Courses - Spring 2027
ARTH200
Art and Society in Ancient and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean
Examines the material culture and visual expressions of Mediterranean and European societies from early times until ca. 1300 CE, emphasizing the political, social, and religious context of the works studied, the relationships of the works to the societies that created them, and the interrelationship of these societies.
ARTH201
Art and Society in the West from the Renaissance to the Present
Examines representative European and American works of art from the later Middle Ages to the present, highlighting the dynamic exchange between artistic and cultural traditions both within periods and across time.
ARTH255
Explores the origins and evolution of art in the modern American world, from the late colonial era to the present, comparing major artistic movements and their historical contexts. Considers the diversity of art across Latin America and the United States, and the ways in which artworks mediate social, ethnic, political, and national identities.
ARTH289B
Special Topics in Art History and Archaeology; The Arts of Diplomacy
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Explores the relationship between art, artists, rulers, and diplomats across cultures, attesting to long-established global economies in key historical moments from antiquity to the present. Students will investigate interconnected economic and political networks and understand the role that gifts and giving of art play in establishing and maintaining diplomatic relations. By the end of the course, studentswill understandart not only as cultural expression, but also as a powerful tool of diplomacy and international engagement.
ARTH292
Discovering Japan: How the Arts Shaped a Nation
Explores the origins and creation of Japan from ancient to contemporary times through East Asian and European exchange. Acquaints students with painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, gardens, and other art forms in relation to the various cultural contexts within which they were produced and used.
ARTH322
Van Eyck to Bruegel: The Renaissance in Northern Europe
The tradition of pictorial art in the Netherlands from its flowering in the courts and cities of the early 15th century to the cataclysmic moment of iconoclasm in 1566. It will feature works by famous masters like Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Durer, and Pieter Bruegel, but also objects created by lesser-known and anonymous makers. It will treat artworks -- illuminated books, tapestries, paintings, and printed images -- as complexly embedded in the great economic, social, and religious upheavals of this period, particularly considering the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the Reformation, and the sense of "discovery" of new worlds.
ARTH357
History of Photography
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Credit only granted for: ARTH357 or ARTH457.
An exploration of the historical, social, aesthetic, and technological developments of the photographic medium and its relationship to other modes of visual representation in the creation of the modern world.
ARTH359O
Film as Art; Film Gazes and POVs
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Films have a "Point of View" that is constructed through different elements of form and narrative, from where the camera is placed to who is writing the script. This POV - or "the gaze" -- tells us "who we are" when watching a film (or look at a painting). We will explore Laura Mulvey's original theory of the gaze from the 1970s and then consider how - or if - it changes in films up to the present day, exploring literal points of view, subjective and unreliable narrative, the way films make us Identify with the "wrong" characters, define normality, the way changing a POV changes meaning, and the how the same story changes over time, across cultures or between directors.
ARTH361
Explores diverse artistic movements and makers in the United States, beginning at the end of the Civil War in 1865 and concluding with the art of Civil Rights era in the 20th century. We will ask how the visual arts construct and challenge formations of race, class, gender, and citizenship in the context of political transformations and social movements over a century of US history. This course emphasizes the practice of close looking as we encounter works art across a range of media--photography, painting, sculpture, film, material culture, performance art and public art.
ARTH386
Experiential Learning
Prerequisite: Permission of ARHU-Art History & Archaeology department.
Restriction: Junior standing or higher.
Supervised internship experience in diverse areas of art historical, archaeological, and museological work.
ARTH389O
Special Topics in Art History and Archaeology; From Site to Sight II: Art, Architecture, and Visual Cultur e in Premodern South Asia
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Focused on architectural history, visual culture, and inscriptions from c. 200 CE to 1300/1500 CE. Through this site-centered and landscape-oriented approach, students examine how places reflect and shape histories of religion, politics, trade, and ecological transformation. The course emphasizes archaeology as an interpretive practice rather than a purely technical enterprise, allowing students toanalyze how built environments, visual forms, and material remains register long-term continuities and shifts in religion, political formation, ecological adaptation, and transregional interaction that linked South Asia to the wider the IndianOcean world. Assignments emphasize visual and spatial understanding, research synthesis, and comparative interpretation, enabling students todevelop fluency across multiple disciplinary perspectives. As we move from site to sight, the course foregrounds the intellectual labor of seeing making visible the layered processes through which South Asia emerges as both a material past and a field of scholarly inquiry.
ARTH389W
Special Topics in Art History and Archaeology; Practical Writing in Art History: Museum and Gallery Communications
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Explores the kinds of writing that art museum and gallery professionals engage in every day, including the crafting of curatorial narratives, wall label texts for exhibitions, scripts for docent tours, public lectures, grant application narratives, donor communications, and socialmedia copy, among other genres. We will examine how art museums use various forms of writing to communicate complex ideas with diverse audiences, and acquire hands-on experience writing about visual art in avariety ofcontexts.
ARTH391
Transnational Chinese Cinema
Cross-listed with: CINE335.
Credit only granted for: ARTH391 or CINE335.
Chinese cinema has made a big impact on contemporary world film culture. This course will introduce students to the films directed by some of the most representative filmmakers working in different geopolitical locations (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong) and the Chinese diaspora. The films of these directors, in a spectrum of genres, themes, and styles, have inspired global scholarship, not only in visual culture and cinema, but also in the study of women's issues, gender and ethnic studies, as well as the fields of adaptation and intermedia studies. Students will explore these films in their socio-historical and artistic contexts, considering the influences and innovations that have shaped them and analyzing their reception by audiences and critics. After reading about the films they view, and participating in class discussions, students will be ready to complete their analytical written assignments, for which they will critically examine the films by applying key concepts such as gender, sexuality, race, gaze, style, representation, power, diaspora, etc.
ARTH488P
Colloquium in Art History; Godzilla, Kawaii, and Japanese Art In and Against the American Sphere
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Learn the fascinating ways Japanese art and culture have developed under the US nuclear umbrella and ongoing military occupation, from 1945 to the present day.
ARTH488U
Colloquium in Art History; Entertainment and Empire: Rome's Gladiators, Actors, and Charioteers
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Step inside the roaring amphitheaters and boisterous circuses of ancient Rome. This course explores the lives of gladiators, actors, charioteers, and other entertainers - the superstars of the ancient Roman world - as well as the social and cultural forces that made them icons. Learn how power, propaganda, and performance intersected during the Empire's most popular public events. We'll investigate the literary and archaeological evidence for the spectacles themselves, the politics behind the games, and the myths that still shape modern pop culture as seen through Hollywood films. Students will gain a deeper understanding of Roman arena games and a sharper eye for historical accuracy on screen.
ARTH488Y
Colloquium in Art History; Art, Cinema, Law, Money
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
Examines the manners in which law and money constrained and directed the creation, circulation, distribution, and exhibition of art and cinema. Themes to be explored may include: cinematic representations of artists, bankers, and lawyers; how artists (such as Picasso and Zhang Daqian) achieved financial success and critical acclaim through courting of dealers, critics, collectors, and curators; art crimes (forgery, theft, looting, money laundering); how science fiction films were marketed in response to financial pressures; trials in which artists, artworks, and films acted as protagonists; censorship and self-censorship of art and cinema;art as investment and the roles of private banking services in the global art market.
ARTH498
Directed Studies in Art History I
Credits:
2 - 3
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
ARTH499
Honors Thesis
Credits:
3 - 6
Grad Meth:
Reg, P-F, Aud
ARTH698
Teaching Art History
Credits:
1
Grad Meth:
S-F
ARTH748A
Seminar in Eighteenth-Century European Art; Savage & Beloved: Animals in European Art from Enlightenment to Empire
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud, S-F
Classes will generally be held at the National Gallery of Art. While occupying a secondary position in the hierarchy of European art in the 18th and 19th centuries, the practice of imaging animals involved a broad range of social and political issues. Artists projected onto theirsubjects human emotional and psychological states, used them to comment on contemporary cultural considerations, and enlisted them in communicatingglobal power and imperial presence. Inspired by the Enlightenment s rationalist reconsideration of the world and man s placewithin it, painters approached animals with increasing empathy, as kindred beings within an interconnected natural ecology, rather than as dumb matter in service tomankind. Looking at paintings, sculpture and works on paper in the National Gallery s collection, we will investigatethe artistic shift from treating animals as symbolic emblems to capturing their anatomy, individuality, and psychological presence with invariably impressive skill.
ARTH759D
Seminar in Twentieth-Century Art; Public Art at UMD
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud, S-F
Considers the modern history and civic values of public art primarily through close study of works on our College Park campus. We consider thenature of public space, the politics of representation and community,and the civic and memorial functions of art. Students will support the existing landscape of public art at UMD through the development of toursand related didactic materials.
ARTH788C
Seminar in Indian and South Asian Art; Provincializing Europe: Historical Thinking in Contemporary Art
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
With its title borrowed from Dipesh Chakrabarty's classic postcolonial critique of history, this seminar examines critical approaches to historical thought in contemporary art from the postcolonial world and Global South, as well as indigenous communities across the world. Topicsof study include archival, parahistorical, pluriversal, and forensic approaches to history and memory and artworks built upon those currents of thought.
ARTH798
Directed Graduate Studies in Art History
Credits:
3
Grad Meth:
Reg, Aud
ARTH799
Master's Thesis Research
Credits:
1 - 6
Grad Meth:
S-F
ARTH898
Pre-Candidacy Research
Credits:
1 - 8
Grad Meth:
Reg
ARTH899
Doctoral Dissertation Research
Credits:
6
Grad Meth:
S-F
Flagship Institution of the University System of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
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301.405.1000
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