Art History and Visual Culture
Mission Statement
The Department of Art History and Visual Culture's mission places questions of difference and power globally at the center of our teaching and research. Our mission reflects Denison’s core liberal arts values and advances inclusion and equity. We employ a thematic, interrogative approach that reflects critically on what art history and visual culture can be for the liberal arts. We do not seek broad, superficial coverage, but collaborative partnership in reimagining art history and visual culture studies for an integrative, transformative liberal arts experience. In so doing we exploit our areas of faculty specialization as spaces from which to rethink dominant narratives and interpretive frameworks with their global implications. We rethink, too, how we respond in writing to that which is not primarily articulated through the spoken or written word. Emphasizing global issues of difference and power prompts the curation of intentional interdisciplinarity inside and outside the college, as concrete expressions of our mission.
We strongly urge students to declare their intention to major in Art History and Visual Culture before the end of their sophomore year. We also urge students to choose an academic advisor from among AHVC faculty.
Associate Professor Catherine Stuer, Chair
Associate Professor Karl Sandin; Assistant Professor Ksenia Un
Visual Resource Specialist
Jacqueline Pelasky
Academic Administrative Assistant
Rebekah Lennon
Art History and Visual Culture Major
Requirements for Art History and Visual Culture Major
- 10 four-credit courses
- 1 one-credit course (AHVC 409)
- Junior Talk (AHVC 095)
- Senior Thesis (25-30 pages) and presentation at the Annual Senior Symposium (AHVC 408). To be eligible to graduate, the Senior Thesis must be submitted to the Art History and Visual Culture faculty.
One 4-credit Core Course at the 100-level selected from the list below:
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| AHVC 101 | The Western World: Ancient to Baroque |
| AHVC 111 | Late 19th-21st Century Art and Visual Culture |
| AHVC 131 | Asian Art and Visual Culture |
Three Required Core Courses for Juniors & Seniors:
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| AHVC 380 | Methods of Art History and Visual Culture (this course to be taken in the junior year - 4 credits) |
| AHVC 408 | Art History and Visual Culture Senior Seminar: Research (this course to be taken in the senior year - 4 credits) |
| AHVC 409 | Art History and Visual Culture Senior Seminar: Writing (1 credit) |
Elective Courses & Distribution Requirements
Seven courses from the following 4-credit, 200-300 level options. At least 3 of the 7 elective courses listed below must be at the 300 level. Students must also take at least 1 course in each of the distributional areas. The sole 100-level required core course may be used to satisfy one of the areas in this distribution instead of one of the 200-300 level elective courses listed below.
Distributional Areas:
- Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Art in the Mediterranean and Europe
- Pre-modern to Modern and Contemporary Art from China, Japan, and South Asia
- Modern and Contemporary Art from Europe, Eurasia, and the United States
Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Art in the Mediterranean and Europe
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| AHVC 201 | Classical Art and Architecture |
| AHVC 203 | Early Renaissance Art and Architecture |
| AHVC 204 | High Renaissance, Baroque Art and Architecture |
| AHVC 302 | Medieval Art and Architecture |
Pre-modern to Modern and Contemporary Art from China, Japan, and South Asia
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| AHVC 231 | Art of Japan |
| AHVC 232 | Art of China |
| AHVC 263 | World Views: Spatial Imagination in East Asia |
| AHVC 333 | Art and Revolution in 20th Century China |
Modern and Contemporary Art from Latin America and the UNITED STATES
| Code | Title |
|---|---|
| AHVC 111 | Late 19th-21st Century Art and Visual Culture |
| AHVC 214 | Decolonizing the Museum |
Note on transfer credit: no more than two courses taken at institutions other than Denison (including off-campus programs) can count toward the AHVC major or minor. We encourage students to take these courses from 2 of the areas listed above, or from others in consultation with your advisor.
We urge students to consult the ‘Criteria for Transfer Credit in AHVC’ sheet available in the AHVC office, and to work with their advisor and the current program chair before going off campus, to ensure the successful transfer of courses back to Denison for AHVC major credit. The current program chair must approve any transfer course for AHVC major credit before students go off-campus, or immediately after if needed because of changes in course of study or other factors.
Art History and Visual Culture Minor
A minimum of six courses in Art History and Visual Culture of the student's choice.
Additional Points of Interest
Students in Art History and Visual Culture learn writing skills that are integral to the discipline and the liberal arts. Working closely with faculty, students learn to translate visual observation and evaluation into written language; articulate questions for research; communicate the results of their research discoveries in writing; and develop an informed, critical, and independent written voice. Our courses emphasize the sequential, graduated development of writing skills. These culminate in our required senior thesis and symposium.
Art History and Visual Culture seniors also make a formal presentation of their research to an invited audience at the AHVC Junior-Senior Symposium. All juniors in Art History and Visual Culture also are required to make a formal presentation of current work or research. The presentation is made to the faculty and to the student's peers as part of the AHVC Symposium annually.
Denison University works to make study abroad possible for all students. In Art History and Visual Culture, we encourage students to study abroad during their junior year. Most students who major in Art History and Visual Culture and study off-campus transfer up to two classes for the major, satisfy GE requirements, and/or gain general credits towards graduation. Quite a few students also do independent research or internships as part of their study abroad experience. We encourage students to visit the Center for Global Programs/Off-Campus Study office to explore their options.
Courses
AHVC 095 - Junior Talk (0 Credit Hours)
Students pursuing an Art History and Visual Culture major must complete the 'Junior Talk' activity.
AHVC 101 - The Western World: Ancient to Baroque (4 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to selected themes, periods, and sites of visual production and built practice in Europe, the Mediterranean, and the New World. It focuses on a selected series of 'case studies' that integrate sites/monuments significant to the flow of Western art with period-specific and general critical issues. The relation of systems of visual and architectural representation to period-specific and current understandings of power, ritual, colonialism, transculturation, and the human body, as suggested through the disciplines of Art History and Visual Culture, will be key. Medieval and early modern developments will be emphasized.
AHVC 111 - Late 19th-21st Century Art and Visual Culture (4 Credit Hours)
How did the growing cities, train travel, and social processes associated with modernity shape the production of art? What were the boundaries between art and visual culture, and how did they shift throughout the modern and contemporary eras? If art history has a Eurocentric foundation, how does the discipline contend with today’s globalized and transnational networks of discourse and artistic production? This course introduces students to a global range of art histories from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. As undergraduate scholars, students will develop the skills to “read” works of art in a historically informed, conceptually rigorous, and reflexive manner. Class readings and preparatory assignments invite close engagement with art historical theories and debates through exhibitions, scholarly articles, and online archives. Lectures and class discussions will provide an overview of some of the most well-known movements and theoretical concepts related to these periods. Through an evolving series of weekly written assignments, students will develop their critical stance on art criticism, art historical scholarship, and public programming.
AHVC 131 - Asian Art and Visual Culture (4 Credit Hours)
An introduction to the art and visual culture of India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, focusing on historical, religious, and social issues and the function of both art and visual culture.
Crosslisting: EAST 131.
AHVC 201 - Classical Art and Architecture (4 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to the art and architecture of Greece and Rome. Visual and spatial practices of religion and politics will be examined, focusing on Classical Athens and on Rome during the Late Republic and Early Empire. Selected works of art and architecture, and specific urban and exurban sites will be considered. Issues surrounding 'classical' forms and their subsequent role in Western art and architecture will be investigated.
AHVC 203 - Early Renaissance Art and Architecture (4 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to the visual culture, architecture, and selected patterns of urban development in Italy during the Early Renaissance and the Quattrocento. Focus will be on developments in Siena, Rome, and especially Florence. Issues surrounding 'classicism' and the development of new representational systems, new scales and materials in sculpture, new spatial and structural forms in architecture, and new relations to urbanism and centers of power and global expansion will be explored. Of particular interest are dynamics of difference and identity such as political pressures after the Black Death, patriarchy in family and church, women's resistance, and European slavery before 1492.
AHVC 204 - High Renaissance, Baroque Art and Architecture (4 Credit Hours)
This course provides an introduction to the visual culture, architecture, and selected patterns of urban development in Rome during the High Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Baroque era through the papacy of Alexander VII (1655-67). Developments from ca. 1450 on in Rome leading to Julius II and the Roman High Renaissance will be a focus. Consideration of Mannerism, the Council of Trent, and early Baroque visual and architectural forms (later 16th century) will lead to a second focus on 17th-century visual and spatial practices in Counter-Reformation Rome. A third focus will be Iberian and Italian colonial practices, transculturation, and the hegemony of Counter-Reformation visual culture and urbanism under the Habsburgs and beyond.
Crosslisting: SES 204.
AHVC 214 - Decolonizing the Museum (4 Credit Hours)
This course critically analyzes the history of Western museums and their impacts on contemporary museum practices in the U.S. via a decolonial lens. Our goal is to examine the impact of the history and legacy of colonization on museums, so we can delink museum practices from Western hierarchies and systems of power. Throughout the course, students will interrogate the purpose of early versions of exhibition spaces, why museums were created, and how knowledge was produced. They will interpret museum architecture and how this may impact a museum’s identity and ideas of inclusivity and exclusivity. They will examine how objects were collected to be part of museums' collections, who was impacted by these practices, and how collection practices have evolved or come to terms with difficult histories. They will analyze the layout of different types of museums and learn how exhibitions are put together while analyzing issues of hierarchy, representation, and biases. We will especially examine collections and exhibitions that attempt to center underrepresented communities in the U.S., including black, indigenous, and people of color.
AHVC 231 - Art of Japan (4 Credit Hours)
An introduction to Japanese architecture, sculpture, painting and the decorative arts from prehistoric times to the 20th century, with an emphasis on the works in their cultural and religious context.
AHVC 232 - Art of China (4 Credit Hours)
This course is an introduction to Chinese visual culture from prehistoric times through the Mao era. Organized around a selection of key objects and images, this course explores a variety of art forms from China through diverse contexts such as ritual, gender, imperial patronage, literati ideals, and political icons.
Crosslisting: EAST 232.
AHVC 263 - World Views: Spatial Imagination in East Asia (4 Credit Hours)
This course engages the question: ‘How are images used to imagine our place in the world?’ Students are invited to study fascinating practices of spatial image-making in East Asia from the inside out, by exploring these world-views from the perspective of their makers. You will be asked to pay special attention to how social and economic power structures inflect these representations: to envision and decode spatial imagery as a site of imagination, control, and resistance. Artists and patrons in China, Japan, and Korea have for centuries produced elaborate maps and landscape imagery, photographs, and film to imagine the world in a variety of ways. This course invites you to approach modern and contemporary representations of space in East Asia both in theoretically and historically informed ways. In the first part of the course, students build a frame of reference for their analysis of post-war case studies, by reading core texts in spatial theory and exploring important visual representations of space from pre-modern East Asia. In the second part of the course, students apply these theoretical and historical approaches to select cases that exemplify more recent struggles over space and its imagination in East Asia.
AHVC 302 - Medieval Art and Architecture (4 Credit Hours)
This course is an advanced investigation of art and architectural developments in the Latin West during the medieval and early modern periods. Selective foci include western monastic art, building, and lay patronage in Spain, France, and Italy during the Romanesque through Gothic periods and beyond. The early urbanism of the communes of Italy is a focus, with their expansion of civil art and architecture through the fourteenth century, and the rise of new religious orders.
Crosslisting: SES 302.
AHVC 333 - Art and Revolution in 20th Century China (4 Credit Hours)
This course explores how art has engaged social transformation in China. You will be guided to take an inside look at how the notion of revolution stands front and center in art making during China’s long 20th century. We think deeply about two interrelated questions: how can art have social and critical agency, and how has it been related to social change in China? We approach these questions historically to become sensitive to the different contexts and experiences of the artists we study but also to how their struggles and creative interventions connect across time. In the process, you will build a framework of reference for understanding social and creative life in 20th century China, and its enduring connections to the global world.
Crosslisting: EAST 333.
AHVC 361 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum such as design, drawing, graphics, ceramics or history and criticism. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
AHVC 362 - Directed Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
A student in good standing may work intensively in areas of special interest under the Directed Study plan. A Directed Study is appropriate when, under the guidance of a faculty member, a student wants to explore a subject more fully than is possible in a regular course or to study a subject not covered in the regular curriculum such as design, drawing, graphics, ceramics or history and criticism. A Directed Study should not normally duplicate a course that is regularly offered. Directed Studies are normally taken for 3 or 4 credits. A one-semester Directed Study is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Directed Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
AHVC 363 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
AHVC 364 - Independent Study (1-4 Credit Hours)
Independent Study engages a student in the pursuit of clearly defined goals. In this effort a student may employ skills and information developed in previous course experiences or may develop some mastery of new knowledge or skills. A proposal for an Independent Study project must be approved in advance by the faculty member who agrees to serve as the project advisor. Note: Independent Studies may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
AHVC 380 - Methods of Art History and Visual Culture (4 Credit Hours)
This class is required for Art History and Visual Culture majors. This class is the first of the three-part capstone experience for the Art History and Visual Culture major. It introduces students to the theoretical and methodological platforms of Art History and Visual Culture and examines the historical development of the fields of both Art History and Visual Culture. It introduces students to the methods and theoretical approaches of practicing scholars in the field and asks students to formulate their own platforms, which they will translate into active research in the second and third capstone courses (AHVC 408 and AHVC 409).
AHVC 408 - Art History and Visual Culture Senior Seminar: Research (4 Credit Hours)
In this required course, senior majors will research and prepare the senior thesis.
AHVC 409 - Art History and Visual Culture Senior Seminar: Writing (1 Credit Hour)
In this required course, senior majors will present their senior thesis during our annual senior symposium.
AHVC 451 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.
AHVC 452 - Senior Research (4 Credit Hours)
Students may enroll in Senior Research in their final year at Denison. Normally, Senior Research requires a major thesis, report, or project in the student's field of concentration and carries eight semester-hours of credit for the year. Typically, a final grade for a year-long Senior Research will not be assigned until the completion of the year-long Senior Research at the end of the second semester. In which case, the first semester Senior Research grade will remain "in progress" (PR) until the completion of the second semester Senior Research. Each semester of Senior Research is limited to a maximum of 4 credit hours. Note: Senior Research may not be used to fulfill General Education requirements.