Courses

HART B120 History of Chinese Art

Fall 2025

This course is a survey of the arts of China from Neolithic to the contemporary period, focusing on bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Chinese appropriation of Buddhist art, and the evolution of landscape and figure painting traditions.This course was formerly numbered HART B274; students who previously completed HART B274 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: East Asian Languages & Culture; Museum Studies.

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HART B130 Renaissance Art

Not offered 2025-26

A survey of painting in Florence and Rome in the 15th and 16th centuries (Giotto, Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael), with particular attention to contemporary intellectual, social, and religious developments. This course was formerly numbered HART B230; students who previously completed HART B230 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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HART B140 The Global Baroque

Fall 2025

Global Baroque examines the Baroque style both within and beyond Europe, moving from Italy, France, Spain and Flanders to seventeenth-century India, Iran, Japan and China, the New World, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Kongo. We will study the role of Baroque art in early modern politics, religious missions and global trade; the emergence of princely collections of wonders and cartography; the flourishing of new and wondrous art materials; and the changing role of the artist and artisan in this period. We will consider the Baroque as an invitation for emotional engagement, as a style of power that was complicit in the violence of European colonialism, and as a tool of cultural reclamation used by artists across the world. As a class, we will work to construct an art history of The Global Baroque that also attends to the complex specificities of time and place. This course was formerly numbered HART B240; students who previously completed HART B240 may not repeat this course.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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HART B150 Nineteenth-Century Art

Not offered 2025-26

This course takes a transnational approach to the history of art from the Age of Revolution (beginning in the late-eighteenth century) through the industrial globalization of the late-nineteenth century. Lectures, readings and class discussions will engage key artistic and historical developments that shaped art and culture during this period. This course was formerly numbered HART B233; students who previously completed HART B233 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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HART B161 Survey of Contemporary Art & Theory

Spring 2026

This class focuses on European and American art and theory from approximately 1960 to the present. We examine key aesthetic developments including Pop Art, Minimalism, institutional critique, performance, installation, and video. This course was formerly numbered HART B272; students who previously completed HART B272 may not repeat this course

Critical Interpretation (CI)

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HART B170 History of Narrative Cinema, 1945 to the present

Spring 2026

This course surveys the history of narrative film from 1945 to the present. We will analyze a chronological series of styles and national cinemas, including Classical Hollywood, Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, and other post-war movements and genres. Viewings of canonical films will be supplemented by more recent examples of global cinema. While historical in approach, this course emphasizes the theory and criticism of the sound film, and we will consider various methodological approaches to the aesthetic, socio-political, and psychological dimensions of cinema. Readings will provide historical context, and will introduce students to key concepts in film studies such as realism, formalism, spectatorship, the auteur theory, and genre studies. Fulfills the history requirement or the introductory course requirement for the Film Studies minor. This course was formerly numbered HART B299; students who previously completed HART B299 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: English; Film Studies.

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HART B201 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: Medieval/Modern

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Byzantine Textiles in Life, Death, and Afterlife

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course is writing intensive. This course examines intersections between the medieval and modern worlds through art and architecture. Students study medieval works of art and/or architecture as well as their afterlives in the modern era, as realized through revivals of style and form, museum exhibition excavation, alteration and adaptation for reuse, etc. There are no prerequisites for this course. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Museum Studies.

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HART B205 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: Art, Death, and the Afterlife

Spring 2026

This course is writing intensive. This course aims to explore how art was used as a symbolic form to overcome death and to assure immortality in a variety of archaeological, philosophical, religious, sociopolitical, and historical contexts. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B112; students who previously completed HART B112 may not repeat this course.

Writing Intensive

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

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HART B220 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: Landscapes, Art, & Racial Ecologies

Spring 2026

This course is writing intensive. This course uses art, visual, and material culture to trace the plantation's centrality to colonial and post-colonial environments in the Atlantic World from the eighteenth century to the present, as a site of environmental destruction as well as parallel ecologies engendered by African-descended peoples' aesthetic and botanical contestation. Objects to be considered include landscape painting, plantation cartography, scientific imagery, environmental art, and ecologically motivated science fiction. This course was formerly numbered HART B111; students who previously completed HART B111 may not repeat this course. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Environmental Studies.

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HART B235 Critical Approaches to Visual Representation: Identification in the Cinema

Fall 2025

This course is writing intensive. An introduction to the analysis of film and other lensed, time-based media through particular attention to the role of the spectator. Why do moving images compel our fascination? How exactly do spectators relate to the people, objects, and places that appear on the screen? Wherein lies the power of images to move, attract, repel, persuade, or transform their viewers? Students will be introduced to film theory through the rich and complex topic of identification. We will explore how points of view are framed by the camera in still photography, film, television, video games, and other media. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. Fulfills Film Studies Introductory or Theory course requirement. This course was formerly numbered HART B110; students who previously completed HART B110 may not repeat this course.

Writing Intensive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; Film Studies; Visual Studies.

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HART B275 Museum Studies: History, Theory, Practice

Fall 2025

Using the museums of Philadelphia as field sites, this course provides an introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of museum studies and the important synergies between theory and practice. Students will learn: the history of museums as institutions of recreation, education and leisure; how the museum itself became a symbol of power, prestige and sometimes alienation; debates around the ethics and politics of collecting objects of art, culture and nature; and the qualities that make an exhibition effective (or not). By visiting exhibitions and meeting with a range of museum professionals in art, anthropology and science museums, this course offers a critical perspective on the inner workings of the museum as well as insights into the "new museology." Not open to first-year students. Enrollment preference given to minors in Museum Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B281; students who previously completed HART B281 may not repeat this course.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Museum Studies; Visual Studies.

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HART B310 Topics in Medieval Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors: Images of Authority
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors: Images of Authority

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Current topic description: This course casts a critical eye on the question of how Byzantine art and architecture have been represented in surveys of art history, medieval art, and Byzantine art. In addition to reading survey texts themselves, students will consider scholarship that analyzes and critiques the representation of Byzantine art in these books and in the fields of art history and archaeology more broadly. The course provides a historiographic overview of Byzantine art history and addresses questions of canon formation, the relationship of textbooks to current scholarship, and the role of museums and exhibitions in the interpretation and public presentation of Byzantine art.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History.

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HART B320 Topics in Chinese Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Chinese Painting
Section 001 (Spring 2026): Logic/Space/Ancient China
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Chinese Painting

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Current topic description: Traditional Chinese calligraphy is one of the few subfields of art history in which relatively little theorization has been conducted in modern scholarship. This is partly due to the absence of a real Western counterpart. Calligraphy never rose to the status of an equal of painting in the West, but in traditional China, it was the most privileged art category and regarded as the foundation of painting. This course explores the unique theoretical and historical underpinnings of ancient Chinese calligraphy in light of contemporary critical theories and ancient Chinese calligraphy theories and practices. Aspects to be examined include ontology, embodiment, topology, technique, agency, ethics, politics, religion, etc.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: East Asian Languages & Culture; East Asian Languages Cultures.

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HART B340 Topics in Material Culture

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B345.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Museum Studies.

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HART B350 Topics in Modern Art

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Caribbean Art on the World Stage

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art.

Course does not meet an Approach

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HART B365 Exhibiting Africa: Meaning Making across the African Diaspora

Spring 2026

At the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian natural history museum played an important role in constructing and disseminating images of Africa to the Western public. The history of museum representations of Africa and Africans reveals that exhibitions-both museum exhibitions and "living" World's Fair exhibitions- has long been deeply embedded in politics, including the persistent "othering" of African people as savages or primitives. While paying attention to stereotypical exhibition tropes about Africa, we will also consider how art museums are creating new constructions of Africa and how contemporary curators and conceptual artists are creating complex, challenging new ways of understanding African identities.This course was formerly numbered HART B279; students who previously completed HART B279 may not repeat this course.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Anthropology; Museum Studies; Visual Studies.

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HART B370 Topics in History & Theory of Photography

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Race & Identity in the Photographic Archive

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B308.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B375 Topics in Contemporary Art

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Visual Culture & the Holocaust

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art. This course was formerly numbered HART B380.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities.

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HART B380 Topics in Film Studies

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Ecologies of Empire:Western in Contemporary Cinema
Section 002 (Fall 2025): Art & Film in Philadelphia
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Art & Film in Philadelphia

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B334.

Current topic description: D. N. Rodowick has argued that the digital arts "are the most radical instance yet of an old Cartesian dream: the best representations are the most immaterial ones because they seen to free the mind from the body and the world of substance." In this seminar, we will explore digital images in relation to cinema, photography, and other media. We will examine the fate of materiality, the body, and duration in 21st c. media, and consider whether or not the digital marks a significant break from the analog. Texts by Gilles Deleuze, Lev Manovich, Hito Steyerl, and others; works by Natalie Bookchin, Harun Farocki, Jacolby Satterwhite, and others.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Film Studies; Visual Studies.

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HART B398 Senior Conference I

This course is open only to History of Art senior majors; permission of the instructors is required for registration. A critical review of the discipline of art history in preparation for the senior thesis. Capstone in the major; culminates in the senior thesis proposal.

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HART B399 Senior Conference II

This course is open only to History of Art senior majors; permission of the instructors is required for registration. A seminar for the discussion of senior thesis research and such theoretical and historical concerns as may be appropriate. Interim oral reports. Capstone in the major; culminates in the senior thesis.

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HART B403 Supervised Work

Advanced students may do independent research under the supervision of a faculty member whose special competence coincides with the area of the proposed research. Consent of the supervising faculty member and of the major adviser is required.

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HART B420 Museum Studies Praxis Seminar

This course provides students a forum in which to ground, frame and discuss their hands-on work in museums, galleries, archives or collections. Whether students have arranged an internship at a local institution or want to pursue one in the Bryn Mawr College Collections, this course will provide a framework for these endeavors, coupling praxis with theory supported by readings from the discipline of Museum Studies. The course will culminate in a final presentation, an opportunity to reflect critically on the internship experience. Prior to taking the course, students will develop a Praxis Learning Plan through the Career and Civic Engagement office. All students will share a set syllabus, common learning objectives and readings, but will also be able to tailor those objectives to the specific museum setting or Special Collections project in which they are involved. Note: Students are eligible to take up to two Praxis Fieldwork Seminars or Praxis Independent Studies during their time at Bryn Mawr.

Counts Toward: Museum Studies; Praxis Program.

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HART B501 Topics in Medieval/Modern

Fall 2025

This is a topics course.

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HART B610 Topics in Medieval Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Kings, Caliphs, and Emperors

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Open to graduate students, AB/MA candidates, or by permission of the instructor.

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HART B620 Topics in Chinese Art

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Chinese Painting
Section 001 (Spring 2026): Logic/Space/Ancient China
Section 001 (Fall 2026): Chinese Painting

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Open to graduate students, AB/MA candidates, or by permission of the instructor. This course was formerly numbered HART B639.

Current topic description: Traditional Chinese calligraphy is one of the few subfields of art history in which relatively little theorization has been conducted in modern scholarship. This is partly due to the absence of a real Western counterpart. Calligraphy never rose to the status of an equal of painting in the West, but in traditional China, it was the most privileged art category and regarded as the foundation of painting. This course explores the unique theoretical and historical underpinnings of ancient Chinese calligraphy in light of contemporary critical theories and ancient Chinese calligraphy theories and practices. Aspects to be examined include ontology, embodiment, topology, technique, agency, ethics, politics, religion, etc.

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HART B675 Topics in Contemporary Art

Section 001 (Spring 2026): Visual Culture & the Holocaust

Spring 2026

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B680. Open to graduate students, AB/MA candidates, or by permission of the instructor.

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HART B676 Topics: Interpretation and Theory

Section 001 (Fall 2025): 20th C. Theories of Signs and Images

Fall 2025

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B651. Open to graduate students, AB/MA candidates, or by permission of the instructor.

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HART B680 Topics in Film Studies

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Course content varies. This course was formerly numbered HART B661. Open to graduate students, AB/MA candidates, or by permission of the instructor.

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HART B700 Advanced Research Methods

Spring 2026

This is a workshop designed to support graduate students in the History of Art in independent research and writing projects at any stage, including MA theses, preliminary exams, researching and writing a dissertation prospectus, or writing drafts of dissertation chapters. May be taken more than once for credit; mandatory for graduate students beyond coursework stage except by permission of primary advisor.

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HART B701 Supervised Work

Fall 2025, Spring 2026

Supervised Work

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AFST B202 Black Queer Diaspora

Fall 2025

This interdisciplinary course explores over two decades of work produced by and about Black Queer Diasporic communities throughout the circum-Atlantic world. While providing an introduction to various artists and intellectuals of the Black Queer Diaspora, this course examines the viability of Black Queer Diaspora world-making praxis as a form of theorizing. We will interrogate the transnational and transcultural mobility of specific Black Queer Diasporic forms of peacemaking, erotic knowledge productions, as well as the concept of "aesthetics" more broadly. Our aim is to use the prism of Blackness/Queerness/Diaspora to highlight the dynamic relationship between Black Diaspora Studies and Queer Studies. By the end of this course students will have a strong understanding of how systems of power work to restrict the freedoms of Black Queer and Trans communities, and how Black LGBTQ people have lived, organized, and created in spite of and in response to these oppressions. This interdisciplinary undergraduate upper-level course will utilize academic texts accompanied by poetry, fiction, film, television, and visual art to understand Black Queer and Trans subjectivities.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Gender & Sexuality Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; History of Art.

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ANTH B368 The Anthropology of Art

Spring 2026

The idea that "art is what makes us human" has a long lineage and is a key concept of enlightenment philosophy. The anthropology of art historically drew inspiration from this idea, with anthropologists arguing that creative expression was a universal feature of human society - proof of universal human equality. But if art is evidence of humanity's common creative drive, art has also often been a profound site of inequality - the development of art was closely connected to colonial exploitation, racial segregation, gendered violence, and contemporary gentrification. In this course we will draw on anthropological scholarship to investigate this tension between art as a feature of common humanity and art as a site for the production of difference. If art makes us human, does some art make some of us more human than others? Prerequisite: Sophomore standing (minimum of at least 8 units) or higher.

Course does not meet an Approach

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B102 Introduction to Classical Archaeology

Spring 2026

A historical survey of the archaeology and art of Greece, Etruria, and Rome.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Culture and Society; Classical Studies; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B229 Visual Culture of the Ancient Near East

Spring 2026

This course examines the visual culture of the Ancient Near East based on an extensive body of architectural, sculptural, and pictorial evidence dating from prehistoric times through the fifth century BCE. We will explore how a variety of surviving art, artifacts, sculpture, monuments, and architecture deriving from geographically distinct areas of the ancient Near East, such as Mesopotamia, the Eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, and Iran, may have been viewed and experienced in their historical contexts, including the contribution of ancient materials and technologies of production in shaping this viewing and experience. By focusing on selected examples of diverse evidence, we will also consider how past and current scholarly methods and approaches, many of them art-historical, archaeological, and architectural in aim, have affected the understanding and interpretation of this evidence. In doing so, we will pay special attention to critical terms such as aesthetics, style, narrative, representation, and agency.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward: History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B252 Pompeii

Not offered 2025-26

Introduces students to a nearly intact archaeological site whose destruction by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 C.E. was recorded by contemporaries. The discovery of Pompeii in the mid-1700s had an enormous impact on 18th- and 19th-century views of the Roman past as well as styles and preferences of the modern era. Informs students in classical antiquity, urban life, city structure, residential architecture, home decoration and furnishing, wall painting, minor arts and craft and mercantile activities within a Roman city.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Languages; Classical Studies; Classics; Growth and Structure of Cities; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B256 Classical Myths in Art and in the Sky

Spring 2026

This course explores Greek and Roman mythology using an archaeological and art historical approach, focusing on the ways in which the traditional tales of the gods and heroes were depicted, developed and transmitted in the visual arts such as vase painting and architectural sculpture, as well as projected into the natural environment.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Classical Culture and Society; History of Art; Museum Studies.

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ARCH B301 Greek Vase-Painting

Fall 2025

This course is an introduction to the world of painted pottery of the Greek world, from the 10th to the 4th centuries B.C.E. We will interpret these images from an art-historical and socio-economic viewpoint. We will also explore how these images relate to other forms of representation. Prerequisite: one course in classical archaeology or permission of instructor.

Writing Attentive

Counts Toward: Classical Studies; Classics; History of Art.

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ARCH B501 Greek Vase Painting

Fall 2025

This course is an introduction to the world of painted pottery of the Greek world, from the 10th to the 4th centuries B.C.E. We will interpret these images from an art-historical and socio-economic viewpoint. We will also explore how these images relate to other forms of representation. Prerequisite: one course in classical archaeology or permission of instructor.

Counts Toward: Classical Studies; Classics; History of Art.

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CITY B190 Form of the City: Histories of the Built Environment

Spring 2026

This course studies the city as a three-dimensional artifact. A variety of factors, geography, economic and population structure, politics, planning, and aesthetics are considered as determinants of urban form.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B253 Before Modernism: Architecture and Urbanism of the 18th and 19th Centuries

Spring 2026

The course frames the topic of architecture before the impact of 20th century Modernism, with a special focus on the two prior centuries - especially the 19th - in ways that treat them on their own terms rather than as precursors of more modern technologies and forms of expression. The course will integrate urbanistic and vernacular perspectives alongside more familiar landmark exemplars. Key goals and components of the course will include attaining a facility within pertinent bibliographical and digital landscapes, formal analysis and research skills exercised in writing projects, class field-trips, and a nuanced mastery of the narratives embodied in the architecture of these centuries.

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B254 History of Modern Architecture

Fall 2025

A survey of the development of modern architecture since the 18th century.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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CITY B377 Topics in Modern Architecture

Section 001 (Fall 2025): Queer Pedagogies

Fall 2025

This is a topics course on modern architecture. Topics vary.

Counts Toward: Environmental Studies; History of Art.

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CITY B378 Formative Landscapes: The Architecture and Planning of American Collegiate Campuses

Fall 2025

The campus and buildings familiar to us here at the College reflect a long and rich design conversation regarding communicative form, architectural innovation, and orchestrated planning. This course will explore that conversation through varied examples, key models, and shaping conceptions over time.

Counts Toward: History of Art.

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COML B213 Theory in Practice: Critical Discourses in the Humanities

Spring 2026

What is a postcolonial subject, a queer gaze, a feminist manifesto? And how can we use (as readers of texts, art, and films) contemporary studies on animals and cyborgs, object-oriented ontology, zombies, storyworlds, neuroaesthetics? By bringing together the study of major theoretical currents of the 20th century and the practice of analyzing literary works in the light of theory, this course aims at providing students with skills to use literary theory in their own scholarship. The selection of theoretical readings reflects the history of theory (psychoanalysis, structuralism, narratology), as well as the currents most relevant to the contemporary academic field: Post-structuralism, Post-colonialism, Gender Studies, and Ecocriticism. They are paired with a diverse range of short stories across multiple language traditions (Poe, Kafka, Camus, Borges, Calvino, Morrison, Djebar, Murakami, Ngozi Adichie) that we discuss along with our study of theoretical texts. We will discuss how to apply theory to the practice of interpretation and of academic writing, and how theoretical ideas shape what we are reading. The class will be conducted in English, with an additional hour taught by the instructor of record in the target language for students wishing to take the course for language credit.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Africana Studies; Africana Studies; East Asian Languages & Culture; English; French and Francophone Studies; Gender & Sexuality Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; Gender Sexuality Studies; German and German Studies; History of Art; Italian and Italian Studies; Philosophy; Russian; Spanish.

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ENGL B205 Introduction to Film

Spring 2026

This course is intended to provide students with the tools of critical film analysis. Through readings of images and sounds, sections of films and entire narratives, students will cultivate the habits of critical viewing and establish a foundation for focused work in film studies. The course introduces formal and technical units of cinematic meaning and categories of genre and history that add up to the experiences and meanings we call cinema. Although much of the course material will focus on the Hollywood style of film, examples will be drawn from the history of cinema. Attendance at weekly screenings is mandatory.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Counts Toward: Film Studies; History of Art; Visual Studies.

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GERM B223 Topics in German Cultural Studies

Not offered 2025-26

This is a topics course. Course content varies. Taught in English.

Writing Attentive

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Comparative Literature; History; History of Art.

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GSEM B625 Dots and Loops: Form and Aesthetics Across Time and Media

Fall 2025

Though it has long been at the heart of aesthetic criticism, the subject of form as an axis of methodological inquiry has regained conspicuous popularity in recent years. Scholars working across, and at the intersection of, various media--including but not limited to material culture, visual art, sound, film, and literature--have been thinking through the ways that form both informs and is informed by what were considered its various antitheses, such as history, politics, and the material archive. The presumed extrication of external "context" was integral to a hermeneutic of form. This was a driving factor, for instance, in nineteenth-century formalism, used to construct coherent narratives surrounding Classical Antiquity through archaeological and art historical understandings of ornament and architecture. These interests continued with the inception of Russian literary Formalism in the early twentieth century, and then French narratology of the midcentury, for whom Homeric form was particularly important. This seminar will examine the various modes of formalist analysis that have emerged in contemporary criticism and their relationships to the formalisms that have come before, studying them alongside artworks across media and through various global histories. How can form speak across Art History, Classics, and Archaeology and to projects that vary widely in their temporal and geographic scopes, we will ask? What does attention to form yield for interdisciplinary scholars, specifically? What are the scope and limits of thinking with lines, dots, loops, circles, squares, parabolas, and shapes of any kind?

Counts Toward: Classical & Near Eastern Arch; Classical Studies; Classics; Classics; History of Art.

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ITAL B240 Philadelphia the Global City: The Italian Legacy across Time

Fall 2025

This course investigates the history and evolution of Philadelphia as a globalized and multi-ethnic city, using as a case study for this analysis the impact and legacy of transnational Italian culture across the centuries. By adopting a cross-cultural, trans-historical, and interdisciplinary approach, the course explores the influence that - along with and in intersection with many other cultural inputs - also Italian arts and cultures have exerted on the city, making it become the cosmopolitan and transnational urban environment that it is today. Throughout the centuries and way before Italy even started existing as a state, Philadelphians traveled to the peninsula and brought back objects to display in emerging cultural institutions or studied the country's art and architecture styles to shape the evolving aspect of the city. Simultaneously, incoming immigration formed new neighborhoods - such as South Philly, home to the Italian Market - and Italian figures came to prominence and became part of the social fabric of the city. Nowadays, many non-profit organizations work to preserve the traces that Italian migrants left within Philadelphia's multi-ethnic urban environment as well as to extend the city's global profile and celebrate its heritage and diversity. Through specific field trips, on-site experiential activities, and forms of civic engagement this course highlights both the enduring fascination of Philadelphians with Italy (or with the idea thereof) across the centuries and the role that the Italian Diaspora played in the development of the city. The course ultimately challenges geographical, chronological, and cultural boundaries by showing how places, arts, identities that today are perceived as 'American' have in most cases an intersectional, multi-ethnic, and cross-cultural history to tell. This course will be taught in Philadelphia as part of the Tri-Co Philly Program. All readings and class discussion will be in English, and no knowledge of Italian is required. Students seeking Italian credits will complete their assignments in the target language.

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Inquiry into the Past (IP)

Power, Inequity, and Justice (PIJ)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; History of Art; Museum Studies; Praxis Program.

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MEST B210 The Art and Architecture of Islamic Spirituality

Spring 2026

This course examines how Muslim societies across time and space have used art and architecture in different ways to express and understand inner dimensions of spirituality and mysticism. Topics to be studied include: the calligraphical remnants of the early Islamic period; inscriptions found on buildings and gravestones; the majestic architecture of mosques, shrines, seminaries, and Sufi lodges; the brilliant arts of the book; the commemorative iconography and passion plays of Ashura devotion; the souvenir culture of modern shrine visitation; and the modern art of twenty-first century Sufism. Readings include works from history, religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and the history of art and architecture.

Critical Interpretation (CI)

Cross-Cultural Analysis (CC)

Counts Toward: Growth and Structure of Cities; History; History of Art; International Studies; Visual Studies.

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