This course focuses on the representation of slavery and unfree labor in historical and contemporary artistic production, in a global context. It follows the lead of contemporary artists who have 'returned' to the plantation, and whose work consequently compels us to explore more closely the implications and afterlives of the plantation in our contemporary moment. Like these artists, this course also uses the lens of repair to look back at the plantation's visual histories, and to track its legacies in the present, while also considering what a term like repair can look for us now, and in the future.

Taking a cue from Afrofuturists, this interdisciplinary course frames Africa as a site of technological innovation. We will learn both about the historical context of major technological advancements in Africa and how literature and art have imagined the relationship between Blackness and technology. Drawing on cutting-edge findings in history, archaeology, and other fields, we will explore the development of major technologies in Africa's past, from metallurgy to urban engineering. We will also study how African societies have adopted new technologies in response to enslavement, environmental change, and colonial rule.

Color is the 'great repressed' of modern architecture. Rather than being concerned with how this chromophobia came about, this course explores the multiple ways it conditions our perception of works of architecture which exhibit a chromaticism, and even a chromophilia incompatible with the modernist ideology of whiteness. Starting from this premise we explore basic concerns of architectural modernism - the relation to nature and to materials, the affective impact of vision, the complex question of the relation of color and functionality, the mediation of color involving various forms of notation, coding and representation.

This course examines how politico-ideological and environmental discourses have shaped cities and their architectures in colonial and postcolonial Asia. Paying close attention to select cities including Almaty, Dhaka, Hanoi, Hong Kong, Islamabad, New Delhi, Pyongyang, Phnom Penh, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Tashkent and Tokyo, it aims to provide a preliminary answer to the increasingly urgent questions: what are the specificities of `Asian' modernity, and how was this modernity embraced and contested in urban contexts throughout Asia? For each city under study, a notable work of architecture will be singled out and subjected to close reading.

This course on cartographic cinema explores the digital film archive as a trove of images that can be re-appropriated, re-mixed, re-assembled into new ways of thinking about and imagining cities. Cutting a horizontal trajectory across cities --- New York, Tokyo, Vienna, Paris, Hong Kong, Lagos, Calcutta --- the cinema has captured the dynamic force of urban mutations and disruptions. It has also imposed a vertical axis of memories, allowing time to pile up and overlap, confounding meaning and points of view, especially in cities of trauma.

Part of a series of seminars studying the parallel development of biological and architectural practices from the 18th c. to the present, this course focuses on recent ecological and environmental discourses through the writings of anthropologists, sociologists, material and environmental scientists, as well as architectural and literary critics. The seminar focuses on the effects of the diminishing distinction between the animate and the inanimate, the organic and the inorganic as well as the human and the non-human in the creation of living habitats and recreation of inequities within an environmentally challenged planet.

A survey of architectural history, from ancient Egypt to contemporary America, that includes comparative material from around the world. This course stresses a critical approach to architecture through the analysis of context, expressive content, function, structure, style, building technology, and theory. Discussion will focus on key monuments and readings that have shaped the history of architecture.

This course surveys European Art from c.1580 to c. 1800. Paintings, sculpture, prints, and drawings will be considered in their political, religious, and cultural context. Artists studied include Rembrandt, Rubens, Bernini, and Hogarth as well as Caravaggio, Velazquez, Vermeer, and Goya. Some study of works of art in the Princeton University Art Museum and New York.

A survey of postwar art from an international perspective, focusing on the major artistic movements in their historical contexts, including the Second World War, the Cold War, decolonization, the civil rights movement, feminism, globalization, and economic boom and recession. Lectures explore several themes including art's relationship to popular culture, the mass media, consumer society, historical memory, and political and social activism. Throughout, we account for the startling formal metamorphoses of art itself, as it is transformed from traditional painting and sculpture into new forms that challenged the very nature and limits of art.

We explore art's roles in politics and religion from ca. 600-1300 CE in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The course introduces the arts of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam; great courts and migratory societies; works made for private use and public display. Through narrative arc in lecture and precepts dedicated to artistic media, textual and material primary sources, and/or key intellectual themes, we consider how art participates in forming sacred and secular power. We explore how the work of 'art' in this period carries powers of its own, and how art shaped a multi-lingual, multi-confessional, multi-cultural medieval world.

This course examines major themes in the visual cultures of China, Korea, and Japan from the Neolithic period to the present and provides a basic introduction to art historical methods. Through a series of case studies and the analysis of key artifacts and monuments, we will reflect on such central questions in East Asian art as: What are the cultural factors that give rise to iconographic and stylistic traditions? In what ways do objects and designs reflect religious and philosophical beliefs and ideas? How do structures of authority limit or further self-expression? Precepts will focus on key objects in the Princeton University Art Museum.

This course explores the technology and function of books in historical perspective, asking how illuminated manuscripts were designed to meet (and shape) cultural and intellectual demands in the medieval period. Surveying the major genres of European book arts between the 7th-15th centuries, we study varying approaches to pictorial space, page design, and information organization; relationships between text and image; and technical aspects of book production. We work primarily from Princeton's collection of original manuscripts and manuscript facsimiles. Assignments include the option to create an original artist's book for the final project.

What is anti-colonial art? What Latin American artworks reflect the lasting impacts of colonialism? The cultural geographies of "Latin America" show there are no simple answers. Anti-colonial studies reveal that coloniality affects all aspects of life - subjectivity, race, gender, sexuality, language, and knowledge. This course examines artistic practices and their challenge to coloniality's ongoing effects. By exploring materials such as literary texts, visual artworks, and performances, students will engage in critical debates and develop methodological skills to analyze Latin America's cultural histories from the 1960s to the present.

The history of art making in Japan is populated with an enormous cast of characters who inhabit the lively moving surfaces of a wide variety of artistic media, from medieval handscroll format paintings to contemporary manga and anime. This class will take its own part in animating these stories by exploring the ways in which words and pictures are inextricably linked to create meaning in these artistic forms. We will analyze the formal characteristics of images and texts in these immersive narrative worlds, placing them in their contemporary contexts as we reflect on their ongoing lives in our own.

This course explores the visual and material culture during the century of turmoil in China (1840s to 1940s) while considering critically how modernity was defined and how it operated. In this class, we will examine a wide array of visual mediums, such as painting, calligraphy, prints, sculpture, photography, and cinema. While doing so, we will reflect upon issues crucial to our understandings of modern Chinese art in particular and "modernity" in general, such as globality, coloniality, nationalism, gender, popular culture, and cultural heritage among others.

Just as the Internet does today, the picture press of the last century defined global visual knowledge of the world. The pictures gracing the pages of magazines and newspapers were often heavily edited, presented in carefully devised sequences, and printed alongside text. The picture press was as expansive as it was appealing, as informative as it was propagandistic, regularly delivered to newsstands and doorsteps for the everyday consumer of news, goods, celebrity, and politics. Through firsthand visual analysis of the picture presses of both the U.S. and Russia, this course will consider the ongoing meaning and power of images.

An introduction to the history, methodologies, and theories of archaeology. The seminar discusses topics and problems drawn from a wide range of cultures and periods. Issues include trade and exchange; the origins of agriculture; cognitive archaeology (the study of the mind); biblical archaeology (the use of texts); artifacts in their cultural contexts; and the politics of the past. Emphasis on what constitutes archaeological evidence, how it may be used, and how archaeologists think.

We tend to think of borders as hard lines on a map, yet in the ancient world things rarely operated so clearly. Borders instead formed regions of uncertain control, with their own authorities adept at playing both sides. This was especially true in the Classical and Late Antique Middle East, contested by the empires of Rome and Iran. This seminar explores the visual world of the ancient frontier (including sites such as Hatra, Palmyra, and Dura Europos) and examines the unique forms of cultural expression possible in these contested places, as well as their importance in forging an international visual language of prestige and sacrality.

During the last century, spectacle became a key notion within the practice, criticism, theory and history of art. It posed a question that remains relevant: How could artists compete with the intensely visual entertainments that were flourishing on the stage, street and screen and attracting increasingly large audiences? This course explores how major artists approached this practical and intellectual challenge, as well as the ways that the theory was generalized and applied in important studies of fascist, capitalist and communist politics, the society at large and the history of 18th- and 19th-century French painting.

Culture, Society and the Arts at the courts of Europe c.1450-1620 are considered in relation to their predecessors and successors. Aspects of collecting, celebrations, patronages, and other forms of ideology and propaganda in Spain, France, Italy, England, and the German-speaking lands will be studied.

This seminar explores the history of early modern European printing and its materials, with a focus on Albrecht Dürer. An underlying assumption of the course is that art-making materials and practices are linked to contemporary conceptions and theories of nature. From 1450 to 1850, the natural resources most commonly deployed for printing were wood, metal, and stone. Their use was shaped by environmental conditions, and had an impact on the ecology of their places of origin. While the course will focus on European print culture, and Albrecht Dürer when possible, it also will refer to early modern print materials and practices from East Asia.

Easily recognized as among the most important examples of canonical African art, Kongo sculpture, textiles, and ritual design are famous for their conceptual density, stylistic variety and rigorous abstraction. The course examines the role of art in the life of the Kongo Kingdom and related peoples, from the arrival of Spanish explorers and missionaries in the 15th century, through the era of Belgian colonization from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, to the period since political independence in 1960. The seminar coincides with and will explore the Kongo Across the Waters exhibition at the Princeton University Museum.

This course is intended to ensure a continuing breadth of exposure to contemporary art-historical discourse and practices. It requires attendance and participation in the department lecture/seminar series. Students must take the course sequentially in each of their first four semesters and take the appropriate letter version of the course (A,B,C,or D) based on their semester of study. The course is taken in addition to the normal load of three courses per semester and is for first- and second-year graduate students only. Topics discussed cover all fields of Art History and address current questions and practices.

Before establishing the first formal architectural school of North America at the MIT in 1866, William Ware toured Europe. He came back with one conclusion: The French courses of study are mainly artistic and the German scientific, and the English practical. Opting for the artistic path of the Parisian Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Ware opened the door to the international propagation of a term that has become associated with a period - the turn of the 20th century - and a style. This seminar examines the origins, developments, and ramifications of the global Beaux-Arts through texts, drawings, prints, and buildings in the New York area.

Calligraphy is one of the most highly regarded artistic accomplishments in China and is crucial to understanding Chinese art and culture in general. This course is a critical review of the studies of Chinese calligraphic paradigms, focusing on the period from the 7th to the 14th centuries.

How does stone become sacred, or lumber enlivened? Where is the Buddha Body in a decorated sutra? Why were so many ink paintings produced in the name of Zen, which declares images unnecessary? This seminar examines the history of Buddhist art-making and visualization practices from the earliest representations of the Buddha to the curatorial practices of modern museums. We foreground sensorial qualities and modes of making as we investigate the roles of aura, iconicity, and (in)visibility in the lives of efficacious objects. The class includes field trips to collections on campus and beyond to examine original works of art.

This seminar explores the intersection of the subjects, methods, concepts, and terminologies of art and science in Europe and the United States circa 1750-1915. Each meeting focuses on a key concept, such as description, order, morphology, difference, diagnosis, observation, experiment, and speculation. We consider the manifestations of these concepts in a range of intriguing images, texts, and material practices from the realms of art making and scientific inquiry, focusing especially on ways of knowing in emerging and transforming disciplines, among them natural history, geology, ethnography, biology, astronomy, and psychology.

The history of modern sculpture is rife with controversy. Why do artistic ambitions and public expectations so often collide in this particular medium? We examine the scandals of sculpture through a series of case studies, from Rodin, Duchamp, and Brancusi to Hans Haacke, Richard Serra, and Sam Durant. We also delve into the status of monuments at times of upheaval, from the Russian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.

This course is designed for post-generals students in the Department of Art & Archaeology who are currently conducting research for their dissertation under the supervision of a dissertation adviser of record in the department. This course provides a platform for students who have been nominated for/awarded an internship that is relevant to the student's dissertation research topic from a research institute, private foundation, outside organization, or another university. Enrollment in this course requires written approval, in advance, from the dissertation adviser and the Director of Graduate Studies.

A seminar covering the basic methodology of numismatics, including die, hoard and archaeological analysis as well as a survey of pre-modern coinages. The Western coinage tradition is covered, from its origins in the Greco-Persian world through classical and Hellenistic Greek coinage, Roman imperial and provincial issues, Parthian and Sasanian issues, the coinage of Byzantium, the Islamic world, and medieval and renaissance Europe. Students research and report on problems involving coinages related to their own areas of specialization. Open to undergraduates by permission of the instructor.

This interdisciplinary course explores the wide range of ways photography has been used for aesthetic, scientific, documentary, political, and surveillance purposes. Particular attention is given to the rich history of photography in France, beginning with the work of early inventors (Niépce's héliographie, Daguerre's daguerréotype, the Lumière brothers' vues photographiques animées) and practitioners (Atget, Nadar). We explore aerial & biometric photography, landscape, still life, portraiture, photo novels & photo essays, photojournalism, and photography's use as a tool of social control in the colonial context.

In 19- and 20-c. debates that crossed borders among disciplines including psychology, sociology, anthropology, art history, philosophy, and political theory, empathy and alienation emerged as key terms to describe relations among human beings, works of art, and commodities. This seminar addresses the dynamics of empathy and alienation across a range of discourses and artifacts. Our explorations of how empathy and alienation were variously conceptualized in psychological aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and critical theory will aim to open new perspectives on recent debates about identity, affect, and human-animal and human-AI relations.

This interdisciplinary seminar examines death as a social process and a historical event. The first part focuses on death rituals in a variety of contexts: preparing and disposing of dead bodies, and mourning and commemorating the dead. Key texts address religion, rites of passage, symbolic efficacy, ontologies of personhood, and theologies of the soul. The second part explores the intersections of death with law, the state, and museums: forensic investigations, public commemorations, and curations of funerary objects and human remains, considered as means of public reckoning with death, especially in contexts of war and political violence.

This course looks closely at how contemporary Latinx artists are reimagining photographic encounters and arrangements. The longer history of photography is traditionally told in terms of documentation, truth claims, the democratization of art, and colonial surveillance regimes. This course gives pride of place to Latinx artists who use the medium and its iterations (e.g. video installations, cyanotypes, photo collage, repurposing archival prints) to figure unconventional notions of intimacy, diaspora, identity, archives, revolution, futures, and immediacy.

This interdisciplinary course explores the dynamic relationship between urban development and the natural environment between 1450 and 1800. Contrary to the common perception of nature as existing solely beyond urban boundaries, this course reveals how cities have always intertwined with natural elements that required protection, restoration, and even creation. Through engaging discussions and written assignments, students will gain a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between urban growth and environmental stewardship, and how these historical insights can inform contemporary urban and environmental practices.