Vishal Khandelwal

This course explores architecture, urbanism, and design in colonial and postcolonial South Asia through the region's interactions and exchanges with other parts of the world. Extending from early European presence in the subcontinent to the formalization of the British empire and its subsequent end that eventually led to the formation of current-day South Asian nation-states, the course analyzes urban, rural, and architectural spaces including the bungalow, the single-family apartment, and the village dwelling alongside other buildings and environments of...

Sarah Lewis

How has visual representation—from videos and photographs to sculptures and memorials—both limited and liberated our definition of American citizenship and belonging? Art is often considered a respite from life or a reflection of the times, but this class examines how art actually has created the times in which we live. The distribution of rights is central to justice. The rights of citizenship are many, but central to them all is the right, even the responsibility, to engage and participate in collective society—to be recognized as a member of the body politic....

David Roxburgh

A problem-oriented inquiry into Arabic art and culture (from the formation of Islam through the late medieval period), focusing on regions circling the Mediterranean, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Levant, as well as the Middle East. Materials (the book, painting, portable arts, epigraphy, architecture) and geographic focus vary. Themes also change, but include relations between art and literature, aesthetics, vision and perception, courtly culture, the rise of a mercantile patron class...

Eric Huntington

What is a sacred image? Does it embody a presence or merely serve as a visual reminder? Does it need to look like its subject? How is it manufactured, used, repaired, and discarded? How do sacred images differ from tourist art or works in a museum?

This course investigates answers to such questions for Asian Buddhist traditions, foregrounding an interdisciplinary examination of visual art, material culture, literary text, and ritual performance. At the intersection of these realms, visual representations take on complex significance as both results...

Jonathan Grinham, Joanna Aizenberg

This course is an interdisciplinary platform for designers, engineers, and scientists to interact and develop innovative new products. The course introduces ideas-to-innovation processes in a hands-on, project/product-focused manner that balances design and engineering concepts with promising, real-world opportunities. Switching back and forth between guided discovery and focused development, between bottom-up and top-down thinking, and market analyses, the course helps students establish generalizable frameworks as researchers and innovators...

coleman jordan

The spatial containment, confinement, and control of African American and African Brazilian populations represent a complex trajectory from historical enslavement to contemporary challenges. This course explores the evolution of spatial dynamics shaping the lives of these communities, tracing their journey from the dungeons of castles and forts during the era of chattel slavery to present-day struggles with policing and marginalization.

David Roxburgh

The pro-seminar examines cities and monuments built in Greater Iran and Central Asia from the late 10th through early 15th centuries, spanning three principal dynastic periods (Seljuq, Mongol, and Timurid). Various functional types—mosques, madrasas, minarets, tombs—, urban systems, and spatial organization are studied including the cities of Bukhara, Herat, Isfahan, Mashhad, Nishapur, Rayy, Samarqand, and Yazd. We will examine the materials, construction and design processes of buildings,...