Department website: http://krieger.jhu.edu/visualarts/
The Center for Visual Arts engages and challenges students in the study and practice of the visual arts to encourage innovative making and thinking, risk taking and creative problem solving that is applicable to research across disciplines.
Visual arts courses examine contemporary and historical perspectives in art while providing an inclusive environment where ideas are shared and acted upon.
Central to this mission of challenging students and advancing their knowledge and skills in the arts are classes that offer faculty led cross-disciplinary collaboration within diverse academic programs at JHU and the greater Baltimore community. CVA faculty are accomplished artists, photographers, designers, and illustrators.
Students can minor in art or take general elective classes from a diverse curriculum that includes drawing, painting, cartooning, sculpture, printmaking, digital photography, fiber art and a range of special topics courses. Through Hopkins’ cooperative programs with MICA and other colleges in the Baltimore area, students can take courses not offered at the Center for Visual Arts.
Each spring, the Hopkins community is invited to attend an exhibition of the year’s best work by CVA students. Additionally, a variety of temporary exhibits are hosted in the department throughout the year.
The CVA invites award winning artists to campus every semester to work with students and give a public presentation about their art practice. News and events can be found on our social media pages:
https://www.facebook.com/jhuvisualarts/
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/jhuvisualarts/
The photography, painting and drawing departments offer a summer study abroad program at Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland. More information can be found on the Study Abroad website.
For current course information and registration go to https://sis.jhu.edu/classes/
Courses
This course presents students with technical, historical and cultural understanding of the fiber medium. Students learn the basics of textile processes, including dyeing, felting, knitting, weaving, sewing, and lacemaking. Technical demonstrations and samples will be covered in class while students are encouraged to expand upon covered material through long-term personal projects. Technical demonstrations will be supported with slide lectures demonstrating the historical context of fiber processes and their contemporary applications. Attendance in 1st class is mandatory.
Area: Humanities
This course is designed as an introduction to the tools, techniques and concepts of basic drawing for students with little or no previous experience. Studio assignments focus on developing strong observation and rendering skills while experimenting with traditional and contemporary practices in drawing. Wet and dry media will be used. Attendance at 1st class is mandatory.
This course is designed as an introduction to the tools, techniques and concepts of basic painting for the serious student with little or no previous experience. Studio assignments focus on developing strong observation and rendering skills focusing on issues of light, color and composition while experimenting with traditional and contemporary practices in painting. Lectures and a museum trip give students an art historical context in which to place their own discoveries as beginning painters. Oil paint will be used. Attendance at 1st class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.
Students who have mastered basic painting skills undertake sustained projects, including portrait and plein air landscape work. Slide lectures and handouts deepen students' appreciation of representational traditions. Advanced techniques, materials, and compositional issues are also investigated. Recommended Course Background: AS.371.133 or equivalent. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS; no need to email.
Prerequisite(s): AS.371.133 or instructor's permission.
An intensive look at the traditions and techniques of portrait drawing. Students work from live models in a variety of media and study master portraits by Holbein, Rembrandt, Ingres, Degas, etc. Trips to the Baltimore Museum of Art Print & Drawing Room and JHU Archaeological Museum will enhance knowledge and appreciation of the history and traditions of portraiture. Recommended Course Background: AS.371.131 or permission required.
This intermediate drawing class will examine three grand traditions in representational art. We will explore problems in still life that have occupied artists from Chardin to Morandi; in interiors from Vermeer to Giacometti; in landscape from Corot to Diebenkorn. We will also look at where the boundaries between these genres blur and how they overlap.
Not open to Freshmen. A history-and-practice overview for students of the liberal arts. The conceptual basis and historical development of cartooning is examined in both artistic and social contexts. Class sessions consist of lecture (slides/handouts), exercises, and ongoing assignments. Topics include visual/narrative analysis, symbol & satire, editorial/political cartoons, character development, animation. Basic drawing skills are preferred but not required.
Area: Humanities
In this course, students will learn to design, draw, and see like an architect. A series of progressive design exercises will teach the practical capacities and habits of mind that lead not merely to competence but success and advancement in the field. We will look at what architecture has been, discuss what it is becoming, and explore both formal and narrative methodologies for design. The class will use the built environment of the city - and the Homewood campus - as a classroom and a site for interpretive drawing and creative design work. Essential in the architect's education is the sketchbook, which functions not merely as a place to 'store' what has been witnessed, but a place to interpret and explore implications of design in the world, whether close to home or traveling in exotic locales.
Area: Humanities
Photoshop is not only the digital darkroom for processing images created with digital cameras;it is also a creative application for making original artwork. In this course, students use Photoshop software as a tool to produce images from a fine art perspective, working on projectsthat demand creative thinking while gaining technical expertise. Students will make archivalprints, have regular critiques, and attend lectures on the history of the manipulated imageand its place in culture. We will look at art movements which inspire digital artists,including 19th-century collage, dada, surrealism, and the zeitgeist of Hollywood films. Studentsmust have a digital SLR camera. Prior knowledge of Photoshop is not required.Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered afterenrollment on SIS; no need to email.
Area: Humanities
Students learn to use their digital cameras through a variety of documentary, landscape and portrait projects, which will help them develop technical and creative skills. Critiques and slide lectures of historic photographs, which range from postmortem daguerreotypes to postmodern digital imagery, help students develop a personal vision. Students are provided digital SLR cameras and gain proficiency with one-on-one instruction in the field. Basics for print adjustment and output will be covered. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS.
Area: Humanities
Watercolor is simultaneously the most accessible of all painting media and the most misunderstood. This course provides experience and instruction in observational and expressive watercolor techniques, materials, concepts, and vocabulary. Topics to be reviewed include line, perspective, value, texture, composition, color, and pictorial space. There will be an introduction to contemporary practices in watercolor, as well as experimental and abstract exercises, collage, and conceptual work.
A studio course introducing students to sculptural concepts and methods. Emphasis is on the process of creating. Even the simplest materials can effectively activate space, convey meaning, and elicit emotion when used thoughtfully and imaginatively. Students will learn different methods including additive and reductive techniques, construction, modeling, and mold-making. No prerequisites except a willingness to experiment, make mistakes... and clean up when you are done. Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS. Attendance in 1st class is mandatory.
In this digital course, students explore the black-and-white aesthetic. They develop camera skills on numerous field trips and local walks.Students meet frequently for critiques and discussions based on historic and contemporary imagery. Techniques such as high dynamic range, and infrared are covered. Emphasis is on composition and developing a photographic style with shooting and post processing. Students are encouraged to make work that is meaningful to them and which communicates its intent to their audience. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Digital SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance in first class is mandatory. Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.
Area: Humanities
Working with non-toxic/water based inks and both an engraving press and hand tools, students will explore several types of printmaking. Methods will include intaglio, collograph and both simple and multi-plate relief. As they develop their prints, students can then observe and exploit the strengths that each method has to offer. Drawing and Photoshop skills are helpful but not required.
Working in the studio and in various locations, students will learn the fundamentals of lighting interiors and strategies for working in almost any environment. Field trips will include the National Aquarium, Evergreen Museum & Library, a Howard County horse farm, a Tiffany-designed church and a photo studio. Students will also concentrate on the fine art of printing in our digital lab. They will develop a final portfolio of 10 photographs which express a personal vision about a location of their choice. A basic knowledge of digital photography is helpful, but not required. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS. First class is mandatory
Area: Humanities
Class begins: Wednesday, July 6th. In this course students will experience the drama and beauty of the urban and rural landscape. On numerous field trips they will hone their camera technique as well as learn elements of composition and develop a personal style. Students will learn the fundamentals of Photoshop and they will also be introduced to the beauty of black and white in Silver Efex software. Digital SLR cameras will be provided.
Area: Humanities
When we undertake the design of an artifact—something material, perhaps interactive—we do more than create a pretty little sculpture, or simply enclose the inner workings of a product. We think about aesthetics; about ergonomics; about material heft and surface texture. In a successful product, toy, or building detail it is often something ineffable—the way the object interfaces with the human hand, or the way it takes on a personality in the mind—that results in its success as an object of design. The course is structured as a series of design exercises, each intended to develop the graphical and manual skill-set of the designer. Our subject, broadly speaking, is the design of small things: from building details to useful products and tools, the act of drawing iterative design sketches, and creating prototypes, will guide us in the development of practical design intelligence.
Area: Humanities
Since before written history, humankind has conceived masks for a range of purposes using forms and materials to help develop, protect and preserve physical and spiritual existence. Great care and specificity went into these visages to obtain these various goals. These historical cultural roots will be examined, honored and transformed as students consider these elements and create their own versions of masks to produce these goals in a personal way. This investigation will provide the historical examples of masks from Native Americans to PTSD American soldiers, from Africa to Anime, Kabuki to Carnivale. Materials and sculptural methods used will arise from the needs of the artist. Such methods will likely include, paper mache, collage, wood construction and various painting and surface techniques. No pre-reqs.Attendance in first class is mandatory.
This challenging yet creatively playful course presents abstract, perceptual and conceptual concepts in art to understand line, one of the elements of art, from multiple perspectives, materials and practices. Be prepared to collaborate and experiment! Through an intense exploration of line, students will create artworks exploring line as marks on a flat surface (drawing), lines that communicate data (design), lines that build form (sculpture) and lines that embody movement (performance and video). Possible assignments will include projects with drawing, printmaking, fiber, cell phone video, installation, unconventional or recycled materials and collaboration. • This is not a drawing class but a multimedia course on one of the elements of art.Instructor approval and attendance at first class is mandatory.
Area: Humanities
In this course students learn to create marks, textures and imagery using a variety of printmaking techniques. Students create relief and intaglio printing matrices and practice printing by hand and with a press to reproduce their images. The class culminates with explorations of layered printing, monoprinting, and mixed media approaches to create unique 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional works. Attendance in first class is mandatory. No prior experience is needed.
Area: Humanities
This is an intermediate drawing class that builds on the concepts and skills in Studio Drawing 1. Students will explore contemporary and conceptual approaches to drawing while further developing their skills in various graphic mediums. Risk taking and experimentation will be encouraged while learning about comtemporary practices in the medium. The course will conclude with students creating an individual series of drawings of their choice.
Prerequisite(s): AS.371.131 OR AS.371.250
Area: Humanities
An intermediate drawing course focusing on all aspects of the human form.Beginning with infrastructure (skeletal and muscular systems), we will work directly from the model using a variety of wet and dry media to address problems in figurative art from Renaissance to the present.Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS. No need to email.Attendance in first class is mandatory.
Prerequisite(s): AS.371.131 or permission of Instructor.
In this upper level course, students will work on a semester-long project. They will develop their ideas within a seminar style format that allows for conversation and debate and provides a forum for the evolution their work. Students will learn advanced techniques in Photoshop, Nik software and Lightroom to enhance content and develop a personal style. Through a combination of critique, lecture, and lab, students will complete a portfolio of ten printed images that work together in a series. Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment on SIS. Attendance in 1st class is mandatory.
Area: Humanities
In this course, we will explore different genres of documentary photography including: the fine art document, photojournalism, social documentary photography, the photo essay and photography of propaganda. Field trips offer opportunities to explore Baltimore neighborhoods such as Waverly, Greenmount Avenue, and Baltimore’s old Chinatown. Students will work on a semester-long photo-documentary project on a subject of their choice. Camera experience is a plus, but not a prerequisite. Digital SLRs are available on loan for the semester. Attendance at first class is mandatory. Approval in this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.
Area: Humanities
Students create a handmade book of photographs that illustrate a favorite piece of text. They may work with poetry, song lyrics, a play, a narrative, a blog, a diary, any writing (including their own). Students may look at historical texts such as medieval manuscripts or even scientific treatises. The possibilities are endless. We will take fieldtrips to book collections at the George Peabody Library, Evergreen Museum and Library and the Betty and Edgar Sweren Collection.This course will be taught by a photographer and an artist book designer. A previous photography class is a plus, but not a requirement. Students who would like to combine their painting and drawing skills with their photographs are welcome to do so. Attendance in first class is mandatory. Students will have an exhibition of their artist books in the Special Collections Rare Books room of the MSE library.Approval for this course will be considered after enrollment in SIS.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Prerequisite(s): You must request Independent Academic Work using the Independent Academic Work form found in Student Self-Service: Registration > Online Forms.
Cross Listed Courses
Anthropology
This course is about art practice in a postcolonial context, where the techniques and pictorial concepts formed by a European history of art are confronted by other traditions of representation, beset by different kinds of political struggles, and posed against the background of religious traditions other than that of Christianity. What problems of history, difference and the self arise in this context, and what forms of art practice emerge to address these problems? In what ways do these forms of art practice draw upon religious traditions, and how do we think about the displacement of religious traditions in modern art? In this course, we will explore these questions by examining the modern art of the Middle East, South Asia, and China, in conjunction with readings from anthropology, art history, comparative literature, philosophy and religious studies.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
This course reflects on what it is to see, by examining how different religious traditions have conceived of seeing, and then considering how seeing is organized by modern forms of art practice. Our inquiry will range across a variety of cases—from devotional practices in Christianity and Hinduism; to concepts of vision in the Islamic tradition; to the critique of images during the Protestant Reformation and the legacy of that critique in modernism; and to the development of new technologies like photography and film—and it will draw on readings from anthropology, art history, critical theory and religious studies.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This course will grapple with the social and cultural dimensions of contemporary ecological problems through a local, project-based approach. Coursework will be organized on a studio basis in partnership with a local environmental organization, Friends of Stony Run. Continuing a collaborative project initiated in the fall of 2019, we will work together to develop interpretive materials for the Stony Run stream and urban watershed adjoining our campus.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Classics
This seminar investigates the Eastern Mediterranean as a space of intense cultural interaction in the Late Bronze Age, exploring how people, ideas, and things not only came into contact but deeply influenced one another through maritime trade, art, politics, etc. In addition to class discussion, we will work hands-on with artifacts from the JHU Archaeological Museum, focusing on material from Cyprus.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Surviving imagery suggests that persons in Minoan and Mycenaean societies engaged in various celebratory performances, including processions, feasts, and ecstatic dance. This course explores archaeological evidence of such celebrations, focusing on sociocultural roles, bodily experience, and interpretive challenges.
Area: Humanities
This course explores the visual and material worlds of ancient Cyprus from the earliest human evidence through the Iron Age. Course topics will include the island's unique position between the Aegean and Near East and how this has impacted both Cyprus' ancient past and the way in which it has been conceived in the modern world. Class involves regular analysis of artifacts based in the Archaeological Museum.
Area: Humanities
We will examine visual expressions of propaganda in the city of Rome, considering how emperors used public art to promote their political agendas and their ideological vision of power.Dean's Teaching Fellowship course
Area: Humanities
This course gives participants a unique opportunity to engage directly in empirical research and its interpretation and dissemination. Topics vary. This semester’s offering is organized around a project to reconstruct digitally the library of the nineteenth-century writer John Addington Symonds, author of one of the first studies of ancient sexuality. No prerequisites, but potential students should contact instructor for permission to enroll.
Area: Humanities
The Peabody Cast Collection (PCC) Classics Research Lab project will revolve around a remarkable collection of plaster casts of classical Greek and Roman sculptures, created ca. 1879 for the Peabody Institute (now part of JHU). Such cast collections were a highly valued cultural resource in Europe and North America during the later 17th to early 20th centuries, produced for major museums, academic institutions and wealthy individuals. Because of the technical process of the cast formation, which is based directly upon the ancient sculptural surface, these collections brought contact with the actual classical artifacts into temporally and spatially distant contexts—including the burgeoning urban center of 19th century Baltimore. The PCC Lab’s initial objective is archival and field research of the cast collection—its content, formation, access and usage by the people of Baltimore and its eventual disbanding and distribution. From this, we will aim to virtually reassemble its member objects, charting their biographies and, when extant, their current locations. This in part will be accomplished digitally, in a virtual reconstruction of the original display contexts of the casts within the Peabody Institute based on early hand-written ledgers, logs, and photographs. With this we will contribute a new open-access chapter to the collection’s biography.
Area: Humanities
Comparative Thought and Literature
A comparative survey of presentational comedies from Aristophanes to Beckett on stage and screen, with some attention to to to the vexed question of theories of comedy [no laughing matter].
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Energy, Resources Environment
This class is geared to provide a good energy background to students who have previously not had much exposure to the wide array of issues that encompass the energy policy arena. Topics covered include: oil; gas; electricity (including traditional and new generation resources); alternative transportation fuels; energy efficiency options across the transportation, industrial, and buildings economic sectors; climate change, and energy in developing countries. . Students learn how to make “back-of-the-envelope” calculations regarding the scope of a given problem or a proposed solution. They also learn how to evaluate problems and suggest solutions within a two-page policy format that is used widely both in the public and private sectors. The class will be taught in an innovative format called the flipped class where students will be asked to view the online lectures outside the class. Class time will be devoted to more interactive group activities as well as professor-student interaction providing students a higher critical understanding of policy issues related to energy. First and second year ERE primary concentrators will have seating priority.<a href="http://bit.ly/2usTNAI" target="_blank">Click here to see a video introduction for the course.</a><a href="https://jh.app.box.com/EREQuiz" target="_blank">Click here for the self-diagnosis quiz</a> - developed to assist students in diagnosing whether they already have the level of knowledge taught in this class.<a href="http://bit.ly/1bebp5s" target="_blank">Click here to see evaluations, syllabi, and faculty bios</a>
Prerequisite(s): SA.680.600[C] <a href="http://www.sais-jhu.edu/sites/default/files/SelfEnroll%20ERE%20OBE%2007172018.pdf" target="_blank">Click here for 680.600 self-enroll instructions.</a>
German Romance Languages Literatures
Over the past decade, growing numbers of filmmakers in Italy have addressed ecological crises in their work. This class takes an eco-critical approach to contemporary Italian cinema, examining a body of compelling place-centered stories that deal with local and global issues. Defining the scope of eco-cinema and the ways we can interrogate films as ecological texts, we shall screen earth-centered films that raise consciousness about the consequences of human manipulation of the natural world; the complicity of industry, government, and organized crime in creating environmental crises; and the effects of economic and social malaise. Screenings include iconic films such as Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert (1963), more recent, critically acclaimed films such as Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah (2008), Alice Rohrwacher’s Happy as Lazzaro (2018), and many others.
Area: Humanities
When, in 1985, Jürgen Habermas published his lectures on The Aesthetic Discourse of Modernity, he pursued a double aim. He offered a critique of French Theory while at the same time providing a foundation for a normative category of modernity in the tradition of Hegel. Curiously there is one subject he does not touch on, though it seems necessary for a sufficient understanding of modernity: the realm of art and literature. This course will develop a critique of Habermas’ normative notion of modernity through re-readings of texts by Nietzsche, Benjamin, Horkheimer/Adorno, Derrida, Bataille and Foucault to elaborate an alternative category of aesthetic modernity. Taught in English. Reading knowledge of German and French is not required, but recommended.
Area: Humanities
The course explores 21st-century German theater in its diverse aesthetic and textual forms. Due to comparatively generous funding, German non-commercial theater has over the last decades been able to develop, adapt, and maintain a great variety of at one point “experimental” artistic styles, including frequently stark depiction of gender and violence. We will focus on the ways in which the productions take up, amplify, displace, disrupt, and/or reinforce cultural codes and images of gender and violence both in their symbolic and physical dimension. Topics include the “directors’ theater,” political theater, “pop-theater,” “discourse-theater,” “new documentary theater,” “post-migratory theater,” postcolonial theater and live art. The readings may include Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek, Dea Loher, René Pollesch, Milo Rau, Falk Richter, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and various works of shared authorship such as She She Pop, Rimini Protokoll, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, and Yael Ronen. The Tuesday sessions will be used for the joint viewing of production recordings. Taught in English. Course material in German. No sessions after March 27th.
Area: Humanities
History
This course introduces the history of late imperial China from the perspective of medicine, technology, and the arts.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
Interdepartmental
This multidisciplinary course explores the origins of life, planet formation, Earth's evolution, extrasolar planets, habitable zones, life in extreme environments, the search for life in the Universe, space missions, and planetary protection. Recommended Course Background: Three upper level (300+) courses in sciences (Biophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, Math, or Computer Science)
Prerequisite(s): Students may not register for this class if they have already received credit for AS.020.334 OR AS.020.616 OR AS.171.333 OR AS.171.699 OR AS 270.335 OR AS.360.671
Area: Natural Sciences
This multidisciplinary course explores the origins of life, planet formation, Earth's evolution, extrasolar planets, habitable zones, life in extreme environments, the search for life in the Universe, space missions, and planetary protection. Recommended Course Background: Three upper level courses in sciences and buy textbooks
Prerequisite(s): Students may not register for this class if they have already received credit for AS.020.616 OR AS.020.334 OR AS.171.333 OR AS.171.699 OR AS.270.335 OR AS.360.339.
Area: Natural Sciences
Near Eastern Studies
Ancient Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, Syria, and Iran, is the “cradle of civilization.” It witnessed new inventions previously unknown to the ancient world: urban cities, writing systems, kingship, and empires. This course examines the close relationship between war and peace and art in ancient Mesopotamia (ancient Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria) from 3500 to 539 BCE. During the semester students will be introduced to the art, architecture, and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia. This course is aimed at students without a previous background in art historical or archaeological approaches to Mesopotamia, but more advanced students are welcome.
Area: Humanities
Geoarchaeology is a multidisciplinary subfield that applies the tools and techniques of earth science to understand ancient humans and their interactions with environments. This course examines basic topics and concepts, including archaeological site formation, paleo-environmental reconstruction, raw materials and resources, soil science, deposition and erosion of wind and water-borne sediments in different environments such as along rivers, lakes and coastlines, radiocarbon and other chronometric dating methods, and ground-based remote sensing, including ground penetrating radar.
Area: Natural Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This writing intensive seminar examines the relationship between religion and science in ancient Mesopotamia and the rest of the Near East from the 4th millennium to the Hellenistic period. Using a variety of case studies, and through engagement with scholarly literature pertaining to the topic of the course, students will develop skills in specific research skills such as critical reading, analysis, and interpretation.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Geoarchaeology is a multidisciplinary subfield that applies the tools and techniques of earth science to understand ancient humans and their interactions with environments. This course examines basic topics and concepts, including archaeological site formation, paleo-environmental reconstruction, raw materials and resources, soil science, deposition and erosion of wind and water-borne sediments in different environments such as along rivers, lakes and coastlines, radiocarbon and other chronometric dating methods, and ground-based remote sensing, including ground penetrating radar.
Area: Natural Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Program in Museums and Society
This course surveys museums, from their origins to their most contemporary forms, in the context of broader historical, intellectual, and cultural trends including the social movements of the 20th century. Anthropology, art, history, and science museums are considered. Crosslisted with Archaeology, History, History of Art, International Studies and Medicine, Science & Humanities.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We examine the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum collection to learn the materials and techniques utilized in the ancient world to produce objects in ceramics, stone, metal, glass, faience, bone and ivory.
Area: Humanities
The course introduces and applies new concepts about materials, and materiality to museum objects. It treats the museum as a site for investigating the relationship between people and things.
What role did the colorful surfaces of sculptures, vessels and textiles play in the ancient world? We examine historical texts and recent scholarly and scientific publications on the technologies and meanings of color in antiquity, and use imaging and analytical techniques to study polychromed objects from the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Course will examine the collecting behavior of Americans. Students will explore how collectors have defined the holdings of the nation’s museums, galleries, and libraries and used objects to shape taste and status in the U.S.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The course examines recent controversies in the conservation of major global art works and sites, raising questions concerning the basic theoretical assumptions, practical methods and ethical implications of art conservation. Cross-Listed with History of Art and Anthropology
Area: Humanities
Explore the material culture of "wonder" from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment in literature, science, and art, with Hopkins’ rare book collections and the Walters Art Museum. M&S practicum course. Cross-listed with GRLL, History, and History of Art.
Area: Humanities
What does it mean to be a collector? Students will visit private collections of contemporary art in Baltimore, learning from collectors and their objects. This course alternates seminar meetings, focused on theories and practices of collecting, with field trips. Cross-listed with History of Art.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
Students investigate the Baltimore Museum of Art’s American art collection and its presentation to the public alongside current scholarship on American art to develop strategies for a new permanent collection display that aligns with the museum’s commitment to artistic excellence and social equity. M&S Practicum. Co-taught with BMA curator Virginia Anderson.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Students are invited to examine critically the history of Black artists exhibiting within American museums. With the help of BMA staff, class will develop interpretation for an installation to accompany a major retrospective of artist Jack Whitten that considers the “canon” of art history as a site of ongoing negotiation between taste-makers, artists, dealers, and critics, as well as art institutions that include the market and the museum. Students will take advantage of archives at the BMA, the Library of Congress and Howard University. Students will help select the artworks and themes for the show; research individual participants in the social networks that facilitated the success of some artists over others; and research the biographies of individual artworks - some that have entered the canon and some that should. M&S Practicum. CBL Course. Cross-listed with Africana Studies.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Using the Baltimore Museum of Art as a laboratory, students examine canonical narratives in art museums and iterate new approaches to objects in museums that build equity, interrogate privilege, decolonise, revisualise and offer alternative stories. Class meets at the museum every other week.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
What narratives about Islam and Islamic art does the visitor encounter at the museum? Recent re-installations of Islamic art will be studied in the context of current issues, including Islamophobia, attacks on cultural heritage, and hesitation in addressing matters of faith in public institutions. Cross-listed with History of Art and Islamic Studies.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In collaboration with a local museum, conceptualize and develop an exhibition, potentially including but not limited to: checklists, exhibition texts, interpretive strategies, and programming. Exhibition theme varies year to year. Concepts, ethics and practicalities of curation are key concerns. Research visits to regional museums and private collections as relevant.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Writing Intensive
This seminar explores the complicated, often explosive concept of cultural property, including questions surrounding the ownership, preservation, and interpretation of artifacts, monuments, heritage sites, and living traditions. Cross-listed with Anthropology and History of Art.
Area: Humanities, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Study of Women, Gender, Sexuality
Prize Teaching Fellowship seminar. Triangulating feminist psychoanalysis and theories of embodiment and subjectivity with art criticism and case studies of artistic practice (primarily painting), this course comparatively investigates the routes modernism takes after the Second World War and decolonization (1945/1947). We will be interested in specific postcolonial and postwar contexts where modernism in the domain of the visual arts was mounted as a feminist project. Each week will pair readings that establish conceptual frameworks with close analyses of works by specific artists, including those represented by the Library's Special Collections and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Texts include Freud, Spivak, Butler, Irigaray, Kristeva, and Mahmood.
Area: Humanities
Writing Intensive
Voice
This class brings together singers and instrumentalists to explore the vast chamber music literature that includes voice, from the Baroque to the 21st century. Ensembles can include all orchestral instruments, organ, harpsichord, piano, guitar, and percussion. This course is offered as an elective. Permission of the instructor is required.
This class will bring together singers an instrumentalists to explore the vast chamber musicliterature that includes voice, from the Baroque to the 21st century. Offered in alternateyears, 2017-2018.
Writing Seminars
A collaboration of The Writing Seminars and The Center for Visual ArtsStudents will study JHU’s Homewood House, residence of the Carroll family, choosing a room as the site of a story or a series of prose poems. To illustrate their work and produce an artist book, students will learn camera handling and Photoshop.
Area: Humanities