Current Upper Level Courses in Art History
Rose Hill
Fall 2025
ARHI 2528 – Asian American Art
What does it mean to study “Asian American art”? Although the term Asian American is itself relatively new, having emerged through activist movements in the 1960s, work by artists of Asian descent has long circulated in the Americas, from the 1565 opening of the Manila-Acapulco Galleon trade onward. This class explores the diverse histories of Asian American art in what is now known as the United States, across a range of topics and themes, including mercantile trade networks and “export art”; immigration, exclusion, and diaspora; Orientalism; World’s Fairs; modernism, abstraction, and postmodernism; and popular culture. Throughout, we will pay special attention to the work of Asian American artists in New York, both historical and contemporary, with visits to museums, galleries, and studios in the city.
ARHI 2576 - Black Art and Fashion, 1850-Present
From 19th-century portraits of enslaved and formerly enslaved African American sitters to contemporary handbags designed by Black queer icons Telfar Clemens and Brandon Blackwood, this course explores the relationship between art and fashion in African and African diasporic history and culture. We will analyze a vast range of visual culture, including historic and contemporary advertisements for the beauty companies of Madam C.J. Walker, Rihanna, and Beyoncé, as well as the intricately patterned textiles and hairstyles in the work of African photographers Malick Sidibé and J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere. The exhibitions "Africa Fashion" (2022-25) and "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" (2025) will serve as primary sources for engaging the art history of Black fashion.
ARHI 3200 - Museum Studies in Ancient Art
This class examines the display of Ancient Art using the collection at Fordham as a foundation. The class considers the aesthetic issues of exhibiting ancient objects and addresses the ethical concerns of collecting “un-provenanced” antiquities.
ARHI 4562 - Art and the Second World War
This upper-level art history seminar will examine the production, circulation, and reception of art about World War II in Europe, North America, and Asia. We will look at paintings, sculptures, posters, and architecture from Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan, and China from the 1930s and 1940s, and analyze them in relation to the ideologies of fascism, anti-fascism, and communism. We will also scrutinize images that represent the violent consequences of the global conflict, such as the Holocaust, the Nanking Massacre, comfort women (sex slaves managed by the imperial Japanese government), and the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Questions will include how we define propaganda and what it looks like; what kinds of messages art tried to propagate; what artistic styles and theories were employed; what our ethical responsibilities are in dealing with artworks that served to justify violence; and what we can learn from the art to be mindful about propaganda today. Through discussions of artworks from the most turbulent and globally devastating period of the 20th century, this class will consider the moral dimensions of art appreciation. This is a reading-, writing-, and speaking-intensive course.
ARHI 4600 - Senior Seminar
As the capstone seminar for art history majors, this seminar has several goals: to give art history majors an introduction to the principal thinkers who shaped the field of art history; to explore some of the key methodological approaches to art history today; to hone students’ skills in critical reading and viewing; and to provide students the opportunity to conduct independent research on an art historical topic of their own choosing. Offered fall semesters only; required for majors.
Rose Hill
Spring 2025 Courses
ARHI 2311 - Athen and Ancient Greece: Athens and Pericles in the 5th Century BC
Long remembered as a political and artistic highpoint in the western traditions of art, architecture, history, philosophy, politics and theatre, this course takes a holistic look at the challenges and opportunities of writing about 5th century BC Athens. Students will analyze a range of writing about Athens, and its most famous statesman, Pericles. Genres from modern scholarship on technical evidence (such as stone inscriptions and archaeological field reports) to 19th century poetry seeking to evoke a lost “golden age” of art and democracy will all inform students’ own writings. This wide range of modern texts and ancient evidence will allow us to consider all parts of Athenian society. A final project will require students to alter their writing for a more general audience, by devising, writing, and shooting a short animated film.
ARHI 2553 - Art, Gender, and Sexuality in Asia
This upper-level art history course probes into artistic and cultural representations of bodies in Asia in relation to such themes as sex, gender, sexuality, race, nationhood, war, and post-humanity. Through thematic examinations of diverse bodily representations, students will learn a broad range of interpretive tools and frameworks to appreciate artistic objects.
ARHI 2580 - Contemporary Black and Indigenous Art
This course investigates global contemporary art with a focus on the Black and Indigenous artists who some would say form the vanguard of the 20th and 21st century art world. We examine exhibitions, art criticism, biennales, and art fairs that have positioned Blackness and Indigeneity at the forefront. We will consider the limits of representation in our present moment of “neoliberal globalization” while analyzing the strategies in which Black and Indigenous artists resist and indulge the demands of racial capitalism.
Lincoln Center
Fall 2025
ARHI 2260 – Global Modern Architecture
What do we think of when we see such words as “modern,” “modernism,” and “modernity”—especially as they pertain to architecture and the built environment? How can we reinterpret and challenge existing views of these terms when we start from the regions of the world (sometimes called the non-west and the global south) that are home to the majority of the world's people? In this course, we'll examine the production of space in Asia, Africa, and Latin America from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries as breaks from the past, yet inextricable from the colonial encounter.
ARHI 2418 – Gender and Sexuality in Renaissance Art
This course explores the role of gender and sexuality in the art of the European Renaissance. We will consider how the visual arts both constructed and reflected ideals of feminine and masculine identity, homosocial relations, and erotic desire. Investigating the roles and identities of women and men as patrons, creators, viewers, and subjects of early modern art, we will also consider discourses of feminism, gender, and sexuality both in the early modern period and in contemporary academic practice.
ARHI 2621 – Art and Fashion in the Modern Age
A course that examines the intersections of art, design, and fashion from the 20th century to the present.
ARHI 3350 – Age of Cathedrals
Gothic cathedrals were the skyscrapers of the Middle Ages. These impossibly tall and profusely decorated buildings were center points for urban life in northern Europe between circa 1150 and 1400. This course explores the architectural innovations behind the Gothic style as well as the extensive adornment of Gothic structures (especially sculpture and stained glass) and objects that were used in them (such as illuminated manuscripts and metalwork) in relation to their sacred, political, social, and economic meanings. Issues examined include the technology of Gothic architecture, the use of images to shore up the power of the church, images and the social status of women, relations between Christians and Jews, and encounters between Europeans and Africans. Site visits will be included when possible.
ARHI 4600 - Senior Seminar
As the capstone seminar for art history majors, this seminar has several goals: to give art history majors an introduction to the principal thinkers who shaped the field of art history; to explore some of the key methodological approaches to art history today; to hone students’ skills in critical reading and viewing; and to provide students the opportunity to conduct independent research on an art historical topic of their own choosing. Offered fall semesters only; required for majors.
Lincoln Center
Spring 2025 Courses
ARHI 2361 - Italian Art, Politics, and Religion in the age of Dante
This course investigates the relationship between art, politics, and religion on the Italian peninsula during the later Middle Ages (ca. 1250-1400). We will focus on the major cities as patrons of the arts (e.g. Florence, Siena, Padua, Milan, Naples, Venice, and Rome), to understand how the elite used art to further their political and religious agendas. Select themes include: the rise of the Mendicant orders; the cultural impact of Dante’s Divine Comedy; artistic competition among communes; the rise of the individual artist; humanism and the arts; the influence of Islamic intellectual and visual culture on the Italian peninsula.
ARHI 2565 - Architecture and the Environment
How has the natural environment shaped the design of the human-made environment? How have buildings, in turn, been constructed to mitigate unwanted climatic effects and provide comfort to their inhabitants? Most pressingly, how should the construction industry respond to the climate crisis? In this class, we will examine the history of architecture not as a series of stylistic developments, but in relation to structural and mechanical technologies of climate control. We’ll trace how fossil fuels transformed how we build, and the complicated histories of passive design, alongside a discussion of how thinkers from ancient times to the present have connected climate with what it means to be human, to understand the politics, economics, and cultural features of environmentally responsive design.
ARHI 4555 - Art and Ecology in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries
This course investigates the work of artists, writers, and filmmakers who have dedicated themselves to creating solutions to specific environmental problems or whose works have broadened public concern for ecologically degraded environments. Students will participate in a wide variety of discourses about the personal, public, and ethical dimensions of current environmental issues.
ARHI 4610 - Senior Capstone Project
This course allows students to hone research skills and conduct a semester-long project on an art-historical topic of their own choosing.