undergraduate, graduate

Photomontage—the assembly of photographic fragments—is as old as photography itself. Prompted by the Harvard Art Museums’ recent accession of over one hundred works by Gustavs Klucis and Valentina Kulagina--leading Soviet photomonteurs of the 1920s and...

This is a general introduction to and survey of the arts of Ancient America. We will look at both Mesoamerica and the Andean art and architecture beginning with some of the earliest cultures and ending with Aztec, Maya, Muisca and Inca. Questions about...

What is left out of view and why? Many landmark works about the intersection of race, culture, and equity have been censored, excised, or unseen—viewed and then disregarded—or even erased from official narratives. This course will focus on key works from...

This course focuses on fashion and clothing in Japan and Korea from pre-1900 to the present day. It aims to build a knowledge base of historically contextualized case studies through readings, lectures, and discussion. It examines clothing as a site of...

Critically explores the historiography and interpretations of Islamic ornament. Themes include ornamentality and abstraction, theories of perception, orientalist discourses on the so-called "arabesque," resonances of non-figural abstraction with modernism...

How was a particular work of art made, and why does it look the way it does? To what extent do the availability of materials and development of material technology influence artistic choice and innovation? How can science help us understand the making and...

Thomas Cummins This is a general introduction to and survey of the arts of Ancient America. We will look at both Mesoamerica and the Andean art and architecture beginning with some of the earliest cultures and ending with Aztec, Maya, Muisca and Inca...

Brenda Croft Australian First Nations cultural practices, cosmological beliefs and creativity span 65,000+ years, deeply grounded in the collective cultural knowledge that we have been on the continent now known as Australia since time immemorial, from...

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...

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...