Transfer Student Courses in History of Art (Division 392)

Fall Term, 1999 (September 8 - December 22, 1999)

To see what Transfer Student courses have been added or changed in History of Art this week go to What's New This Week.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Dana Rush

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU).

Credits: (4).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/histart/fall99/108-001.html

This course offers a general introduction to the arts of African cultures south of the Sahara desert. It reviews the history of African art from about 10,000 B.C. through the twentieth century. The survey is based on a carefully selected corpus comprising prehistoric rock paintings and engravings, old and recent sculptures in terracotta, metal, wood, and ivory; and textile and bodily arts. While it adopts an historical approach, it will also explore some prevailing themes in African art, such as African approaches to representation and the social function and meaning of art. Last, it will highlight a number of significant cultural transformations that resulted from contact between African peoples and western societies. Scheduled lectures will be supplemented with written and reading assignments, videofilms, and tours of African art exhibitions in museums and private collections in the Detroit area.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Lauren Talalay (talalay@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (4). (HU).

Credits: (4; 3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~classics/ca/221/

See Classical Archaeology 221.001.

Section 006 – History of Architecture. Meets with Architecture 313.001.

Instructor(s): Anatole Senkevitch (senkanat@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl). May be elected for credit more than once.

Credits: (3; 1-3 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: No Homepage Submitted.

This course is the first in the undergraduate two-course sequence (Arch 313/323) surveying the history of architecture from antiquity to the present. The course introduces students to leading developments in the history and theory of architecture and urban design from ancient times through the Renaissance. Innovation and change in architectural conception, stylistic expression, building typology and construction technique are examined. Attention is also paid to the way architecture has historically been shaped by varying combinations of the formal and theoretical intentions of the architect, the preferences and needs of the client and the particular mix of social, economic, cultural and technical factors operating to define the specific characteristics of a given time and place.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): John Pedley (jpedley@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/histart/fall99/435-001.html

See Classical Archaeology 435.001.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Nassos Papalexandrou

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (HU).

Credits: (3; 2 in the half-term).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/histart/fall99/439-001.html

See Classical Archaeology 439.001.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Maria Gough (mgough@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/histart/fall99/468-001.html

This course will examine the manifold ways in which avant-garde sculptors from c.1900-c.1970 have theorized the relationships between art and technology. Stimulated by the technological optimism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many sculptors in Europe and North America sought to close the gap between these two realms, upholding the utopian belief that technnology could rescue sculpture from academicism and that, in turn, this newly generated sculptural sensiblility could help humanize technology itself. With the destruction of the Second World War, however, sculptors became more circumspect about technology's utopian promise, but nevertheless continued to bridge the divide between the two domains through their introductions into sculptural practice of systems aethetics and serial production, their renewed interest in kineticism and the problem of motion in an art form traditionally theorized as static, their increasing pursuit of collaborative projects with engineers, and their appropriation of early video technologies. The course seeks to provide the student with a sense of the philosophical and historical traditions that not only predate the current fascination with the interface of visual culture and electronic media, but also underpin it. Classes will be part-lecture, part-discussion. Course requirements: weekly readings, regular contributions to discussion, short in-class presentations, and two papers.

Section 001.

Instructor(s): Elaine Gazda (gazda@umich.edu)

Prerequisites & Distribution: Hist. of Art 101 or 222. (3). (Excl).

Credits: (3).

Course Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~hartspc/histart/fall99/536-001.html

This course will follow the stylistic and iconographic developments in public and private sculpture from the late 4th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. The theories underlying the reconstruction of these developments will be examined, and there will be discussions of new approaches to these problems. Lectures will consist mainly of slide presentations, although original sculptures will be examined whenever possible. There will be one midterm and a final examination. A research paper of approximately fifteen pages or a lecture is required for graduate students. Undergraduates may choose between a research paper and TWO short essays as their writing requirement. In general, the instructor emphasizes a critical approach to secondary sources on Hellenistic and Roman sculpture and encourages students to develop skills of analysis, both textual and visual. It is recommended that students have some previous exposure to Greek and Roman civilization. Foreign languages are not required for undergraduates, but it is expected that graduate students will read assignments in German, French, and/or Italian and will use foreign language sources in their research.