Art - History (ARTH)

ARTH 1001. Visual Intelligence. (2 Hours)

Examines via interdisciplinary lectures how image technologies and techniques of perception endemic to visual art, popular culture and digital media shape how visual culture is understood within an expanding knowledge economy. Introduces analytical skills of observation and methods of contextual analysis (materialism, semiotics, feminisms, LGBTQ studies, queer theory, theories of decolonization and disability studies), in order for students to develop compelling interpretations of visual phenomena within a shifting global context. Visual Intelligence explains how visual studies connects to the fields of law, design, publishing, curating, conservation, and other areas of knowledge production.

Corequisite(s): ARTH 1002

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture

ARTH 1002. Seminar in Visual Intelligence. (2 Hours)

Accompanies ARTH 1001. Fosters in-depth discussion, allows for hands-on workshops and facilitates visits to area museums and cultural organizations. Emphasizes the ways digital image technologies are socially constructed and are based on earlier paradigms of classification and differentiation. Seminar meetings demonstrate how to critically read a range of images (e.g. texts, films, videogames, memes, artworks) by paying attention to the ways meaning is often shaped by identarian formations such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and ability. Investigates how diverse perspectives enhance the ability to create, while introducing students to creative professionals who actively use visual intelligence in their dynamic careers.

Corequisite(s): ARTH 1001

ARTH 1100. Interactive Media and Society. (4 Hours)

Offers a critical historical survey of interactive media from analog to digital techniques and from physical to virtual spaces. Examines the social, ethical, and cultural impact of interactive media. Concludes with a study of current issues and directions in interactive media. Through weekly lectures, research projects, and critical analyses, offers students an opportunity to consider current and historical aspects of interactive media and design.

ARTH 1110. Global Art and Design History: Ancient to Medieval. (4 Hours)

Investigates the history of painting, sculpture, design, and related arts through a study of masterpieces from prehistoric times to the end of the Middle Ages. Offers students an opportunity to become familiar with specific works, styles, and terminology of art and design and to develop an ability to communicate about the visual arts.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Societies/Institutions

ARTH 1111. Global Art and Design History: Renaissance to Modern. (4 Hours)

Explores the evolving history of visual art and architecture from 1300 through the 20th century. Combines integrated modules and activities together with observation and analysis of art and architecture, with the goal of interpreting cultures and understanding societies. Offers students an opportunity to learn specific works, styles, and specialized terminology, thereby developing an ability to communicate about the visual arts.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Societies/Institutions

ARTH 1990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

ARTH 2200. Topics in Design History. (4 Hours)

Explores various design history topics through pioneering designers whose work has influenced contemporary design culture. Instructor determines format and content.

ARTH 2210. Modern Art and Design History. (4 Hours)

Surveys modernist movements from early to mid-20th century. Emphasizes the reciprocal evolution of art and design within cultural and social contexts.

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGL 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1102 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 2211. Contemporary Art and Design History. (4 Hours)

Offers a study of contemporary culture in an art and design survey from mid-twentieth century to present. Presents a thematic approach to late-modern and postmodernist movements, focusing on interrelationships among media.

Prerequisite(s): ENGL 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGL 1102 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of C or ENGW 1102 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 2212. Survey of the Still and Moving Image. (4 Hours)

Examines the history of still and moving images in relationship to other artistic, documentary, and journalistic practices.

ARTH 2215. History of Graphic Design. (4 Hours)

Follows a chronological survey of graphic design from 4000 BC to the beginning of the 21st century, emphasizing work from 1880 to 2000, and the relationship of that work to other visual arts and design disciplines. Demonstrates how graphic design has responded to (and affected) international, social, political, and technological developments since 1450. Traces developments in the areas of typography and publication, persuasion, identity, information, and theory.

ARTH 2311. The Science of Art, the Art of Science. (4 Hours)

Explores the intersection of science and the arts as both ways of 'knowing', and how, during their development they have shared many techniques and approaches. Considers areas such as botany, anatomy, cartography, engineering, perspective and ecology relation to both science and art, arguing that observation, imagination, and invention were fundamental to both pursuits. Investigates the cultural conditions at the heart of the common cultural trope, "Renaissance Man". Focuses on two components of observation, drawing and writing, both important techniques of the early modern artist and scientist.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture

ARTH 2312. Revolutionary Design and Propaganda in Eastern Europe. (4 Hours)

Introduce students to significant and influential movements in Eastern European art and design history, such as Suprematism, Constructivism, Productivism, Socialist Realism and Nonconformist art, and explores both the ways in which art was instrumentalized by the Soviet state and the ways in which artists reacted against that instrumentalization in later years. By analyzing posters, costume and set designs, socialist realist paintings, and performances, and creating them themselves, students understand the ways in which artists sought to become producers and create work that perfectly embodied the burgeoning socialist state, and later used coded language to create work that reacted against that increasingly failing state.

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov, NUpath Interpreting Culture

ARTH 2313. Global Networks in Early Modern Art and Visual Culture. (4 Hours)

Presents case studies exploring histories, interpretations, and reception of diverse global art, design, architecture, and visual culture and their embeddedness in circuits of global trade, migrations, pilgrimage, exile, colonialism, and the movements of diasporas before 1900. Considers the role of the artist and artisan and types of creative agency in the construction and maintenance of empires, in ritual practice, and in Indigenous resistance. Emphasizes intermixed image cultures produced by intercultural contact and tracks the movement of materials and visual culture around the globe. Describes and critiques the agency of global visual cultures to reflect and produce identities. Examines and compares the cultural and social functions of art and its ties to global goods and resources and art materials.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 2990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

ARTH 3000. Topics in Visual Studies. (4 Hours)

Explores a variety of topics in visual studies, including historical and cultural models. Taught by faculty according to their research interests and expertise. May be repeated up to six times.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 3211. Performance Art. (4 Hours)

Examines the development and significance of performance art globally, from its prehistory in the early 20th century, to its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, through to the present day. Examines the history and theory of performance art and engages with the genre through making and reflecting on students' experiences of knowing the artwork “from the inside.”.

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov, NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 3990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

ARTH 4000. Topics in Visual Studies. (4 Hours)

Explores a variety of advanced topics in visual studies, including historical and cultural models. Taught by faculty according to their research interests and expertise. May be repeated five times.

Attribute(s): NUpath Interpreting Culture, NUpath Writing Intensive

ARTH 4990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

ARTH 5600. Landscape and Ecology in Visual Culture. (4 Hours)

Offers critical and historical approaches to landscape, nature, ecology, and human subjectivity in art, design, and visual culture up to the present day, drawn from the interdisciplinary environmental humanities. Ecocritical art history is a growing field that examines and critiques the agency of creative visual production to represent, narrate, innovate, and transform our relationship to the natural world.

ARTH 6211. Advanced Performance Art. (4 Hours)

Focuses on the history and theory of performance art from the early 20th century to the present day. Engages students in self-directed research on a performance artist and related performance theories and application of that research to a performance of their own. Students evaluate and analyze their own work in relation to historical works of performance and offer evidence-based support for their production.

ARTH 6962. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

ARTH 6976. Directed Study. (1-4 Hours)

Offers directed study of a specific topic not normally contained in the regular course offerings but within the area of competence of a faculty member. May be repeated without limit.