ARTHIST 143A: American Architecture (AMSTUD 143A, ARTHIST 343A)
A historically based understanding of what defines American architecture. What makes American architecture American, beginning with indigenous structures of pre-Columbian America. Materials, structure, and form in the changing American context. How these ideas are being transformed in today's globalized world.
Last offered: Autumn 2023
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 146: American Dream, American Nightmare: A History of the United States in Art and Literature
Studying the American past, a person could despair or dream or both. In this course, we will move chronologically from the Revolutionary War to the present to consider artists and writers--some famous, some obscure--who've portrayed hope, who've portrayed anger and grief, who've taken it upon themselves to make contact with life as they've experienced and imagined it. Throughout, we will treat art and literature not as an illustration of facts, and not as a solution to social problems, but as a touchstone to who Americans have been and who they might become.
Last offered: Summer 2021
| Units: 4
ARTHIST 147: Modernism and Modernity (ARTHIST 347)
This course focuses on European and American art and visual culture between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. We will begin and end in Paris, exploring visual expressions of modernism as they were shaped by industrialization and urban renewal, the fantasies and realities of Orientalism and colonial exploitation, changing gender expectations, racial difference, and world war. Encompassing a wide range of media, the course explores modernism as a compelling dream of utopian possibilities challenged by the conditions of social life in the context of diversity and difference.
Last offered: Spring 2021
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
ARTHIST 152: The American West (AMSTUD 124A, ENGLISH 124, HISTORY 151, POLISCI 124A)
The American West is characterized by frontier mythology, vast distances, marked aridity, and unique political and economic characteristics. This course integrates several disciplinary perspectives into a comprehensive examination of Western North America: its history, physical geography, climate, literature, art, film, institutions, politics, demography, economy, and continuing policy challenges. Students examine themes fundamental to understanding the region: time, space, water, peoples, and boom and bust cycles.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
Instructors:
Brady, D. (PI)
;
Fishkin, S. (PI)
;
Freyberg, D. (PI)
;
Kennedy, D. (PI)
;
Nemerov, A. (PI)
ARTHIST 153A: Culture Beyond Capital (AFRICAAM 153, CSRE 153, TAPS 153E)
Presented by IDA, the Institute for Diversity in the Arts. This course examines how cultural expressions, practices, and values challenge, resist, and sometimes transcend the constraints of capitalist frameworks. This lecture series invites visits from local and nationally recognized artists, activists, leaders and scholars; as well as site visits to surrounding communities to understand how the cultivation of new relationships to power create unprecedented conditions for collective change. This course counts towards a concentration in Identity, Diversity, and Aesthetics. Students can complete 15 units of Institute for Diversity in the Arts courses to fulfill this subplan.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-5
Instructors:
Holt, A. (PI)
;
Lundberg Torres Sanchez, B. (PI)
ARTHIST 160: Censorship in American Art (AMSTUD 167, CSRE 160, FEMGEN 167)
This course examines the art history of censorship in the United States. Paying special attention to the suppression of queer, Black and Latinx visual and performance art, including efforts to vandalize works and defund institutions, students will explore a variety of writing such as news articles, manifestos, letters, protest signs, scholarly texts, and court proceedings. The course approaches censorship as an act to restrict freedom of expression and, however unwittingly, as a mode of provocation and publicity.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 163: Queer America: Art, Photography, and Politics (AMSTUD 163A, AMSTUD 363, ARTHIST 363, FEMGEN 163, FEMGEN 363)
This class explores queer art, photography and politics in the United States since 1930. Our approach will be grounded in close attention to the history and visual representation of sexual minorities in particular historical moments and social contexts. We will consider the cultural and political effects of World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, psychedelics, hippie culture and sexual liberation, lesbian separatism, the AIDS crisis, and marriage equality.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-AmerCul
Instructors:
Meyer, R. (PI)
ARTHIST 165: Vincent van Gogh and His World
No artist is more famous than Vincent van Gogh. Yet how well is he known? Perhaps not at all. A victim of cliches and platitudes, his art is rarely seen, or, to put it differently, the power of its call on us is mostly unheeded. What was he searching for and what did he hope to make possible for us to experience along with him? How, to put it differently, did he love us? An adventure beyond the trite and true, an exploration in the powers of naivete, offered by someone without authority, the class will take us deeply into Van Gogh's art and his moment.
Last offered: Spring 2023
| Units: 4
ARTHIST 168A: Creativity & Culture in the Age of AI (AMSTUD 106B, CSRE 106A, ENGLISH 106A, SYMSYS 168A)
Lecture/small-group discussion course exploring the social, ethical, artistic and policy implications of artificial intelligence systems. Includes field trips to the AI Tinkery, AI Playground, Institute for Human--Centered AI and elsewhere, both on and off campus. Engages scholarship on AI and education, decolonial AI, indigenous AI, disability activism AI, feminist AI and the future of work for creative industries across STEM, social sciences and the humanities. This is AI for the Thinking Person. If the scheduled discussion times don't work for you, please don't let that discourage you from enrolling. We're flexible with discussion times.
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
ARTHIST 173N: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Contemporary Art
From Pop to postmodernism, contemporary art in the United States has often taken up issues of race, gender, and sexuality. In this seminar, we will study how artists from the 1960s to the present have drawn upon a wide range of media (including painting, photography, sculpture, performance, video, and the internet) to address racial injustice, gender inequity, and the surveillance of sexuality. Guest speakers will include contemporary artists confronting these issues in our current, highly charged moment.
Last offered: Autumn 2020
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP