ARTH 6101 - Proseminar: Introduction to Methods

Fall. 4 credits. Letter grades only.

Co-meets with ARTH 4101/VISST 4101.

B. Anderson.

Works of art have always engendered political, social, and cultural meanings. This seminar presents an introduction to the methods used by art historians and the objects and ideas that constitute the historiography of their discipline. If art history was once understood as the study of the development of style in “European art,” over the past century its practitioners have attempted to embrace a “global” perspective and to address issues of class, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and gender. Readings will focus on historically situating methods and the implications of their cross-cultural application. Papers will encourage students to put methods into practice, realizing in the process that subject matter is not an isolated choice to which methods are applied, but something that profoundly affects the approach that the researcher brings to the writing of art history.