3999 Visual Arts Senior Project do not require an application.
Download the Barnard application:
http://arthistory.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/spring_2016_barnard_art_history_seminar_application_form.pdf
Submit Columbia seminar applications directly to the CU AH office - 830 Schermerhorn Hall.
Download the Columbia application:
Http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/undergraduate/forms/seminar-application-form.pdf
The following Spring 2016 Barnard Art History courses require an application for admission.
AHIS BC3919
AHIS BC3922
AHIS BC3934
AHIS BC3969
AHIS BC3984
Body Politics Since 1945
The 1960’s
Dada and Surrealism
Art Criticism II
Curatorial Positions: 1969-Present
Professor Jack McGrath
Professor Jack McGrath
Professor Jack McGrath
Professor Nic Guagnini
Professor Valerie Smith
NEED A FORM SIGNED BY THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR OR PROGRAM DIRECTOR?
Please obtain the appropriate form (for example: major or minor form, change of advisor form, study abroad form
etc.) from the Registrar’s office. Fill out the form and drop it off in the Art History office for either the department
chair or program director to sign. It takes approx. 2-3 days turnaround time for the form to be signed. Students are
responsible for picking up forms and depositing them with the registrar. If you have any questions, please don’t
hesitate to contact the office at arthistory@barnard.edu
ART HISTORY COURSE LISTINGS SPRING 2016
All courses listed below are subject to change. Please confirm course information (day/time/location), by going to the
online course directory at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/bulletin/uwb/.
For further information on Columbia Art History Courses contact the Columbia Department of Art History at 212-8544505 or http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory.
UNDERGRADUATE LECTURES
AHIS BC1002 Barnard Introduction to Art History Survey
The second part of the Introduction to Art History goes from about 1400 to 2015, circles the world, and includes all media. It is organized around
one theme for each lecture, and approximately 100 works of art. Visits to New York museums and discussions sections are crucial parts of the
course. Discussion Section Required. BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: Cultures in Comparison (CUL). BC: Fulfillment of General Education
Requirement: Historical Studies (HIS). BC: Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
4 credits
Professor: Anne Higonnet
Day/Time: MW 2:40-3:55pm
Location: 304 Barnard Hall
AHIS W3110 Athenian Acropolis: 5th and 6th Century BCE
The course places the architecture and the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon in the centre of the scheduled class sessions. The course also aims
at a contextualisation of the Parthenon within the broader architectural, artistic, and topographical context of the Athenian Acropolis during the
sixth and fifth centuries BCE. The chosen chronological frame focuses on the period of the most intensive activity on the Acropolis. Two class
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sessions will, nevertheless, give a brief overview of the Acropolis after the end of the Peloponnesian war and concentrate on the transformation of
the Acropolis into “Greece’s museum of the past”, an Arcadian topos of human imagination.
3 credits
Professor: Ioannis Mylonopoulos
Day/Time: MW 10:10-11:25am
Location: 612 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W3230 Medieval Architecture
Developed collaboratively and taught digitally spanning one thousand years of architecture.
3 credits
Professor: Stephen Murray
Day/Time: TR 2:40-3:55pm
Location: 612 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS V3250 Roman Art & Architecture
Architecture, sculpture, and painting of ancient Rome from the second century B.C. to the end of the Roman Empire in the West.
3 credits
Professor: Francesco de Angelis
Day/Time: MW 2:40-3:55pm
Location: 614 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W3606 Visual Arts in Imperial Spain 1470-1600
The course will survey Renaissance art in Hapsburg Spain, considered in the wide geographical context of the extended and dispersed dominions of
the different crowns of the Spanish monarchy, which connected the Iberian Peninsula with Italy, Flanders and the New World. It will concern
visual art in its various media, mainly painting, sculpture and architecture, but also tapestries, prints, armor, goldsmithery and ephemeral
decoration, among others. Works of the main artists of the period will be introduced and analyzed, giving attention to the historical and cultural
context of their production and reception. The course will particularly focus on the movement of artists, works and models within the Spanish
Hapsburg territories, in order to understand to what extent visual arts contributed to shaping the political identity of this culturally composite
empire.
3 credits
Professor: Diane Bodart
Day/Time: TR 10:10-11:25am
Location: 612 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS BC3626 In/Around Abstract Expressionism
This course focuses on the history of the artistic phenomenon of abstract expressionism in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Japan. To
place abstract expressionism within its proper historical context, we will explore the modern, anti-modern, avant-garde, and neo-avant-garde artistic
practices that have been elaborated in various ways in different locations from the 1920s to the 1960s, and the major critical and historical accounts
of modernism in the arts during these years.
3 credits
Professor: Alexander Alberro
Day/Time: TR 40:10-5:25pm
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3642 North American Art and Culture
An examination of North American painting, sculpture, photography, graphic art and decorative arts from the Colonial Period until World War I.
Artists discussed will include Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, Lilly Martin Spencer, Harriet Powers, Rafael Aragon, Robert
Duncanson, Frederick Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, James MacNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Moran, Henry Ossawa
Tanner and Eadweard Muybridge.
3 credits
Professor: Elizabeth Hutchinson
Day/Time: TR 10:10-11:25am
Location: TBA
AHIS W3645 20th Century Architecture/City Planning
This undergraduate lecture course is an introduction to key topics in the history and theory of modern architecture and urbanism of the twentieth
century, primarily focusing on developments in Europe and the United States, complemented with selected case studies from countries in Latin
America and Asia. The course does not systematically cover all the major events, ideas, protagonists, and buildings of the period. It is organized
around thematic and sometimes monographic lectures, which are intended to represent the essential character of modern architecture from its
beginnings around 1900 until more recent developments at the end of the century.
3 credits
Professor: Patricio del Real
Day/Time: TR 10:10-11:25am
Location: 882 Schermerhorn Hall
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AHIS W3650 Twentieth Century Art
Major developments in 20th-century art, with emphasis on modernist and avant-garde practices and their relevance for art up to the present.
3 credits
Professor: Rosalind Krauss
Day/Time: TR 2:40-3:55pm
Location: 501 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS BC3654 Institutional Critique
Examines precedents for institutional critique in the strategies of early twentieth-century historical avant-garde and the post-war neo-avant-garde.
Explores ideas about the institution and violence, investigates the critique and elaboration of institutional critique from the late 1970s to the early
1990s, and considers the legacies of institutional critiques in the art of the present. Note: Limited to Junior and Seniors.
3 credits
Professor: Rosalyn Deutsche
Day/Time: TR 1:10-2:25pm
Location: TBA
UNDERGRADUATE BRIDGE LECTURES
Please note: W4000 level lectures are known as “BRIDGE LECTURES” and are introductory graduate courses open to advanced undergraduates.
AHIS W4073 Contemporary Arts of Africa
This course takes up a question posed by Terry Smith and applies it to Africa: "Who gets to say what counts as contemporary art?" It will
investigate the impact of modernity, modernism, and increasing globalism on artistic practices, with a special focus on three of the major centers for
contemporary art: Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria. Some of the topics covered will be: the emergence of new media (such as photography or
comics), experiments in Pan-Africanism, development of parallel modernities and class divides, diasporic consciousness, the creation of "national"
cultures, biennial politics, and the emergence of international culture-brokers. We will be sensitive to differences in Francophone and Anglophone
critical practice and discourse.
3 credits
Professor: Zoe Strother
Day/Time: MW 4:10-5:25pm
Location: 612 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W4110 Japanese Architecture: Mid-19th Century to the Present
This course will examine Japanese architecture and urban planning from the mid-19th century to the present. We will address topics such as the
establishment of an architectural profession along western lines in the late 19th century, the emergence of a modernist movement in the 1920's, the
use of biological metaphors and the romanticization of technology in the theories and designs of the Metabolist Group, and the shifting significance
of pre-modern Japanese architectural practices for modern architects. There will be an emphasis on the complex relationship between architectural
practice and broader political and social change in Japan.
3 credits
Professor: Johnathan Reynolds
Day/Time: TR 10:10-11:25am
Location: 832 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W4155 Art & Archeology of Mesopotamia
Introduction to the art and architecture of Mesopotamia beginning with the establishment of the first cities in the fourth millennium B.C.E. through
the fall of Babylon to Alexander of Macedon in the fourth century B.C.E. Focus on the distinctive concepts and uses of art in the AssyroBabylonian tradition.
3 credits
Professor: Zainab Bahrani
Day/Time: TR 4:10-5:25pm
Location: 612 Schermerhorn Hall
UNDERGRADUATE SEMINARS
All Barnard and Columbia Art History undergraduate seminars are limited to 15 students and require an application
due no later than November 13th at noon. Barnard applications are due in the Barnard Art History office, 500E Diana
Center. Columbia seminars should be submitted to their office in Schermerhorn Hall.
Download a Barnard AH seminar application from our website:
http://arthistory.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/spring_2016_barnard_art_history_seminar_application_form.pdf
Download a Columbia AH seminar application from their website:
Http://www.columbia.edu/cu/arthistory/undergraduate/forms/seminar-application-form.pdf
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AHIS W3826 Women Painters in Europe 1500-1750
Histories of European Renaissance and Baroque art once narrated a story involving almost only male actors: it was men who made the period's
paintings and sculptures, men who purchased them, and men who left their views on art for posterity. That characterization of the field is no longer
quite so true, and one of the most significant changes in the field is that female painters now feature in every survey of the period. The aim of this
course is to look comparatively at the painterly works produced by women across the early modern period and at the way those pictures have been
treated in the scholarly literature from the last several decades.
4 credits
Professor: Michael Cole
Day/Time: T 4:10-6:00pm
Location: 832 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W3832 Sacred Landscapes of the Ancient Andes
This seminar will explore how the concept of the sacred landscape, a trope evoked in pre-Columbian scholarship with increasing frequency, has
been used in the interpretation of the art and architecture of the ancient Central Andes. Class sessions will be focused on specific case studies that
highlight the material dimensions of the so-called sacred landscapes of a number of ancient Andean cultures. Class topics will be drawn from over
two thousand years of rich cultural development and will include examples from a variety of geographical areas throughout this region, which
encompasses contemporary southern Ecuador, Peru, western Bolivia and northern Argentina and Chile. Over the course of the semester students
will learn about artistic and architectural traditions that have been interpreted through the lens of an integrative landscape studies approach in
roughly reverse chronological order and in considerable depth. They will explore how landscapes are conceptualized by scholars working in various
disciplines (e.g. art history, architectural history, archaeology, ethnography) and will become familiar with the wide range of methodologies
employed by those who take the sacred landscapes of the ancient Andes as their area of focus.
A. Gannaway
T 12:10-2, 832 Schermerhorn
AHIS W3837 Visual Arts & Natural History in the Enlightenment
This seminar will examine the relation between eighteenth-century visual arts and the expansion of natural history during the period. While
ambitious publication projects such as Linnaeus's Systema Naturea, Buffon's Histoire naturelle, and Diderot and d'Alembert's Encyclopédie
challenged existing ideas about classification, visual expertise, and collecting and display, new fields of study, such as ornithology, were emerging.
From the formal experimentation that shells generated in ornament books to the creation of museums of natural history, this seminar will ask how
questions of creation, morphology, scale, growth, and deformity were investigated visually. Topics such as the rise of the amateur, women artists
and collectors, the valorization of the artist's manner, the representation of life versus death, geographic exploration, theories of preformation versus
epigenesis, teratology, sexual difference, taxonomy, and fetishism will be studied. Visits to the city's museums and rare book collections, and in
particular to the American Museum of Natural History, will be an integral part of this seminar. Students are expected to engage critically with the
literature on the history of both art and natural history, to study thoroughly a set of primary sources, and to think creatively about the topics
addressed during this seminar.
4 credits
Professor: Catherine Girard
Day/Time: W 12:10-2:00pm
Location: 930 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W3847 Cities of Knowledge: Displaying Archaeological Knowledge in the Publics Spaces of Amman (Travel Seminar)
Like the cities of Rome and Jerusalem, the city of Amman is unique in its urban concept of exhibiting its archaeological past in the very center of
the town. It is true that many cities all over the world are proud to call our attention to their ancient and even near past histories by exposing ruins
and remains of 'previous' architectural achievements. These monuments are displayed as if in a museum - an open one, which has no clear borders.
And yet, the decision to designate a large space at the very center of a metropolis for presenting archaeology and to expose the underground history
of urban spaces to the everyday inhabitants and visitors of a city is a revolutionary plan. The display of the Forum Romanum in Rome and the
Cardo in Jerusalem as sites of learning of historical knowledge is modern and is strongly embedded in the histories of Nationalism and of
constructing identities. This seminar discusses the urban development of the city of Amman with its two major archaeological sites, the ancient
Roman buildings of the Roman city of Philadelphia in the central valley of the city, with its amphitheater, Odeon Theater and the Nymphaeum,
and the Qala'a (Citadel) - the Umayyad Palace - located on the hill above. It aims at discussing these sites as related to the modern city of Amman
and to other spaces located next to, in between, or as related to these archaeological sites. Modern method of urban planning all related to the idea
of reconstructing past narratives for Amman will be critically discussed, while focusing mainly on archaeology, urban architectural developments,
specific cultural centers and even museum display. The course is designed as a preparatory course for an excursion to Amman in March 2016
(Spring Recess). Students' presentations will be held both in situ, in front of the monuments of Amman, as well as in class.
4 credits
Professor: Avinoam Shalem
Day/Time: W 4:10-6:00pm
Location: 930 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS W3882 August Sander and Photographic Portraiture in the 20th Century
No one has shaped the course of photographic portraiture—of individuals and of an entire society—more than August Sander. Photobooks like The
Face of Our Time (1929) mark the history of our social media present. This undergraduate seminar will study in depth Sander's photographs of social
architypes, classes, professions, women, artists, politicians, political prisoners, outcasts, and the dead, as it interrogates the fundamental systems that
frame these images: the archive, the document, physiognomy, scientific atlases, the politics of vision, photobooks, humanism, and Sander's vital
legacy to the present. We will work in conjunction with the Museum of Modern Art, which has recently acquired all 619 photographs that
comprise People of the Twentieth Century, Sander's lifelong portrait of 20th century German society. Final presentations, to take place at MoMA, will
focus on individual portfolios selected by the students.
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4 Credits
Professor Noam Elcott
Day/Time: T 2:10-4:00pm
Location: 832 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS BC3919 Body Politics Since 1945
This seminar will focus on the multiple ways in which art since 1945 has constructed understandings of the body - as heroic, abject, commodified,
diseased, erotic, queer and beyond. How does art think the body? How has art produced the body as a discursive, historical, and political object?
4 credits
Professor: Jack McGrath
Day/Time: W 12:10-2:00pm
Location: TBA
AHIS W3921 Patronage/Monuments of India
Exploration of the multiple aspects of patronage in Indian culture -- religious, political, economic, and cultural. Case studies focused on specific
monuments will be the subject of individual lectures.
4 credits
Professor: Vidya Dehehia
Day/Time: W 2:10-4:00pm
Location: 930 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS BC3922 The 1960’s
This course will focus on the aesthetic developments of the 1960's. Situating artworks in historical, political and cultural perspective, we will
examine major American artistic movements such as Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptualism, in addition to European arrangements like Zero,
Situationism, Arte Povera and Vienna Actionism.
4 credits
Professor: Jack McGrath
Day/Time: R 4:10-6:00pm
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3934 Dada and Surrealism
Of all the prewar avant-garde formations, it is perhaps Dada and Surrealism that loom the largest in the Western imaginary. Perhaps most
impactful of all, these were the movements that surrounded one Marcel Duchamp, an artist whose work was central to both. In this seminar, we
will trace the entwined histories of these vanguard groups—Dada in its various centers (Zurich, New York, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, and Hanover),
and Surrealism, whose zeal for Paris could not prevent its forced, if temporary, dislocation to the United States. We will look to these formations in
their aesthetic, theoretical, and political complexity, with special attention to the indispensable role played by women, especially Hannah Höch,
Emmy Ball Hennings, and Claude Cahun.
4 credits
Professor: Jack McGrath
Day/Time: M 4:10-6:00pm
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3969 Art Criticism II
This course is a seminar on contemporary art criticism written by artists in the post war period. Such criticism differs from academic criticism
because it construes art production less as a discrete object of study than as a point of engagement. It also differs from journalistic criticism because
it is less obliged to report art market activity and more concerned with polemics. Artists will include Ad Reinhart, Daniel Buren, Helio Oiticica,
Juan Downey, Hollis Frampton, Victor Burgin, Jeff Wall, Mike Kelley, Coco Fusco, Maria Eichhorn, Jutta Koether, Melanie Gilligan. BC:
Fulfillment of General Education Requirement: The Visual and Performing Arts (ART).
4 credits
Professor: Nicolas Guaginini
Day/Time: T 11:00am-12:50pm
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3984 Curatorial Positions 1969-Present
Contemporary exhibitions studied through a selection of great shows from roughly 1969 to the present that defined a generation. This course will
not offer practical training in curating; rather it will concentrate on the historical context of exhibitions, the theoretical basis for their argument, the
criteria for the choice in artists and their work, and exhibitions' internal/external reception.
4 credits
Professor: Valerie Smith
Day/Time: W 10:10-12:00pm
Location: TBA
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BRIDGE SEMINARS
Bridge seminars are open to graduate and advanced undergraduate students. As with other seminars, they require
an application. Applications can be submitted to Amanda Young in the Columbia Art History Department office
(826 Schermerhorn Hall). The required application form can be found on the Columbia Art History website
planning sheets and forms page. Application Deadline: November 30th.
AHIS G4106 The Indian Hindu Temple
This course explores the emergence and development of the Indian temple, examines the relationship between form and function, and emphasizes
the importance of considering temple sculpture and architecture together. It covers some two thousand years of activity, and while focusing on
Hindu temples, also includes shrines built to the Jain and Buddhist faiths.
4 credits
Professor: Vidya Dejejia
Day/Time: T 2:10-4:00pm
Location: 930 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS G4615 Mapping Gothic
The story of Gothic is traditionally recounted diachronically as architectural development. With our new interactive website,
www.mappinggothic.org, we challenge the user to entertain multiple stories and explore the synchronicity of architectural production, considering
the space and time when France became France and new cultural/national unities began to emerge in Europe.
4 Credits
Professor: Stephen Murray
Day/Time: T 10:10-12:00pm
Location: 934 Schermerhorn Hall
AHIS G4847 Museum Practice and Writing for Catalogues: Spanish and Latin American Painting at the Hispanic Society Museum, 17001920
This seminar has two goals. It will introduce an important group of Hispanic (Spanish and Latin American) works of art, and it will teach basic
museological principals as they relate to the registration, researching, cataloguing, and publishing of individual works of art – particularly as
published in catalogues raisonnés, museum collection catalogues, and exhibition catalogues. The researching and writing of an exemplary,
professional catalogue entry will be one of the tasks of students in the seminar. The seminar will use the works at The Hispanic Society Museum
and Library in New York as the subjects of the students' work. The goal is to give students access to objects as a way of increasing skills in technical
and formal analysis, connoisseurship, and appreciation of the social value of material culture.
Many of the works at the Society are unpublished or only schematically published. Students will be doing original scholarship in cataloguing these
works. A reading knowledge of Spanish is highly desirable but not a requirement for admission to the seminar. If a student does not have Spanish,
then a basic command of either French or Italian will be necessary.
Sessions will be held both at the University and at The Hispanic Society Museum and Library, 613 West 155th Street.
4 Credits
Professor: M. Burke
Day/Time: R 4:10-6:00pm
Location: 930 Schermerhorn Hall
BARNARD STUDIO COURSES SPRING 2016
Note: All Barnard Visual Arts courses are limited to 15 students with instructor’s permission. Instructor decides the roster on the first day of class.
Students must attend first day of class. For further information please contact the Barnard Art History Department @ arthistory@barnard.edu
AHIS BC2006 Painting II and AHIS BC2008y Painting IV
A continuation of painting I & III, open to all skill levels. Students will further develop techniques to communicate individual and collective ideas in
painting. This course will focus on individual and collaborative projects designed to explore the fundamental principles of image making. Students
acquire a working knowledge of traditional studio skills and related concepts in contemporary art through class critiques, discussion, and individual
meetings with the professor. Reading materials will provide historical and philosophical background to the class assignments. Class projects will
range from traditional to experimental and multi-media. Image collections will be discussed in class with an awareness of contemporary image
production.
3 credits
Professor: Joan Snitzer
Day/Time: W 2:10-6:00pm
Location: Diana 402
AHIS BC 2012y Drawing Studio Extended Projects
This class will explore drawing as an open-ended way of working and thinking. The class is designed to expose students to the practice of drawing
in our contemporary context. Though this is primarily a studio course, class critiques of student work are augmented by feedback from guest artists,
lectures and museum/gallery trips. Throughout the semester, students will discuss their work one-on-one with the instructor and as a group.
Starting with individual projects, we will investigate drawing as a practice involving diverse forms of visual culture and collaboration.
3 credits
10
Professor: Leslie Hewitt
Day/Time: W 10:00-1:50pm
Location: Diana 402
AHIS BC2018y Freestyle and Displacement in Contemporary Art Practices
"Freestyle," the important 2001exhibition held at the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York, helped usher a generation of artists into public
discourse and scrutiny. The exhibition highlighted a cacophony of influences, histories, and art tendencies. The wide array of artworks and
approaches to art making that it put on display challenged the art world and questioned conventional thinking about art made by artists of color in
the twenty-first century. Taking the "Freestyle" exhibition as a point of departure, this course will explore a series of questions including: How do
the after-effects of displacement radically change an artist's way of making art? What kind of impact have contemporary notions of diaspora,
migration and exile have on the new art practices? What insights do these new practices and the objects and performances that result from them
produce? We will study the visual art practices related to this trajectory and the exhibitions that contextualize them. At the same time, the course
will challenge students to experiment and construct artworks from their own subjectivities in ways that intersect with the questions and concepts
that arise from the investigation.
4 credits
Professor: Leslie Hewitt
Day/Time: R 10:10-12:00pm + 12-1 conference hour in 402 Diana
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3003 Supervised Projects in Photography
Designed for students to conduct independent projects in photography. Priority for enrollment to the class will be Barnard College students who are
enrolling in classes at ICP (International Center of Photography). The cost of ICP will be covered by Barnard College. All of the other students
enrolling in the course (CC, GS SOA) will be responsible for their own ICP course expenses.
3 credits
Professor: John Miller
Day/Time: M 11:00-12:50pm
Location: TBA
AHIS BC3031 Imagery and Form in the Arts
Operation of imagery and form in dance, music, theater, visual arts and writing; students are expected to do original work in one of these arts.
Concepts in contemporary art will be explored. This course is a requirement for the major in Visual Arts Concentration and limited to Junior and
Senior majors.
4 credits
Professor: Joan Snitzer
Day/Time: M 2:10-4:00pm + 5:00-6:00pm
Location: TBA
BARNARD COLLEGE ART HISTORY DEPARTMENT FACULTY DIRECTORY
General Office: 500E Diana Center (212) 854-2118
Office Hours: 9:30 - 5:30 Monday –Friday
Department Administrator: Elisabeth Sher arthistory@barnard.edu
MARYAN AINSWORTH
Adjunct Professor
Email: maryan.ainsworth@metmuseum.org
Office Hours by appointment
ALEXANDER ALBERRO
BARNARD ART HISTORY DEPARTMENT CHAIR
Virginia Bloedel Wright Professor of Art History
503C Diana Center
Telephone: 212-854-0311
Email: aalberro@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-4 or by appointment
ROSALYN DEUTSCHE
Professor
500G Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-8485
Email: deutsche@erols.com
Office Hours: Wednesday 2:30-4:15 and by appointment
11
NICOLAS GUAGNINI
Adjunct Professor
E-Mail: nguagnin@barnard.edu
LESLIE HEWITT
Assistant Professor of Professional Practice
500L Diana Center
Telephone: (212)-851-2958
Email: lhewitt@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 1-2 and Wednesday 9-10
ANNE HIGONNET
Professor
500M Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-5050
E-Mail: ahigonne@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Weekly To Be Announced
ELIZABETH HUTCHINSON
Associate Professor
500L Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-5340E-mail: ehutchin@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 9-11 and by appointment
JACK MCGRATH
Term Professor
503A Diana Center
Email: jmcgrath@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 4-6 and by appointment
JOHN MILLER
Professor of Professional Practice
500D Diana Center
Telephone: (212)-854-1697
Email: jmiller@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 2-4
KEITH MOXEY
Barbara Novak Professor of Art History
500R Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-5039
E-mail: kmoxey@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 4-5:30
CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS
Adjunct Professor
E-mail: cphillips@icp.org
JONATHAN REYNOLDS
Professor
500P Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-5396
E-Mail: jmreynol@barnard.edu
Office Hours: M 2:15-3:15 & W 10-11
VALERIE SMITH
Adjunct Professor
E-Mail: vsmith@barnard.edu
JOAN SNITZER
DIRECTOR, BARNARD VISUAL ARTS PROGRAM
Senior Lecturer
500C Diana Center
Telephone: (212) 854-3546
E-Mail: jsnitzer@barnard.edu
Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 1-2