Spring 2025

Suzanne Blier This class explores key forms of African architecture historically and into the present, with an emphasis on comparative issues of materials and technology, rural dwelling compounds (form, use, and adaptation), nomadic architecture, West...

Vishal Khandelwal This seminar 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...

Melissa McCormick This course examines gender and the production, reception, and interpretation of art in Japan, its diaspora, and global contexts. Organized thematically, it spans from the premodern period to the present day, examining the gendering 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...

Robin Kelsey When photography emerged in 1839, it was not just another medium. It trampled the boundaries of art, expression, creativity, and depiction, raising troublesome questions that still haunt us today. In our consideration of photography, we will...

Ewa Lajer-Burcharth This course explores the historical functions and cultural meanings of color in the period of early modernity (18th and early 19th centuries). Focusing on France and England, we will examine specifically the role color played in the...

Maria Gough This workshop-style seminar, which will be taught in the Study Center of the Harvard Art Museums, foregrounds the pioneering role of textiles and other artisanal media produced by women in the development of modernist art, especially...

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...

Jeffrey Hamburger, Felipe Pereda, Seth Estrin This course introduces concentrators to on-site study of art and architecture through the case study of a particular geographic and cultural area. This year: Munich

Eric Huntington How do Buddhists understand the world around them? From vast cosmic mountains to humble domestic altars, Buddhists use places and spaces to define everything from the loftiest goals of the religion to the routine methods of daily practice...