REGULARLY OFFERED COURSES
 
500 Series:
 
501 Museum Methods. Staff
Topic varies. Usually devoted to exhibition planning, organized in cooperation with local museums and collections.
 
502 American Museums: History and Debate. Lindsay
This seminar explores a major cultural force upon American art and life since the nineteenth century and the burgeoning literature on museums and culture under postmodernism. It has two primary aims: to probe the subject as an established art historical topic and to provide both an intellectual bedrock and a working global perspective for museum work as well. It will consider the history of the institution and scholarly work on the topic, then review selected critical readings on current issues. Subsequently, workshop discussions will analyze specific regional museums with significantly different histories sand purposes.

503 Origins of Graphic Art. Silver
Early history of prints from the fifteenth century and Durer to the seventeenth century and Rembrandt.
 
504 Structural Archaeology. Haselberger
A pro-seminar designed to acquaint the participants with the physical evidence of buildings. It treats the properties of pre-modern building materials, their static and dynamic behavior, their contexts and reasons for their use, and the means for their procurement and working. It considers the methodologies for the historical interpretation of physical evidence, including the recording, analysis, and presentation of evidence, determining the date and original form of buildings, their sequence of construction, and their subsequent modifications. Each participant carries out a small-scale field exercise. No prerequisites.
 
511 Ukiyo-e: Japanese Prints and Paintings of the "Floating World." Davis
In this course we will study Japanese woodblock prints from the seventeenth through the twentieth century.  For most of the course, we will be concerned with prints from the Edo, or Tokugawa, period (1615-1868) in the style known as "ukiyo-e" ("images of the floating world") and the culture that produced them, but in the final weeks we will also consider the continuation and adaptation of woodblock printing in modern print movements.  Study of prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and other local collections.

513 Pro-Seminar in East Asian Art. Davis
Topic varies. Previous topics include: Gender Issues and Japanese Art (Aut. 2004). Proposed topic for Autumn 2005: Modern Japanese Arts and the City of Tokyo.
 
514 Aspects of Indian Art. Meister
Aspects of sculpture, painting, iconography, or architecture in the Indian subcontinent. Topic varies.
 
515 Aspects of Indian Architecture. Meister.
Indian temples explored in terms of morphology and meaning. Topic may vary.
 
517 From Region to Neighborhood: Reading the City in the Islamic World. Holod
Two aims of course:  To understand the internal (historically and culturally developed) ideas and realizations of the city, and to analyze it with contemporary, externally generated methodologies: 
A. Internal  (How is city imaged and imagined):
1.  early Islamic concepts, a reconstruction
2.  Baghdad, a model or unicum, and a failure and myth
3.  the embrace of law and urban order
4.  large scale urban complexes and their impact of the fabric of the city
5.  conception of space (city, suburb, countryside, region)
        a/ in literature
        b/in cartography
        c/in geographic manuals
        d/in its location in the world order and cosmography
        e/in local histories
        f/in nomenclature
        h/mapping-the visible and invisible worlds
B.  External:  (How we can approach the study of urban fabric)
1.  culture geography and typology
2.  locational analysis
3.  water resources
4.  routes ( region - city connections)
5.  micro-climate and micro-geography
6.  thoroughfare and access
7.  physical stratigraphy
8.  social stratigraphy
 
518 Art of Iran. Holod
Iranian art and architecture of the Parthian, Sassanian and Islamic periods, with particular emphasis on regional characteristics in the period. Different themes are explored each time the course is offered. In the past, these have been Ilkhanid and Timurid painting, Architecture and Geometry, and, most recently, a Nizami manuscript owned by the UPenn Museum. 
 
519 Islamic Art in the West. Holod
A discussion of the arts of the Islamic period in the countries of the western Mediterranean. The particular focus is the art of Muslim Spain (Andalusia), dealing with the importance of its architectural or artistic achievements for the art of the western Mediterranean.
 
521 Pro-seminar in Classical Art. Kuttner
The courses taught under the "umbrella" headings 521 and 729 regularly discuss a range of topics, including private and public art in Rome and in the provinces; sculpture, painting, coinage, minor arts and other image media; patronage and display; architectural planning and patronage; landscape architecture; the Hellenistic Mediterranean; the Roman Republic, empire and Late Antiquity; and ancient texts about the arts. For specific topics, see the Art History course archives.
 
522 Art of the Ancient Near East: Mesopotamia. Pittman
Survey of the major monuments of ancient Mesopotamia: from the Uruk period (ca. 3500 B.C.) through the Neo-Assyrian period (ca. 610 B.C.). Emphasis on cultural context and interconnections with surrounding cultures of the ancient Near East.
 
523 Interconnections: Egypt, Near East, and Greece. Pittman
Emphasis on questions of "style" and "regionality" in the analysis of artworks serving as evidence for interaction in the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. Particular attention paid to trade and political relations as mechanisms of distribution.
 
524 Pro-seminar in Ancient Iranian Art. Pittman
Topic varies.
 
527 Pro-seminar in Greek Architecture. Haselberger
Topic varies.
 
528 Pro-seminar in Roman Architecture. Haselberger
Topic varies.
 
529 Vitruvian Studies. Haselberger
Research on Vitruvius' Ten Books on Architecture, Art, and Construction: structure, sources, intended readers; analysis of theories and their relation to practice; formation of art theory; statics and esthetics; discrepancy with the ideals of the "Augustan Revolution." Working knowledge of Latin recommended.
 
541 Seminar in Medieval Art. Maxwell
Topic varies, e.g., Narrative and Medieval Art (2005)
 
542 Early Medieval Architecture. Maxwell
Colloquium on selected problems in the history of Western European architecture from the 7th century to the dawn of the Romanesque.
 
552 Proseminar in Renaissance/Baroque Art. Cole
Topic varies. Most recent topic: ìThe Early Modern Painter-Etcherî (2005).
 
561 Pro-seminar in Netherlandish Art. Silver
Topic varies.
 
562 Northern Renaissance Art. Silver
Topic varies.
 
573 Major Issues in Baroque Art. Silver
Topic varies.
 
581 Modern Architectural Theory. Brownlee
A survey of architectural theory from the mid-eighteenth century to the present. The discussion of original writings will be emphasized.
 
582 Pro-seminar in Modern Architecture. Brownlee
Topic varies.
 
585 Pro-seminar in Nineteenth-Century Art. Staff
Topic varies.
 
586 Pro-seminar in Twentieth-Century Art. Poggi
Topic varies.
 
588 Pro-seminar in American Art. Staff
Topic varies.
 
593 Film Theory. Beckman.