Art Historical Methods

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course will survey the methodologies that have shaped the field of art history both historically and more recently. We will cover iconography and iconology, Marxist theory and social art histories, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial theory, among other foundational approaches. We will also explore emergent methods that draw on these models, such as ecocritical art histories and theories of extraction, questions of “repair” and critique in the world of the visual, and art’s role in shaping and contesting newer forms of imperialism and globalization. Many of these themes and methods overlap, and students will be encouraged to make connections between methodologies in order to formulate their own approaches to the study of art history.