No movement in the history of twentieth-century art is more synonymous with modernist abstraction than Abstract Expressionism. Its rise to prominence in the 1940s signaled not only a new era of American dominance in the international art world, but also a period of triumph for the project of formalist modernism. Yet in the decade that marked its immediate aftermath, an array of movements and practices arose both to challenge Abstract Expressionism's singular position in the postwar art world and to call into question the aesthetic paradigm that it embodied. In this course we will trace these developments, examining the major artists who defined Abstract Expressionism, the claims made on its behalf by the critics who theorized and debated it, the uses to which it was put in the context of Cold War politics, the fundamental questions it raised about aesthetic autonomy and expressive freedom, and the various challenges directed at it in the late 1950s and into the 1960s, most notably by Pop Art, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art. In so doing, we will attempt both to construct a broad historical account of Abstract Expressionism and to develop a critical understanding of how it helped set the stage for the dominant forms of contemporary art that would follow.

This course explores the diversity of form, style, and narrative content of works created by African American artists from the antebellum period to the present. Specific attention will be devoted to several underlining issues including but not limited to identity, race, class, ethnicity, representation, sexuality and aesthetic sensibilities.

This course examines the history of art, architecture, and material culture of the Islamic world from the advent of Islam to the Mongol invasion of the city of Baghdad in 1258 CE. It is organized around major geographic regions (Eastern, Central, and Western Islamic lands) as well as themes that link the arts of the Islamic world together including the divine words of the Qur'an, royal patronage, geometric and vegetative motifs, religious and secular identities, cross-cultural exchange, figural representation, aniconism, etc. We will focus primarily on architecture, the art of the object, including ceramics, glass, metalwork, wood, ivory, jewelry, and textiles, and the art of the book, i.e., illuminated and illustrated manuscripts and calligraphy.

This course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of non-Western traditional aesthetic expressions from the Americas. The course will explore the indigenous contexts, both historical and contemporary, in which these art forms are or were created and function. We will explore the cultural matrix and aesthetics of selected communities from the Americas, particularly from North America, such as the Inuit, the Kwakwaka, the Plains nations, the Eastern sea board, the Southwest of the US, such as the Hopi and Navajo, and Northern Mexico communities, time permitting. We will frame the presentations and discussions from both an ethnographic and an art historical perspective.

Also offered as HPSS-C517; register in the course for which credit is desired.

HPSS-S101 is a prerequisite if taken for HPSS credit.

The course considers modern design cultures worldwide, focusing on networks of individuals and institutions that formed across national borders since the early twentieth century. A theme of the course will be the design theories and practices initiated at the German Bauhaus in the 1920s and their subsequent international spread and local adaptation, precipitated by war, exile, migration, globalization of industry and trade, and decolonization. Case studies may include Lazlo Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus in Chicago, Anni Albers at Black Mountain College, the HfG Ulm and its collaboration with schools in Brazil and India, and the recently founded Bauhaus Institute at the China Academy of Art. Throughout, we will ask what happens when the idea of universal design is adapted to local politics, economies, and design cultures.

Open to sophomore and above.

A Collaborative Study Project (CSP) allows two students to work collaboratively to complete a faculty supervised project of indepedndent study.

Usually, a CSP is supervised by two faculty members, but with approval it may be supervised by one faculty member. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses, though it is not a substitute for a course if that course is regularly offered.

This course focuses on contemporary art in and out of Africa, with specific reference to Nigeria. Our objective is to situate Contemporary Nigerian Art within the dialectics of modernism and postmodernism beginning first with the colonial implantation of the "modernist" trend in Africa. We examine the impact on the artistic vision and direction of the major artists in Africa, while highlighting the careers of their counterparts operating outside the continent within the postmodernist currents of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, etc.

The course entails nine classes and nine on-site lectures. The classes offer a selection of themes and moments in the history of forms and aesthetic ideas during the history of Rome (of Italy and the Western culture). The on-site lectures to archeological sites, churches, museums, monuments and places of the highest artistic interest underline the artworks in their topographic, environmental and historic context. The purpose is to offer a broad range of possible analyses: from the function of the object/monument to its design; from its stylistic idiom to the taste and culture of the art patron to the individual inclination of the artist.

In short the objectives of the class are the following: observe artworks and architecture in the original context and function; recreate the original context by adding or taking away spurious elements; explain the aesthetics of that specific period; make formal and stylistic analyses of the artwork: its conventions, its innovations; explain the imagery, i. e.,iconography /subject matter; -learn a vocabulary pertinent to the historic context.

The tools the class uses are: observation, taking notes, asking questions, readings.

Each class will be detailed by a "class syllabus", a "glossary" and a list of the slides.

Open only to students studying in Rome in the RISD EHP Program

The Bronze Age saw the development of several advanced civilizations in the Mediterranean basin. Perhaps the best-known among these is the civilization of Pharaonic Egypt. This course will focus on the art and architecture of Egypt and their neighbors to the north: the Aegean civilizations known as Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaean. While art historical study of these cultures will be emphasized, evidence for trade and other cultural interchange between them will also be discussed. The course will cover such topics as the Pyramids of Giza, the Tomb of Tutankhamun, and the Palace of Knossos.

This class examines different methods of interpretation employed by art historians and art critics to "read" works of art. Each week we will focus on a particular methodological approach central to the production of art historical knowledge such as Formalism, Iconography, Psychoanalysis, Semiotics, Post-Structuralism, Museum Studies, Critical Theory, Queer Theory, Critical Race Theory, Affect Theory, and Postcolonial Theory. The course also looks into the history of the discipline itself by way of reading primary texts written by art historians and thinkers whose thoughts and writings, in one way or another, have shaped the discipline of art history. We will also consider responses from non-Western scholars to the predominantly Western narratives that are at the center of the field.

This course registers an outgoing exchange student into a pre-approved HAVC course which is taken at the exchange school. Successful completion of the course will result in a "T" grade once receipt of the official transcript from the partner school has arrived at Registrar's Office.

As a stimulus to the imagination, method of investigation, or as a basic means of communication, drawing is a fundamental process of human thought. This class will examine various kinds of drawings from the history of art and visual culture moving chronologically from the medieval to the post-modern. Our studies will have a hands-on approach, meeting behind the scenes in the collections of the RISD Museum. Working from objects directly will be supplemented by readings and writing assignments as well as active classroom discussion.

This seminar is recommended for THAD concentrators and students especially interested in drawing.

Illumination, illustration, interpretation -- these are all terms that can apply to the images in medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. While this course seeks to introduce students generally to the history of manuscript painting from the 6th to the 16th centuries, special emphasis will be placed on how these images relate(d) to the texts they adorn. The course will be evaluated on the basis of in-class discussions, two presentations, one exam, and a final research paper that will include a creative component.

This course will explore the architectural traditions of the Indigenous cultures of North America, Mesoamerica, and South America in historic perspective. Examinations will focus on the critical cultural and environmental circumstances which led to the development of distinctive architectural styles throughout the Americas. Approached from an anthropological/archaeological perspective, specific topics of discussion will include the following: construction methods and material choices, spatial arrangements and use areas, the relationship between physical and social community structure, and architectural manifestation of cultural belief systems. Emphasis will also be placed on manipulations of the landscape in response to social and climatic needs. Architectural culture discussed in this course will range widely in scale, dispersal and geography - from the igloo of a small Inuit hunting party to the entire Mayan city of Chichen Itza, to the terrace and irrigation systems of the Inca.

The Museum is a significant and changing institution during the 21st century. This class will subject the institution to scholarly critique. We will consider the types of museums, the organization of museums, the curating of exhibitions, the growing role of on-line components in museums and the various support areas in the museum (finance, membership, etc.). Ethics in the museum and sensitivity to audiences will also be part of our study. We will visit the RISD museum and other local Providence museums. Students will write catalogue entries, exhibition reviews and short papers that analyze readings.

This course serves as an introduction to modern and contemporary art of Latin America from c. 1900 to the present day. Beginning with the international formulation of modernismos and the institutionalization of muralism in Mexico, we will trace the development of various, contested "modernisms" throughout the Americas. Rather than adhering to a strictly linear chronology, we will approach this vast region and its histories through a constellation of themes that, together, will illuminate the uneven development of modernism across the hemisphere. We will address questions relating to the nature of national and international identity, as well considering the porous relation between Latin American modernisms and their European and U.S. counterparts. Just what is "Latin American" art? Is it defined by geography, by nationality, or in some other way? And does it fit into the received canon of "Western" art history?

The 15th and 16th centuries in Northern Europe were a period of innovation and change. In this course we will examine altarpieces by artists such as Van Eyck and Van Der Weyden which showed a new religious vision expressed in oil paint. We will consider prints by Durer, which widely distributed the ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and portraits by Hoblein and paintings by Bruegel which suggest a new post-Reformation world view. We will also study sculpture and architecture of the period.

The professional Internship provides valuable exposure to a professional setting, enabling students to better establish a career path and define practical aspirations. Internship proposals are carefully vetted to determine legitimacy and must meet the contact hour requirements listed in the RISD Course Announcement.

This course offers a chronologically arranged broad overview of Russian artistic tradition. We will study architecture, painting and design, starting from the pre-Slavic archaeological material and moving on to the Orthodox churches and icons and then to Russian creative response to European styles of Rococo, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Historicism and Art Nouveau. Later in the course, we will focus on Russian Avant-garde, exploring the multiplicity of radically new artistic currents of Cubo-Futurism, Neo-Primitivism, Suprematism, Constructivism and more. During our lectures, museum visits, film screenings, and classroom discussions, we will look at art closely, get acquainted with artists' own words in their notes and manifestoes, and become introduced to academic discourse on the relevant topics. Students will write one research paper and present it at the student conference that concludes the course.

Open to sophomore and above.

This is a required course for all freshmen and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.

Required for graduation for all undergraduates. There are no waivers for THAD-H101.

Attention transfers and upperclass students: Please register into one of the evening sections set aside for transfer and upperclass students if you have not completed this first-year graduation requirement. Email the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office for assistance if needed. All other H101 sections are for freshmen.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in History of Art and Visual Culture. A call for applications will be sent to all HAVC concentrators.

Permission of Instructor required. Course not available via web registration.

This course explores objects and images used in rituals in pre-industrial Europe (ca. 1400-1800). A ritual can be defined as a codified, solemn, event that has its own temporal and spatial specificity. It occurs for staging religious practices, marriage, death, a ruler's visit to a city, or for creating responses in times of crises (epidemics, natural calamities, war, etc). Through their symbolic and artistic components, rituals create authority, assert identity, define social status, and maintain order in society but they are also ridden with conflict. Rituals work through the display of statues, reliquaries, paintings, elaborate costumes, ceremonial props, or flags for which the role of artists was primordial. We will see how such objects and images gained power and what their mobility (in processions, for example) entailed. We will study extant works as visual evidence for ephemeral events as well as representations (in the form of paintings and prints) of ceremonies, spectacles, processions, or ritual domestic settings. We will analyze art through inter-disciplinary methodologies: material culture, anthropology, social history, and iconography. Learning about artistic conventions and traditions will help us to be critical about visual "representations" and evaluate to what extent works of art manipulate reality in "re-presentations."

Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints: studying from the originals - curating a temporary exhibition at the Print Room of the RISD Museum This art history course pursues two goals - (1) to familiarize students with ukiyo-e woodblock prints as a distinctive, vibrant and highly influential form of Japanese art, and (2) to introduce students to various academic methods employed in art history in the art museum setting. The outcome of this course will be putting together a temporary exhibition of approximately ten Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints united by a certain theme, studied and presented to the public in correspondence to the standards of today's curatorial practices. Students will decide upon the exhibition topic, formulate the title, choose the works for display, analyze visual and contextual aspects of individual prints, perform the necessary research, uncovering cultural/historical/literary connotations invariably present in this popular yet sophisticated art form, write gallery labels, develop and deliver educational materials. Within the scope of students' work will be also the general design of the display as well as graphic design involved in preparation of labels and of the educational materials for museum visitors.

This course provides an art historical survey and thematic exploration of 9 centuries of Yoruba Art and Aesthetics and its intercession with history (including but not limited to colonialism and postcolonial impact, interventions, and discourses), religion, philosophy, and the socio-political beliefs of one of Africa's most ancient civilizations, and a visible presence in the African Diaspora.

This two-component course (print and art history) offers an in-depth exploration of the Tokyo and historic Kansai region to see and draw the most important Shinto, Buddhist and secular sites in Japan, and to couple that visual exploration with nine days of paper making in rural Tokushima on Shikoku Island. Returning to Providence, students will spend an intensive week creating a final project using the paper they have made that reflects on their experiences in Japan, as well as writing two art history papers. Through historical site visits students will gain an in-depth understanding of the background of Japanese visual culture. Through an immersive workshop at the Awagami Paper Factory students will work side by side with the finest Japanese paper makers as they learn paper making skills and gain an understanding of the continuing vitality of traditional Japanese crafts. Accommodations will vary depending upon availability, with the goal of experiencing a variety of traditional and contemporary hotels, ryokan, dormitories, and so on.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must plan and register for PRINT-4525 and THAD-W525. Students will receive 3 studio credits and 3 liberal arts credits.

Registration begins in October at a time to be announced.

All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the WS travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where WS travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

Permission of Instructor required.

Open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental & Foundation Studies

2020WS Estimated Travel Cost: $4,600.00 - airfare not included.

***Off-Campus Study***

This travel course is a cross-disciplinary collaboration between HPSS and THAD; the THAD component addresses colonial, modern, and contemporary arts in several regions of Mexico, including Mexico City, where we will view murals by Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, Frida Kahlo's house and museum, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, and the world-renowned Museo de Antropología; Puebla, known for its ceramics production and its ties to early colonial commerce, as well as nearby Cholula with its many colonial churches; Veracruz, a port city distinctive for its ties to the Caribbean and as a site of the importation of enslaved Africans; and Mérida, the most culturally active city in the Yucatán Peninsula, with access to several early and classic Maya archaeological sites, as well as a vibrant contemporary arts scene.

The THAD portion of the course will cover the colonial, modern, and contemporary periods in terms of artistic, architectural, and visual production, considering how indigenous pre-colonial techniques and traditions (addressed in the HPSS portion of the course) are revived, reinvented, and synthesized with European, African, and Asian styles, materials, and practices.

Prior to leaving for Mexico, the students will be given a illustrated lecture with an overview of Mexico's past cultural and political history, including the development of major civilizations throughout Mexico, the conquest of the region by the Spanish in the 16th c., the Mexican revolution, and the current political structure of the country. During our travel, each site visit will be accompanied by a brief contextual introduction orienting the students to the site's contributions to Mexico's history and cultural context.
The course hopes to not only inform students about the culture and history of our neighbors to the South, but also give them knowledge and an appreciation for the many contributions that Mexican past civilizations and contemporary Mexican culture have provided globally, and continue to bring to us. We also hope that our traveling students will learn about group dynamics, develop sensitivity towards a culture that might be foreign to them, be willing to explore a host of new traditions, acquire new knowledge, and discard possible stereotypes and preconceptions about an American region to which so many of our US citizens and immigrants have a connection to.

For the THAD portion of the course, students will be required to write two short papers (3 pages, double-spaced) that reflect upon the readings and/or the sites visited. They should be focused, organized responses that include a clear thesis (or guiding idea) rather than being a stream-of-conscious response, but may incorporate personal reflections, impressions, and opinions. The course will conclude with a focused, researched response (5-7 pages) that engages with some aspect of Mexican art, architecture, or visual culture, from the pre-colonial period to the present day. It may incorporate personal reflections and impressions, but it should reference and cite specific texts that we have read in the course, as well as artworks and/or sites we have visited during our trip. Papers will be due after our return from Mexico.

Students' grades will take into account their participation and inquisitiveness in/about the various site visits, as well as their level of inquiry and critical engagement demonstrated in their written responses.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must plan and register for THAD-W135 and HPSS-W235. Students will receive 6 liberal arts credits.

Registration begins in October at a time to be announced.

All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the WS travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where WS travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must plan and register for THAD-W135 and HPSS-W235. Students will receive 6 liberal arts credits.

Registration begins in October at a time to be announced.

All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the WS travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where WS travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

Permission of Instructor required.

Open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental & Foundation Studies.

2020WS Estimated Travel Cost: $3,500.00 - airfare included.

***Off-Campus Study***

This is a travel course offered by the Liberal Arts Division with a cross-disciplinary collaboration between HPSS and THAD; the HPSS component addresses the pre-Columbian history of the architecture and the arts in several regions of Mexico, including Mexico City, where we will visit the Diego Rivera, Siquieros and Orozco murals, Frida Kahlo's house & museum, Bellas Artes museum, the world reknown anthropology museum, and Xochimilco, the canals left from the early settlement of the Valley of Mexico by the Mixteca/Aztec civilization), Puebla (known for its ceramics production and its ties to early colonial commerce), nearby Cholula with its many colonial churches, Veracruz (culturally relevant as a port city where African slaves were bought to, as well as for its ties to other Caribbean regions), and Merida, the most culturally active city in the Yucatan peninsula, giving access to several early and Classic Maya archaeological sites.

This portion of the course will also address the contemporary cultural traditions that distinguish each region from each other in terms of crafts production, the use of local materials, and the identifying regional dress, language and cuisine modalities.

Prior to leaving for Mexico, the students will be given a illustrated lecture with an overview of Mexico's past cultural and political history, including the development of major civilizations throughout Mexico, the conquest of the region by the Spanish in the 16th c., the Mexican revolution, and the current political structure of the country. During our travel, each site visit will be accompanied by a brief contextual introduction orienting the students to the site's contributions to Mexico's history and cultural context.

The course hopes to not only inform students about the culture and history of our neighbors to the South, but also give them knowledge and an appreciation for the many contributions that Mexican past civilizations and contemporary Mexican culture have provided globally, and continue to bring to us. We also hope that our traveling students will learn about group dynamics, develop sensitivity towards a culture that might be foreign to them, be willing to explore a host of new traditions, acquire new knowledge, and discard possible stereotypes and preconceptions about an American region to which so many of our US citizens and immigrants have a connection to.

The requirements for the HPSS portion of the course includes a series of pre-departure readings (see syllabus) and the keeping of a journal that includes both written descriptions and observations as well as sketches of the many site visits; this requirement is part of exploring the focused discipline of "visual ethnography", i.e. the observation and visual description of environs, people and material culture through simple available tools: paper and pencil (or other portable tools such as water colors, etc.).

Students' grades will take into account their participation and inquisitiveness in/about the various site visits, a written quiz on the readings, and the interest the Yoruba show through their journals and sketches. We hope to have their work exhibited at our journey's end on the RISD campus.

This is a co-requisite course. Students must plan and register for THAD-W135 and HPSS-W235. Students will receive 6 liberal arts credits.

Registration begins in October at a time to be announced.

All students are required to remain in good academic standing in order to participate in the WS travel course/studio. A minimum GPA of 2.50 is required. Failure to remain in good academic standing can lead to removal from the course, either before or during the course. Also in cases where WS travel courses and studios do not reach student capacity, the course may be cancelled after the last day of Wintersession travel course registration. As such, all students are advised not to purchase flights for participation in Wintersession travel courses until the course is confirmed to run, which happens within the week after the final Wintersession travel course registration period.

Permission of Instructor required.

Open to first year students with approval from the Dean of Experimental & Foundation Studies.

2020WS Estimated Travel Cost: $3,500.00 - airfare included.

***Off-Campus Study***

The 1960s saw the expansion of the art market in the US when printmaking workshops emerged on the coasts and in the heartland. Artists and master printers worked collaboratively at ULAE, Tamarind, Gemini GEL, Tyler Graphics and others, and such presses also editioned artists' prints for sale via the gallery system. Importantly such workshops also offered an opportunity to artists primarily committed to other media to explore various printmaking methods. Collaboration among artists and printmakers thus became a hallmark of the so-called American Printmaking Renaissance. The course will investigate the nature of collaboration between artists and master printers as we study prints by epoch-making artists including Louise Nevelson, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, Ed Ruscha, Vija Celmins, as well as lesser-known artists who contributed significantly to the popularity of prints. Technical innovation continued in the era of Pop with the use of commercial techniques by Warhol, Rosenquist and Lichtenstein, and continues today with the use of digital media.  We will draw upon the collection of the RISD museum to develop an intimate understanding of the role of innovation and collaboration in American printmaking ca. 1960-1990.

Alexander the Great is one of the most significant figures in ancient history, and the culturally diverse empire he created gave birth to new trends in art characterized by hybrid styles and innovative new kinds of artistic propaganda. The study of the place of art in such a multicultural society has implications for the interpretation of art's role in the modern world. This course will discuss the way Alexander and his successors controlled their image in art and the styles of sculpture, painting, architecture, and urban planning that were precipitated by the socio-political changes brought about by his conquests.

This class explores the discourse art and trauma. It beings with a history of trauma studies, with its roots in Holocaust studies, Freudian interpretation, and the discipline of Psychology. It ventures on to explore the ramifications of understanding trauma in the realm of imag(in)ing suffering, whether represented through journalism, popular media, or artistic representation. We will interrogate how the models posited by trauma theory hold up in the age of new media. A recurrent motif in the class will be what it means to study trauma and its representation, both abstractly and personally, ethically and psychosomatically, and establish practices for maintaining sustainable and responsible modes of inquiry.

This course explores the body as subject, object, medium, and lens. This class is intended as both a discussion of the shifting role of the human form as represented and implicated in artwork from nineteenth century to the present day, as well as an experiential interrogation of our own somatic experience as scholars, artists, and humans, in order to ask the question: what does the body have to teach us? We will address the discourses of the imaged and imagined body prior to and through European modernism as a carrier of meaning and an object to be consumed, with particular attention to the ramifications of the Cartesian mind-body distinction. From this starting point, we will track shifts and the development of alternate theories of the body from psychology, philosophy, critical theory, and neuroscience, from the nineteenth century into present day. In addition to theory and philosophy, we will address how these shifts are manifest in artwork of the twentieth century from painting, sculpture installation art, video, and augmented reality art. Students will be asked to be mindful of their own somatic (bodily) practices, including movement inside and outside class with the intention of developing a deeper understanding the body as lens for experience and production.

A Collaborative Study Project (CSP) allows two students to work collaboratively to complete a faculty supervised project of indepedndent study.

Usually, a CSP is supervised by two faculty members, but with approval it may be supervised by one faculty member. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses, though it is not a substitute for a course if that course is regularly offered.

While impressionism once inspired some of the most innovative thinking in art history, overexposure has blunted its edge. This seminar seeks to recover what impressionism meant to its time, and to ask what it could mean to ours. After a brief introduction to the major figures (Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, etc.), discussion will be organized around a series of debates in the history and reception of French impressionism. Was impressionism a loosely affiliated group of individuals or a coherent movement? Did it extend prior traditions or radically break with the past? Was it objective or subjective? Was it feminist or misogynistic? Was it anarchist, republican, or socialist - and why think about its politics at all? Students will learn strategies for making arguments about paintings, both as material things and as historical artifacts. Readings will focus on primary sources (Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Zola, etc.), stressing how new movements in art influenced criticism - and visa versa. We will supplement these readings with select secondary sources of methodological interest, especially landmark texts in social, feminist, and technical art history.

This course will examine the myth and cultural importance placed on spaces and objects occupied and used by the so-called "geniuses" of American history alongside our general romantic interest in "the genius" as a cultural phenomenon. We will examine the designed objects and spaces of famous American artists and heroes - places such as Graceland, Dollywood, and Marfa; objects like Thomas Jefferson's writing desk; and museums created out of the homes of Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain, among others. In an attempt to unpack and understand the importance of objects in both memory- and identity-making, we will consider how visual and material objects both communicate personality and legacy and how they act as mediators between each "genius" and their audiences, allowing visitors to come into contact with the imaginative worlds of their heroes.

In European and American art of the 19th and early 20th centuries, women were often presented in extreme ways: either as blood-thirsty creatures from Greek mythology, as Salome obsessed with the decapitation of a lover, as poison flowers and vamps; or as personifications of love and virtue, household angels, noble virgins dying out of self-sacrifice. The literature and, later, cinema supported this dichotomy that can be still traced in contemporary culture. In this course we will analyze the images of blessed and cursed women in Western art of the last two centuries.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

The course will explore the approaches and contexts of Leonardo da Vinci's draftsmanship. Studying primarily some of his surviving 6000 drawings and notes, the course will locate his aesthetic and analytical processes and contexts for a broad range of projects, such as paintings, sculptures, treatise literature, machines, weapons, maps, festivals, built environments, and studies of natural philosophy. We will also examine theoretical pursuits in the liberal and technical arts by Leonardo and his contemporaries, and their assessments of visual art as a science, and studies of natural science as a systematic art. Particularly informative will be Leonardo's responses to contemporary trends, to artisanal traditions, to the antique, to members of princely courts and republics, and more generally to investigative and inventive strategies.

This course examines the visual culture of social welfare and justice during the early modern era (1500-1900). A powerful guild of silk manufacturers sponsored the construction of the first large-scale orphanage for abandoned children in Renaissance Florence, employing architects, painters, woodworkers and sculptors. "Talking statues" in Rome advocated for the end of oppressive taxation by over-zealous popes. Printmakers across Europe turned out satirical woodcuts and engravings that graphically argued for better living conditions and labor laws in the age of industrialization. Josiah Wedgewood issued a plaque that poignantly pleaded for the abolishment of slavery. Here, we study a broad range of imagery, objects and architecture that forged a language of social justice that still exists today. Drawing on the rich collections of the RISD Museum, Fleet Library Special Collections and the John Hay Library at Brown, among others, we examine the role of patrons, artists and designers in advocating for, and advancing, social welfare in an increasingly urban and educated society.

A key moment and place in the history of design, eighteenth-century art was innovative and rich in criticism, especially in France. Favored themes in the graphic arts and sculpture include gallantry (fetes galantes), eroticism, and domesticity. French art dealers were responsible for new designs for furniture and decorative arts; architects developed utopian projects; and seamstresses launched extravagant fashion trends. We will examine how rococo came to be the dominant artistic trend in all Europe and the kinds of controversy that it generated from the mid-century on. Rococo Rocks will provide analytical tools for understanding the visual arts within their social and critical contexts including the Enlightenment. We will navigate between genres and media, assess how works of art were then perceived, and discuss the position of women (whether mothers, wives, or artists). We will also study the ramifications of rococos continuing curve into twentieth-century art from Art Nouveau to Cindy Sherman and Jeff Koons.

Visits to several departments of the RISD Museum are planned as well as to the Hay Library where we will study original eighteenth-century illustrations. Students final projects consist in designing a rococo-inspired object in any medium (painting, sculpture, textile, print, or drawing) accompanied by an artists statement.

This course will examine scientific and technical applications developed by Western artists and visual theorists from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Concentrating on pictorial traditions, the course will address what artists, authors and artist/engineers have referred to as scientific, technical, mechanical, and purely mental solutions to optical, proportional and quantitative visual problems. General themes will be perspective, form, color, and mechanical devices, and will include discussions on intellectual training, notebooks, treatises, and collecting. The course will examine artists such as Masaccio, Leonardo, Piero della Francesca, D|rer, Serlio, Carlo Urbino, Cigoli, Rubens, Vel`zquez, Saenredam, Vermeer, Poussin, Andrea Pozzo, Canaletto, Phillip Otto Runge,Turner, Delacroix, Monet, and Seurat.

This course will examine art in Russia and the USSR from the October Revolution in 1917 to the death of Stalin in 1953 in the context of historical events and changing ideological climate.

After the October Revolution, art and film in Russia and later the USSR became a field of unprecedented experimentation that gave birth to many groundbreaking works by artists and filmmakers such as Kazimir Malevich, Vladimir Tatlin, Alexandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanowa, the Stenberg Brothers, Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and others. The introduction of Socialist Realism by Stalin in the 1930s terminated the Avant-Garde in the country and forced artists to become basically producers of propaganda. Despite this, a number of significant works, especially films, subverted ideological limitations.

We are so familiar with these three hot drinks but they became commodities and part of our everyday only recently. This course explores what values were attached to these plants before the era of industrialized production, i.e. before ca. 1800. We will survey how Westerners adopted these beverages by looking at medical theories, the issue of morality, and the expansion of sugar production. We will also study how the craving for these products reinforced or even spurred slavery in French, Dutch, and English colonies. Special attention is dedicated to how ritual behavior affects design in terms of the sociability around these beverages, required manners, and the tableware crafted for them. The methodology is based on the analysis of images, discussions of assigned readings, written responses, visits to museums (RISD and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), and touring the facility of a chocolate artisan.

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses.

Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required.

Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

This course has two primary goals: cultivating an in-depth, hands-on knowledge of a topic in indigenous art history and developing a diverse set of writing tools for documenting lived experience. First, this course will explore the history, anthropology, and overall context of the development of traditional indigenous American textile production methods. Our examination of these textiles will involve critical readings of key texts, lectures and discussions. However, above all, we will be employing a hands-on approach to reproduce the process involved in making these textiles. Focusing on the specific example of Navajo blanket and rug weaving, together we will create our own woven tapestries, replicating traditional methods from cleaning wool straight off the sheep, to dyeing with natural dyes, to building and weaving on our own traditional-style Navajo tapestry looms.

The second goal of this course is to explore a variety of approaches toward documenting through writing students' own experiences in the field - ranging from more creative and artistic approaches to more formal or technical descriptions. The intention is to expose students to a variety of writing methods that may come in handy in their professional careers, be they artists' statements or grant applications. To this end, students will be keeping a semester-long field journal detailing their hands-on experiences in this course, culminating in the production of a final presentation of their work.

During this seminar we will discuss how America is seen by contemporary European artists and intellectuals. Jean Baudrillard's famous book "America" as well as films by Antonioni ("Zabriskie Point"), Makaveyev ("WR: Mysteries of the Organism") and Herzog ("Stroszek") will number among the works analyzed in the class.

This course will examine the role played by urban mythology in 19th and 20th - century European and American art. We will study the late - 19th - century idea of the flaneur, which influenced both visual arts and literature. We will discuss the Futurists' fascination with machines and the Surrealists' concept of a city perceived as a human body. We will analyse the Impressionists' views of Parisian streets, Frans Masereel's woodcuts The City, de Giorgio Chirico's metaphysical paintings and Edward Hopper's nostalgic images of the American metropolis. We will study how the interest in urban reality has influenced the development of new art movements of the last two centuries.

This course will survey the emergence of an avant-garde in the United States during and after World War II. The focus will be on the personal struggles, artistic innovation, and overarching achievement of a handful of artists including Willem De Kooning, Jackson Pollock, David Smith, Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman, whose work catapulted American art and artists onto the world stage. Concurrently we will examine the role of public and private criticism, especially the writings of Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg. Additionally we will construct a view of contemporary society and the political leanings of artists and critics of the movement, as well as the concerted effort of the American State Department to showcase Abstract Expressionist work as visible proof of American freedoms during the Cold War.

Open to sophomore and above.

The Trojan War is one of the most influential stories in the history of Western culture. After a brief examination of the archaeological evidence for such an event, this course will focus on the art and literature inspired by the Trojan War from Ancient Greece through modern times. Readings will include selections from Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and take into account return stories such as the Odyssey. Art with Trojan iconography will be explored from ancient vase-paintings and sculptures through Renaissance and Baroque depictions, up to a contemporary graphic novelization and a brief discussion of films on the subject. Major themes include the interaction of art and literature, and the mutability of an established narrative at the hands of subsequent creators.

This course tracks the relationship between art and social, political, and aesthetic "revolutions, "predominantly in the Western context, through the twentieth century. As a starting point for our conversations on the conceptual and political revolutions reflected in and implicated by the artworld, we will examine the emergence of the avant-garde and its challenge to the Academy as it relates to shifting market forces, understandings of psychology, subjectivity, and the role of art in the public sphere. Exploring the significance of image-making to socio-political conditions in the first half of the century, we will look at movements including Russian Suprematism, French Surrealism, and Mexican Social-Realism. Moving into the latter half of the century we will examine the ways conversations about art and revolution became more abstract -- though no less influenced by shifting socio-political conditions -- exploring the emergence of postwar expressionism, conceptual, performance, and "relational aesthetics" as conceptual revolutions of understandings of art, object, and meaning.

This course explores the artistic traditions of early West African kingdoms and cultures, notably Nok, Igbo Ikwu, Ife, Owo, Esie, Tsoede, Sokoto, Benin, Akan, Djenne, Mande, Nabdam and the Bamileke. We examine images in stone, bronze, terracotta and iron, and also explore the built environment. Based on archaeological, art historical and ethnographic data, we critically analyze the style elements, iconography, purposes and significance of the objects, both as viable tools and as expressions of the history, philosophy, and religious and cultural ethos of the peoples who created them.

This course examines 20th century American popular culture - both visual and material - in relation to American history in order to understand how it reinforces socio-political ideologies in everyday life. We will look at and learn to decode advertisements as key to the cultural meanings of objects and as propaganda in reinforcing and disseminating cultural values. Using pop culture objects/concepts such as Disney, Tupperware, Barbie dolls, cars, TV, and the "American Dream," we will explore democracy, capitalism, and questions of "high" and "low" cultural artifacts.

This course focuses on representations by, of, and for Latinx peoples in the United States, beginning with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War and ceded one-third of Mexican territory to the United States, until the present day. Drawing from Gloría Anzaldúa's theory of the "borderland" as a both physical and psychological "in-between space," we will address questions of identity and belonging, assimilation and resistance, and visibility and erasure as they are encountered and debated by (and about) diasporic communities in the United States. Topics of discussion will include nineteenth-century debates of Pan-Americanism, the popularization and critique of Hollywood stereotypes during the Good Neighbor era, and Chicanx activism of the 1960s and 1970s. Issues of racial and ethnic identity will be considered alongside and in dialogue with those of gender, sexuality, class, and immigration status, and our discussions will encompass not only visual art but also music, cinema, literature, and activism. We will ask ourselves, what is the relationship of Latinx art and visual culture to that of the U.S.? What is its relationship to "Latin American" history and identity? And how might we begin to expand our definitions of U.S. art history?

This course explores contemporary design as inspired by Moroccan artisanal crafts. Young and seasoned designers alike are poised to revolutionize the craft and design landscape in Morocco. Government and private initiatives are supporting the preservation of cultural heritage and the rise of crafts in the global marketplace. Moreover, in the realm of design theory, "craft" is experiencing a renaissance. This course will first explore contemporary craft-and-design in a broad sweep across the Middle East and other parts of the Global South. We will then take a more in-depth look at Morocco. After an overview of the colonial and post-colonial social and economic histories that have led to a revival of the crafts, we will study Morocco's diverse landscape of cultural products and styles. Selecting several case studies of contemporary designers inspired by and/or working with crafts and craftspeople in Morocco, we will discuss the ups and downs of their journeys through a complex network of traditional practices and expectations. Throughout the semester, we will draw upon visual and textual source material through in-class discussions and virtual conversations with Moroccan designers and craftspeople.

A Collaborative Study Project (CSP) allows two students to work collaboratively to complete a faculty supervised project of indepedndent study.

Usually, a CSP is supervised by two faculty members, but with approval it may be supervised by one faculty member. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses, though it is not a substitute for a course if that course is regularly offered.

This course will trace major developments in contemporary art from the 1960s to the present. Beginning with the shift away from modernist abstraction in the late 1950s and proceeding chronologically, we will examine the diverse array of movements, practices, and events that have come to define the larger field of contemporary art: minimalism, conceptualism, and pop in the 1960s, site specific and performance art in the 1970s, the "culture wars" and postmodernist debates of the 1980s, and the various forms of "abject," project-based, and "relational" art that followed. Foregrounding problems that have remained central for artists throughout this period - the status of the body, the institutional conditions of artistic production and reception, the politics of representation and difference - we will focus on putting the shifting terrain of contemporary art into broad social, historical, and theoretical perspective. In turn, we will attempt to develop a comprehensive critical framework for understanding the aesthetic and political stakes of contemporary art today.

Open to sophomore and above

The course entails nine classes and nine on-site lectures. The classes offer a selection of themes and moments in the history of forms and aesthetic ideas during the history of Rome (of Italy and the Western culture). The on-site lectures to archeological sites, churches, museums, monuments and places of the highest artistic interest underline the artworks in their topographic, environmental and historic context. The purpose is to offer a broad range of possible analyses: from the function of the object/monument to its design; from its stylistic idiom to the taste and culture of the art patron to the individual inclination of the artist.

In short the objectives of the class are the following: observe artworks and architecture in the original context and function; recreate the original context by adding or taking away spurious elements; explain the aesthetics of that specific period; make formal and stylistic analyses of the artwork: its conventions, its innovations; explain the imagery, i. e.,iconography /subject matter; -learn a vocabulary pertinent to the historic context.

The tools the class uses are: observation, taking notes, asking questions, readings.

Each class will be detailed by a "class syllabus", a "glossary" and a list of the slides.

Open only to students studying in Rome in the RISD EHP Program

This course registers an outgoing exchange student into a pre-approved HAVC course which is taken at the exchange school. Successful completion of the course will result in a "T" grade once receipt of the official transcript from the partner school has arrived at Registrar's Office.

An overview of modern design, tracing major developments in interiors, furniture, and product design, from the turn of the 20th century to the present, in Europe and the United States. Artifacts range from chairs to computers to cars, from singular, hand-crafted objects to mass-produced consumer goods, from avant-garde to popular. Course discussions will deal with the formal and material character of objects, as well as cultural issues such as the ethics of labor, ideologies of gender, the relationship between nature and technology, and the mediating role of institutions and publications. Emphasis will be given to utilizing original sources, including primary texts, rare books in the Fleet Library special collections, and objects at the RISD Museum.

"From international film festivals to university campuses, from museums of modern art to neighborhood theaters, Iranian cinema has now emerged as the staple of a cultural currency that defies the logic of nativism and challenges the problems of globalization." Hamid Dabashi writes this in the introduction to his landmark study of Iranian cinema, Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present and Future (Verso, 2001). This course introduces you to the history of Iranian cinema, from the Iranian New Wave (1960s) to the present. It examines the ways in it occupies an important place on the scene of global cinema while it "defies the logic of nativism." We will watch some of the most prominent movies by acclaimed Iranian filmmakers Dariush Mehrjui, Ebrahim Golestan, Nasser Taghvai, Amir Naderi, Sohrab Shahid-Saless, Forough Farrokhzad, Jafar Panahi, Masoud Kimiai, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Bahram Beyzaie, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Marzieh Meshkini, Asghar Farhadi, Tahmineh Milani, Ebrahim Hatamikia, and Kamran Shirdel. We will also look at the works of diasporic artists, including Shirin Neshat, Marjane Satrapi, Ramin Bahrani, Mitra Farahani, Ana Lily Amirpour, and Granaz Moussavi.

There is a separate evening film screening from 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM each Thursday. Students must plan to attend these as well.

As a field of study, material culture explores how we make things and how things, in turn, make us. This class examines the material culture of late consumer capitalism, focusing on how objects organize experience in everyday life. We will investigate the practices through which things-from food and clothing to smart phones-become meaningful, as we tackle political and ethical questions related to the design, manufacture, use and disposal of material goods. The class will introduce students to a range of scholarship on material culture from several disciplinary perspectives including anthropology, history, sociology, art and architectural history, and cultural studies.

This course is an historical and critical study of the work of selected masters of animated film. A spectrum of animated film techniques, styles, national schools, etc., will be presented. The course will cover the period from the pre-Lumiere epoch to the end of the 1970's. The relationships between animated film and other visual art forms will also be studied.

This course explores major movements and practices of photography in Asia from the nineteenth century to present day. Students will be introduced to a wide range of discourses on photography and will examine special topics in Asian photography each week: topics range from the diverse ways in which photography has entailed modernity to geopolitical implications in contemporary art photography in Asia. The course will investigate photography not just as documents of historical shifts but as objects, archives, and artworks in each cultural milieu. Students are expected to actively engage in class discussions. As a term project, students will write a research paper and give a short presentation on their research.

Photography became especially popular as a vernacular and political medium around the time of the Crimean War in the nineteenth century. Since then, photography has been a critical medium that represents, commemorates, propagates, opposes, and complicates war and militarism across the globe. Histories of photography in the twentieth and twenty-first century have also unfolded through colonization, genocide, war, liberation, globalization, and war on terror. Militarism has thus been crucial to the medium's history: photography does not merely re-present the militarized life-in-the-making; it is an integral part of it. This course examines the ways in which the subject of photography has emerged through not only war but also what we will call "everyday militarism." Organized thematically according to photographic subjects, this course will closely investigate selected bodies of photographic work with readings on war, atrocities, subjectivity, ethics, and iconicity. Student research will be presented as a final presentation and paper.

This course will focus on the history of self-portraiture and modes of self-identity from the vantage point of feminism, queer theory, and of post-modernist critiques of the so-called author function. We will look closely at self-portraits by artists ranging from Rembrandt van Rijn to Cindy Sherman, and from Albrecht Durer to David Wojnarowicz. Students will be asked to write about artists' self-portraits and also construct their own written and visual autobiographies. We will read memoirs by artists, as well as essays by Barthes, Foucault, and Krauss.

This seminar focuses on the history, discourses and transformations of the black female body as contested site of sexuality, resistance, representation, agency and identity in American visual culture. Organized thematically, with examples drawn from painting, sculpture, photography, film, popular culture and mixed media installations, we examine how the deployment, manipulations and construction of the signification of the asexualized mammy complex is juxtaposed against the jezebel vixen in a shifting terrain from the antebellum era through the post-racial decade of the 21st century.

How are we made by things that we make? How do things precede their creation and make the creator, before the brush touches the canvas, the pencil the paper, the pen the "mayline," the fingertips the keyboard, the eye the camera, the metal the mold, the glass the fire? This course will look at the emergence of specific instruments of art and design making from medieval parchment folios, to graphite pencil, to architectural parallel straightedge, to mechanical and then electronic scanners, CAD software and 3D printers. It would follow the conceit that the process of creation we set for production of things also organizes our sense of self and the world, even before we have produced those things, just by virtue of the goals we have set for them, the processes we have organized for their production, the tools we have gathered or invented to transform them. We will explore the argument that physical things are always already "epistemic" things as well: organizers of knowledge and meaning; knowledge that bubbles in the cauldron of meaning under which we are continuously trying to set the flame of experiment and process in to produce our historical, social, political, cultural and personal identities. Reading will cover a wide range of topics and disciplinary areas: from historians of science looking at production of immortal cell-lines, GMO seeds and combative viruses, to artists and designers discussing production of stone carving tools and images produced by spitting blood on rocks, to art-historians talking about breeding horses to produce that ultimate paintbrush. Only serious thinkers hopelessly invested in their making (and vice versa) invited. Class attendance and participation is mandatory along with a final presentation and research paper.

Open to sophomore and above.

Also offered as HAVC-C408; Register in the course for which credit is desired.

This course will study the architecture, sculpture, stained glass, and treasury objects (metalwork and manuscripts) which were the Gothic cathedral. Our study will begin with an examination of the reasons such work was created and explore the stylistic origins of the cathedral in northern France in the early 12th century. We will then look at the cathedral's subsequent development and modification in England, southern France, Italy, and Germany during the 12th through 15th centuries.

Designers and theorists have defined the domestic environment in many ways: as individual refuge, symbol of collective identity, tool for social engineering, or fashion object, as masculine or feminine, aesthetic or functional, revolutionary or oppressive. Through close study of houses, interiors, furnishings, and a range of texts, this seminar will explore multiple concepts of domesticity and ways these have informed design practice. Classes will be conducted as collaborative workshops focusing on discussion of assigned texts and analysis of images. Student research projects will investigate a contemporary work of design.

Open to sophomore and above.

Premodern Worlds: Theory & History of Art & Design 102 builds on H101 by providing an introduction to global art, design, and visual culture before the Industrial Revolution. The course emphasizes themes of contact, conquest, collaboration, and crossroads as they played out across the fluid borders that preceded the modern nation-state. By following the movement of people and goods, art and ideas, materials and processes through the centuries, the course provides a historical context for the development of modernism.

Required for graduation for all undergraduates. Course is scheduled to be taken by first-year students during the Spring semester of freshmen year. The Liberal Arts office will place freshmen into sections of H102 after spring studio schedules are completed by the EFS office. There are no waivers for students entering as freshmen. However, students who completed H101 prior to fall 2018 may opt to waive out of H102. Email the Academic Programs Coordinator for assistance.

Transfer students may petition the THAD department head to substitute an equivalent college course that was completed prior to enrollment at RISD. Seats for transfers and upperclass students are available but limited. Email the Academic Programs Coordinator in the Liberal Arts Division office for help with registration.

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in History of Art and Visual Culture. A call for applications will be sent to all HAVC concentrators.

Permission of Instructor required. Course not available via web registration.