Below is a listing of courses offered in both tracks. Courses in either track may fulfill requirements for the major. See specific requirements for the Art History and Museum Studies Track and the Architectural Studies Track for details.  

Courses

Courses offered in the past four years. Courses offered currently are as noted.

Course Description

An Introduction to Global Visual Culture
This course is an introduction to the visual cultures of the world, with an emphasis on how images, objects, and monuments are made, experienced, exchanged, and used by groups of people with diverse religious, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds. We will focus on themes that have been taken up by different cultures and adapted over time, such as monumentality, the sacred, embodiment, science, and technology. Through a close study of these themes, we will consider how materials, cultures, and histories are transformed and negotiated through making and viewing works of art. In the process, we will challenge the art historical canon by shedding light on marginalized periods, regions, and artworks. 2 hrs. lect./1 hr. disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, CMP

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Course Description

Monuments and Ideas in Asian Art*
This course is an introduction to the study of Asian art history through an investigation of selected art works, considered individually and in broader contexts. This course chronicles the evolution in painting, sculpture, and architecture, and other media of Asia. It is designed for those who wish to build a broad acquaintance with the major works and ideas of Asian art in their historical settings and to develop tools for understanding these works of art as aesthetic objects and bearers of meaning for the societies, group, or individuals that produced them. Registration priority given to first and second year students. 2 hrs. lect./1 hr. disc..

Terms Taught

Fall 2020

Requirements

AAL, ART, CMP, HIS, NOA

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Course Description

DesignLab: Creating Innovation
We live in a ‘designed’ world. Good design brings function and delight to everything we see and interact with. This course teaches fundamental principles of design and creative innovation. Students will learn how to articulate and develop design concepts through hands-on projects that explore a broad range of design types (graphic, digital, industrial, craft, and architectural). These projects will be catalysts for critique, as we consider the environmental and ethical aspects of design in our increasingly global and digital world. Materials and tools, as well as training for 3D printers, laser cutters, and power tools, will be provided. 3 hrs. lect

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Introduction to Architectural Design
Are you fascinated by buildings and interested in trying your hand at architectural design? This course will introduce you to principles of architecture and teach you the skills architects use to explore and communicate design ideas. We will consider urban and rural settings, sustainability, energy efficiency, functionality, comfort, and the role architecture plays in shaping community. Classroom instruction by a practicing architect will provide hands-on drawing, model-making, and materials research. Students will work to analyze existing buildings and design their own. Students seeking to improve their understanding of the built environment as well to develop their design-mind to reconcile social-ecological challenges are encouraged to take this course. No prior experience is needed.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Italian Renaissance Art: 1350-1550
This course will focus on the art produced in Italy during the late fourteenth through the early sixteenth centuries. In addition to studying the chronological development of painting, sculpture, and architecture, we will consider such issues as artistic training, patronage, domestic life, and the literary achievements of this period of "rebirth." Focusing on urban environments such as Florence, Siena, Padua, Venice, Rome, and Urbino, we will give special attention to the manner in which artistic production was shaped by place. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2024, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Modern Art (1789-1960)
This course surveys key international artists, movements, and aesthetic debates beginning in the late eighteenth century and into the mid-twentieth century. In a period characterized by urbanization, industrialization, and mass politics, we will ask how modern art produced, reflected, exaggerated, or challenged the effects of modernization. In particular, we will focus on how this historical moment of unprecedented nationalism, imperial expansion, post-colonial liberation, and cold war alliances forged a global modernism. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2022, Fall 2023

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Approaches to Islamic Art
A survey of major expressions of Islamic art from the inception of Islam to the present, from all parts of the Islamic world. This is not a traditional survey; rather, it focuses on key monuments and important examples of portable and decorative arts: mosques, tombs, palaces, manuscript illumination, calligraphy, metalwork, textiles, ceramics, etc. We will consider their meanings and functions in their respective socio-historical contexts, and we will also analyze the impact of patronage and region. We will try to understand what general principles unify the richness and diversity of Islamic art: what is Islamic about Islamic art? Finally, we will address the issue of contemporary Islamic art. (No prerequisites). 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2024

Requirements

AAL, ART, MDE

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Course Description

Venice in Renaissance
Venetian art was long shaped by its unique setting, distinctive political structure, and a collective identity enforced by its patrician leaders. In this course, we will engage in a close consideration of the socio-political conditions that both reinforced tradition and ultimately made way for a "golden age" in Venetian painting, sculpture, and architecture. Topics will include individual artists, such as Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and Palladio, as well as artistic training and workshop practice, patronage, and the rise of Venetian humanism. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Northern Renaissance Art: The Rhetoric of the Real
This course will provide students with an overview of art objects created in a variety of media in Northern Europe between the 15th and 16th centuries. We will analyze the changing uses of art in cultures where people defined themselves and the depths of their piety in relation to their material wealth and social standing. During the last few weeks of the semester, the class will look at the emergence of genre painting and the representation of peasant life. We will consider how these phenomena were tied to the histories and careers of individual artists and their workshops. General questions will include: How does the convincing representation of "reality" make for a persuasive image? What are the benefits of fusing secular and religious subject matter? Is it valid to speak of a new artistic self-awareness? 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Introduction to Industrial Design
3D Printing, CNC machining, and robotic automation have transformed how objects are designed, prototyped, and manufactured. In this course we will learn fundamental 3D solid modeling techniques, iterative design strategies and fundamental additive and subtractive manufacturing techniques. Every class will be hands-on and fully immersed in the high-tech tools of the industrial design process. Students will leave with a strong conceptual understanding of 3D solid modeling, printing, and machining, and an independent final project. 3 hrs. lect/lab.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

History of Photography
In this course we will survey the history of photography from its beginnings in the early nineteenth century to the present. From its inception, the photograph created a global network of circulation as art, document, and portable knowledge. Moreover, photographs have been historically deployed across a number of disciplines, including science, medicine, criminal studies, law, journalism, anthropology, and the visual arts. Organized along chronological lines and looking at case studies in Europe, America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, the course will consider a range of genres, formal strategies, and contexts for photography. We will pay particular attention to the ways in which photographic images are mobilized to produce knowledge and disrupt conventional ways of seeing in the service of science, social reform, political activism, and aesthetics. Students will have the opportunity to work first hand with the photography collection at Middlebury College Museum of Art. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, HIS

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Course Description

Understanding Early Medieval and Romanesque Art: Seeing Ste. Foy
This course is an introduction to key artworks and architectural monuments made and built in Europe during the eighth through twelfth centuries. We will study such structures as Charlemagne's Palace Chapel and the reliquary statue of Ste. Foy at Conques to explore how these monuments were products of independent cultures that valued the creation of a visual fusion between the Judeo-Christian God and humankind. Likely lines of inquiry include: the persistence of a Classical ideal and its myriad adaptations; the coordination of art objects to specific locations; and, not least, the self-conscious staging of political and ecclesiastical power. 3 hrs lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Poetry, Piety and Power: Indian Painting 1200-Present
This course considers the history, context, style, and significance of a broad spectrum of Indian painting traditions. We will look closely at Jaina and Hindu religious illustrations, the evocative courtly and religious imagery from the Rajput and other regional kingdoms, the extraordinarily refined and naturalistic Mughal imagery, the influence of colonialism, and the development of modern and contemporary works. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2024

Requirements

AAL, ART, HIS, SOA

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Course Description

Modern Architecture
Rotating skyscrapers, green roofs, and avant-garde museums: how did we arrive in the architectural world of the early 21st century? In this course we will survey the major stylistic developments, new building types, and new technologies that have shaped European and American architecture since the late 18th century. Students will learn about the work of major architects as well as key architectural theories and debates. Special emphasis will be placed on the cultural and political contexts in which buildings are designed. 2 hrs. Lect./1 hr. disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, HIS

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Course Description

Architecture and the Environment
Architecture has a dynamic relationship with the natural and cultural environments in which it operates. As a cultural phenomenon it impacts the physical landscape and uses natural resources while it also frames human interaction, harbors community, and organizes much of public life. We will investigate those relationships and explore strategies to optimize them, in order to seek out environmentally responsive architectural solutions. Topics to be covered include: analysis of a building's site as both natural and cultural contexts, passive and active energy systems, principles of sustainable construction, and environmental impact. Our lab will allow us to study on site, "off-the-grid" dwellings, hay-bale houses, passive solar constructions and alternative communities, meet with "green" designers, architects, and builders, and do hands-on projects. 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. lab.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Architecture of Planning and Place
As the earliest design activity of the architectural process, context analysis and planning play a significant role in shaping our built environment, from individual dwellings to campuses, towns and cities. This course introduces students to fundamental planning concepts such as open space and density, site characteristics and context, and the circulation of people, traffic, and services, with a strong focus on the relationship between built and natural environments. We will examine national and international case studies as well as local examples. Though no formal architecture experience is required, students will learn and use methods of graphically representing information and conveying design concepts. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Art and Protest
Can art serve as a means for resistance and political change? Can art only call attention to social inequalities or can it initiate systemic change? What is the difference between propaganda and activism? In this course, we will examine these questions through close analysis of works dating from the French Revolution to the contemporary moment. We will consider a range of strategies across diverse geographies. We will also examine curatorial strategies to critique the cultural assumptions of museums and recent efforts to boycott museums’ financial ties and political complicities. This course is held in conjunction with the Middlebury College Museum of Art and students will have the opportunity to work closely with the current exhibition. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism (1850-1905)
In this course, we will examine three prominent artistic movements that evolved in France during the second half of the 19th century. This historical moment witnessed the emergence of a bourgeois industrial society and the rise of Parisian modernity. Looking at artists such as Courbet, Manet, Monet, Cassatt, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, we consider how these figures artistically engaged with the rapidly changing urban landscape, new scientific theories of color and optics, and France’s growing colonial empire. In doing so, we will explore the ways in which the race, gender, and class inform social concepts of the time around the artist and the model, labor and leisure, and modernity and primitivism. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Baroque Art in a Global Context
Baroque art and architecture flourished in the courts of seventeenth-century Europe before spreading to the Americas, Asia, and Africa in the wake of global trade, colonialism, and religious proselytizing. In this course we will examine how this style of art and architecture was recontexualized and transformed when it came into contact with preexisting traditions overseas. Readings and discussions will compare artistic production across cultures by focusing not only on the forces that contributed to the broad reach of the Baroque, but also on the persistence of local artistic styles, which were challenged and nurtured by sustained intercultural contact. 3 hrs. lct.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP

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Course Description

Court, Castle, and Cathedral: The Gothic World
This survey course will consider closely the major architectural monuments of the Gothic period in Western Europe, using them as a point of departure in a larger consideration of the artistic culture of this time. In looking at Gothic art and architecture, the class will ask some of the following questions: How were buildings embedded in the promotion of distinct political programs? How do liturgical considerations determine the shapes of buildings and sites? How can we track the emergence of a non-Christian "other" in art of all media? How can we characterize the visual and intellectual culture of "courtly love"? 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Vermeers's World: 17th-century Dutch Art in a Global Context
The artists of the so-called Dutch “Golden Age”—Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Frans Hals, and many others—are best known for their portraits of wealthy Dutch citizens, landscapes of the local countryside, and scenes of domestic merry-making. The widespread popularity of images of local people and places, however, obscures the significant global activities of the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century. This course will reexamine the works of these well-known Dutch artists by placing them in the context of global trade and colonialism. We will consider works in a range of media—including paintings, prints, books, textiles, and ceramics—that pictured and mediated diplomatic, social, and economic negotiations between the nascent Dutch Republic and the cultures it encountered across the globe.3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Photography in the Middle East
In this course we will survey 19th and 20th century photographs of the Middle East. We will consider indigenous studios as well as European and U.S. photographers and artists who traveled to the region and circulated their photographs as visual knowledge of distant cultures, peoples, monuments, landscapes, and experiences. Looking at a range of genres, we will examine how photographs visually construct notions of race, gender, class, religion, and cultural otherness. Students will work with original photographs in the collection at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, HIS, MDE

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Course Description

The Bayeux Tapestry: Models, Contexts, and Afterlives
In this course we will take a close look at the late eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry (also known as the Bayeux Embroidery), examining its historical and literary models, the details of its creation, and its varied reverberations throughout the arts of the medieval and modern eras. Along the way, we will consider how this 230-foot long embroidered textile entangled its medieval and modern viewers in the stories it tells and those it avoids. We will discover that it offers much food for thought in relation to issues of gender and masculinity in the European Middle Ages, the representation of the Other, the visualization of disability, the taming of the natural world, and the terrors and banalities of war. Hands-on assignments will familiarize us with some of the techniques and materials used to create this monument of medieval European Art History. No prerequisites. Some familiarity with art history and/or medieval history helpful but not required. (Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1032) 3 hours lct/disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Art Response to Political Strife: Contemporary Arab Art
In what ways can artists protest war? What are the possibilities for creating art during times of conflict? How do artists respond to the memories of a violent and divisive recent past? These are some of the questions we will examine in this course, with a focus on contemporary artistic practices in the Arab world. Considering a range of media—documentary and experimental film, installation and conceptual practices, painting, photography, and monuments, we will ask how artists living in Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Algiers are able to confront the traumas of the past, intervene in contemporary socio-political realities, and imagine a different future. (not open to students who have taken INTD 1209)

Terms Taught

Winter 2021

Requirements

AAL, ART, MDE, WTR

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Course Description

A Global History of Pre-Modern Architecture
Since time immemorial, humans have created structures large and small, not only to provide shelter and protection but also to express identity, status, and ideology. In this course we will chronicle the major developments of architecture as a cultural endeavor from its beginnings in the Neolithic in the Near East to the Industrial Revolution in Europe, considered within a global perspective. Attention will be given to formal and structural innovations, often borrowed across cultures and periods. Introductory in nature, the course combines lectures, discussions, and workshops, and is open to all curious students. 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, HIS

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Course Description

Contemporary Art (1960-Present)
In what ways can artworks help us see our world and ourselves anew? How does the art of our time open the present for us to explore and critique, just as it offers glimmers of possible futures? In attempting to answer these questions, in this course we will survey major developments in international art practice from 1960 to the present. Throughout we will consider the diverse formal strategies of contemporary art alongside the radical upheavals of the recent past and present, from the world-wide protests of the 1960s to the global crisis of climate change and the connectivity (and isolation) of the digital world.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022, Spring 2024, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS

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Course Description

Twentieth Century Latin American Art
In this course we will survey major developments in the art of Latin America from 1890 to the present. We will explore the rise of avant-gardism and abstraction, Mexican muralism, surrealism, kinetic art, neo-concrete art, and conceptualism, as well as the interaction between Latin Americans artists and their European and North American counterparts. We will also study the work of individual artists such as Diego Rivera, Joaquín Torres García, Wilfredo Lam, and Lygia Clark, among others. Readings will be drawn from artist's writings, criticism, primary documents, and recent art historical scholarship.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

AAL, ART, CMP, HIS

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Course Description

Developing the Built Environment: Economic, Social, and Ecological Factors
Underneath every city block, every building, is a parcel of land that was developed, or redeveloped many times. It could have been a park, a single house or an office tower. How do we decide what is built, and who decides? Building our environment begins with regulation and economics, but includes stakeholders with varying influence. Governments, neighbors, designers, activists, investors and capital markets all shape our world. In this course students will examine these choices critically, by analyzing sites and making decisions, project by project, and by connecting choices to larger debates about housing, conservation, spatial and environmental justice.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022

Requirements

AMR, SOC

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Course Description

Arts of Asia
This course considers South and East Asian art history from its most ancient origins in India, China, and Japan to the present. This is not a comprehensive survey; rather, it focuses on cross-cultural connections through selected art works, considered individually and in broader contexts. We will chronicle the evolutions of painting, sculpture, architecture, and other media of Asia, focusing especially on painting, sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts. We will pay particular attention to the impact of religious and royal patronage, Buddhism and Hinduism, the Silk Road, Asian aesthetics, and specialized techniques such as ink painting and woodblock printing. Works of art will be studied in terms of style, religious meaning, and social and historical contexts. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

AAL, ART, CMP, HIS, NOA

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Course Description

Introduction to African Art and Architecture
In this course, we will explore the rich history of Africa’s art and architecture. Through lectures, readings, videos, museum visits, and discussions, we will examine sites, ritual arts, artistic genres, and contemporary art made for global audiences. Examples include prehistoric Saharan and Kalahari rock paintings; ancient Egyptian, Nubian, Zimbabwean, and Ethiopian architecture; Sahelian mosques; Kongo ritual art; body arts; and El Anatsui’s dazzling bottlecap sculptures. When possible, we will highlight intersections between Africa and Euro-America, proposing that present framings of this history are as much a legacy of the latter as the cultures from whom the art originates. In so doing, we will gain an appreciation for the heritage of African art and its significance to Africa and the world.

Terms Taught

Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, HIS, SAF

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Course Description

Chinese Art
This course is an introductory survey of the arts of China from the Neolithic period to the 20th century. Considering works in their original context and in museum collections, we will investigate how art objects and monuments reflect the religious beliefs, political agendas, and aesthetic preferences of their creators. At the same time, we will pay particular attention to the local development of artistic technologies, the role of ethnic and national identity in art production, and China's place in the larger histories of the Silk Road and modern international commerce and diplomacy. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020

Requirements

AAL, ART, HIS, NOA

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Course Description

Mastodons, Mermaids, and Dioramas: Capturing Nature in America
Why did 18th-century museums stuff and mount exotic and domestic animals? Why does the American Museum of Natural History still house dioramas of so-called native peoples hunting? How has the study and staging of nature transferred into various kinds of artistic expression? In this course we will examine the intertwining of art, science, and ecology in the United States from the 1700s to the present day. Objects of study will include museum dioramas, scientific models, artifacts and artworks collected during scientific expeditions, and the work of Walton Ford and Christy Rupp, contemporary artists whose work engages ecological issues. (not open to students who have taken FYSE 1447) (formerly AMST 0214) 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025

Requirements

AMR, ART, CW

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Course Description

Art and Material Culture of American (US) Middle-class home*
In this course we will consider the effects of technology and mechanical reproduction on the United States home, from prints to posters, houseplants to aquariums, mass-produced decorations to home-made crafts. We will also study the culture of at-home visual entertainments, from early “magic lanterns” and optical toys to the effects of televisions and computers on perception and social life. How do race, class, gender, and issues of labor and leisure inflect the middle-class domestic sphere and relate to social concerns outside the home? We will also examine the work of contemporary artists inspired by the aesthetics and social relationships of the United States middle-class home, including Martha Rosler, Mona Hatoum, and Laurie Simmons. 3 hrs. lect. AMR, ART, NOR

Terms Taught

Spring 2022

Requirements

AMR, ART, NOR

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Course Description

Beyond Boundaries: Ancient Arts of the Nile and Niger Rivers
In this course we will push beyond longstanding foreign conceptualizations of Africa by exploring the continent’s deep histories and the transcultural nature of ancient civilizations and kingdoms that coalesced around the Nile and Niger Rivers from approximately 3000 B.C.E. through the 19th century. Through lectures, readings, written and verbal reflections, and museum visits, we will examine artistic exchanges between ancient Egypt and Nubia; creative flows among Ife, Owo, Benin, and producers of the Lower Niger Bronze complex; and cross-cultural connections among Sahelian empires and medieval Europe. In so doing, we will comprehend the beauty, richness, diversity, and global nature of artistic traditions in these regions. As Yoruba people say, “Our culture is like a river, it is never at rest.”

Terms Taught

Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS, SAF

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Course Description

Introduction to Sustainable Landscape Design
What are our outdoor experiences like? How can we design and interact with the world in a safe, inviting, and inclusive way? Sustainable landscapes use an ecosystem approach to design, strengthening the connections between us, our physical place, and the living systems surrounding us. Using our campus landscape as our laboratory, in this studio course we will engage in outdoor explorations, discussions, and readings. We will also conduct projects that explore concepts in landscape design, including site analysis, resource inputs, functional considerations, and design principles for creating sustainable landscapes. Sources to include Planting in a Post Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West, Landscape Graphics by Grant Reid, and Integrated Landscaping-Following Nature’s Lead by Lauren Chase-Rowell et. al.

Terms Taught

Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Feminist Building: Art, Aesthetics, and Mini Golf
In this project-based course, we will build a reproductive justice mini golf course to be housed in the athletics facility. We will collaborate with graphic artists, woodworkers, activists, and faculty and students to design, develop, and construct the mini golf course. The studio course work will include opportunities to explore sculpture, construction, and engineering using many art forms and fabrication processes. The course will engage with Feminist and Queer Studies approaches to using art for social change and what it means to build in feminist ways, both in terms of process and product. All students will contribute to designing and building the mini golf course. No prior experience with GSFS or HARC required

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

AMR, ART, SOC

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Course Description

Viewer Discretion Advised: Controversies in American Art & Museums, 1876-Present
What are the “culture wars,” and why do they matter? What ideas are considered too “obscene” for American audiences? In this course we will explore controversies and scandals sparked by public displays of art in the U.S. including: Eakins’s Gross Clinic (1876), seen as too “bloody” for an art exhibition; the U.S. Navy’s objections to Paul Cadmus’s painting of sailors (1934); censorship and NEA budget cuts (Mapplethorpe & Serrano, 1989); backlash to The West as America’s deconstruction of myths of the frontier (1991); tensions surrounding Colonial Williamsburg’s “slave auction” reenactment (1994); debates over the continued display (and occasional defacement) of Confederate monuments in the era of the Black Lives Matter Movement. (open to AMST, HARC and ART majors only, other by approval) 3 hrs. lect./disc.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023

Requirements

AMR, ART, HIS

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Course Description

Museums, Managers of Consciousness: Institutional Critique and The Politics of Display
From the 1960s forward, many artists have looked closely at the seeming neutrality of museums and cultural institutions, drawing attention to the colonial, economic, political, and social biases elided in the apparently disinterested construction of such displays and collections. Following a consideration of the initial practitioners of this tendency, known as Institutional Critique, in this course we will then investigate feminist, postmodernist, and more contemporary practices in this mode, including debates on—and artistic responses to—cultural restitution. Attention will also be paid to the “institutionalization” that a course such as this creates. Readings will be drawn from artists’ writings and primary documents, art history, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. Course meetings will be a regular mix of lecture presentations and reading-driven discussion

Terms Taught

Fall 2023

Requirements

ART, CMP

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Course Description

Mapping Conceptualism: Art and Idea in International Context
In this course we will explore the impact of conceptualism—the notion that an ‘idea’ takes priority over an artwork’s physical form—in a range of historical and geographic contexts from the 1960s forward. Beginning with foundational texts and objects, we will then explore the reach of conceptualist practices through close readings of art and artists in the context of specific artistic milieux and exhibitions from the Americas to Asia. Classes will be a mixture of lecture and more focused discussion. No prerequisites, but some exposure to modern and/or contemporary art is desirable.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS

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Course Description

Ways of Seeing
In this course we will focus on the various methods and theories that can enrich and deepen our understanding of art, architecture, and visual culture. Students will hone their analytical skills, both verbal and written, often with recourse to objects from the College Museum and the campus at large. In general, this seminar will develop students’ awareness of objects of culture broadly construed, and sharpen their understanding of the scope and intellectual history of the field. To be taken during the sophomore or junior year as a prerequisite for HARC 0710 and HARC 0711. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, CW

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Course Description

Materiality and Meaning in Medieval Manuscripts
Before the invention of the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century, all books were written by hand, a manual process that informed the term “manuscript.” The most luxurious of medieval manuscripts were illuminated with all manner of images, and these, along with the books themselves, were often understood as embodiments of divine wisdom. In this seminar we will consider medieval manuscripts as artworks and study the history of medieval manuscript illumination. Along the way, we will analyze the functions of various types of texts, learn about the rich relationships between text and image, consider the emergence of silent reading, and study the diverse audiences for medieval books. Over the course of the roughly one thousand years that we will cover in this course, we will see the book change from a mysterious receptacle of sacred wisdom to a commodity created for a mass market. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, EUR

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Course Description

From Velázquez to Cabrera: The Arts of Spain and the Spanish Americas
In this course we will examine the art and visual culture of Spain and the Spanish Americas from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. We will consider the impact that religion, politics, and patronage had on artists working in Spain and the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, focusing especially on how visual traditions, iconographies, and practices were reshaped when they crossed the Atlantic. We will also consider how—in the wake of global trade and exploration—contact between Amerindian, African, Asian, and European artisans transformed artistic production, patronage, and collecting practices throughout the Iberian world. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, CW, HIS

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Course Description

Vermont Collaborations Public Humanities Lab
In collaboration with local archives, museums, and community organizations, we will work closely with primary sources, learning skills of transcription, analysis, and interpretation; in the spirit of Public Humanities, we will share this scholarship with the broader community, whether in the form of an exhibition, a publication, a website, podcasts, or other digital media. The focus will change annually or by sections, but this project-based course will emphasize place-based experiential learning and community partnerships in its critical engagement with histories of collections and archives. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities. 3 hrs. lect.

2021 marked the bicentennial of the birth of Henry Luther Sheldon, founder of Middlebury’s Sheldon Museum of Vermont History (founded 1881) and 2022 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Research Center. In this course we will mine the Archives of the Sheldon Museum for information about the early years of the museum’s establishment, exploring institutional history, histories of collecting, and local history, alongside a critical investigation of how archives and collections are formed, developed, and made legible (or illegible) to broader publics. 3 hrs. Sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

AMR, ART, HIS

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Course Description

Imperial Splendor: the Art and Architecture of India's Mughal Empire
The Mughal empire, founded by a new dynasty of Muslim rulers, claimed control over much of north India in the 16th century. Under their dominance, new forms of art and architecture flourished. In this seminar we will critically explore such topics as: the style and symbolism of Mughal art and architecture; the influence of Persian and Indian Rajput visual forms; the biographies and ambitions of the Mughal rulers; the role of women in the Mughal court; and the interactions between Muslim and Hindu visual cultures, as well as the important contributions made by European art. We will pay special attention to how art and architecture played a central role in imperial self-definition and the construction of a specialized Mughal history, placing those works in their political, social, and cultural contexts. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021, Fall 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

AAL, ART, HIS, SOA

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Course Description

Intermediate Architectural Design
This studio course emphasizes the thought and method of architectural design. Members of this studio will be involved in developing their insights towards cultural value systems and their expression in the environments they create. Participants work primarily in the studio space and rely heavily on individual instruction and group review of their work. The course provides a foundation for more advanced study in the areas of architecture, landscape architecture, and other fields related to the design of the built environment, and an opportunity to work with the Cameron Visiting Architect. (HARC 0130) 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. lab

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Gender and the Making of Space
In this course we will investigate the complex relationship between gender and architecture, examining how the design of the built environment (buildings, urban spaces, etc.) can reinforce or undermine ideas about the respective roles of women and men in society, from the creation of masculine and feminine spaces to the gendered nature of the architectural profession. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources we will also uncover how the social construction of gender roles and gendered spaces are, and continue to be, inflected by race, class, and sexuality. Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1407. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2022, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS

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Course Description

Home: The Why Behind the Way We Live
In this course we will examine the development of numerous housing types in America (with references to Europe). The prevalence of the single-family home today and its importance as the symbol of the “American dream” was never a forgone conclusion. In fact, the American home has been the focus of and battleground for cooperative movements, feminism, municipal socialism, benevolent capitalism, and government interventions on a national scale. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021

Requirements

AMR, ART, HIS, NOR

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Course Description

Berlin: History, Architecture, and Urbanism in Faust’s Metropolis (in English)
In this course we will investigate the rich and complicated built environment of Berlin. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources we will uncover how the city has been transformed from a cultural backwater during the early modern period to the current capital of a reunified Germany. By the conclusion of this course, you will be comfortable “reading” buildings and spaces and will be able to navigate both the physical city of Berlin and the many layers of history buried within. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2021, Spring 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

The Aesthetics of Asian Art: Is Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder?
In this course we will consider select Asian (Indian, Chinese, Japanese) and Islamic artworks in the Middlebury College Museum of Art’s permanent collection to explore the fundamental question: “Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?” Are standards in beauty universal, or are they always relative? We will ask how the act of beholding is entwined with cultural assumptions and conditioning and will address those assumptions through an intensive combination of close looking, critical analysis, and comparative consideration of a diverse range of artworks and aesthetic traditions. Comparisons will be made with select works of Western art in the museum. (not open to students who have taken HARC 0102or HARC 0268) 3 hrs. lect./disc This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities./

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2024

Requirements

AAL, ART, CMP, NOA

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Course Description

Hysterical Documents: Fiction, History, and the Art Object
In 1827, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe mused: “But what else is a novel but an unheard-of event?” Goethe’s provocative staging of the unknown through narrative interlaces the plausible and the historical in a manner equally appropriate to much historical writing and broad swaths of the visual arts. In this course we will consider the different roles interpretation and imagination—fact, fiction, and the porous space between—play in our engagement with works of art.
We will read recent fiction, history, poetry and criticism as well as writing that purposefully sidesteps these categories not only to engage the limits of the archive and its objects but also to explore the critical and aesthetic possibilities of writing beyond the binary of fiction and nonfiction. Seminar; no prerequisites, though some exposure to art history would be useful.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, LIT, non-standard grade, WTR

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Course Description

The Good, Bad, and Ugly: Gods, Goddesses, and Demons in Indian Art
Indian mythology and epic literature abounds with stories of conflicts between the forces of good and evil. There are multiple forms of Hindu gods and goddesses who battle an array of evil and colorful demonic foes, and each cosmic battle embodies a profound philosophical lesson about relative values and complex moral choices. We will explore the meanings and myriad creative expressions of this rich terrain through a lively variety of artistic depictions—in mythological literature, painting, sculpture, drama, dance, television, film, graphic novels, and contemporary arts. (Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1023.) 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2024

Requirements

AAL, ART, SOA

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Course Description

Medieval Bodies
In this seminar we will examine how medieval European thinkers and artists theorized and visualized the body in ways that are vastly different from the ways in which the body is conceptualized today. Indeed, the “medieval body” was not a monolithic entity, but rather a shifting constellation of ideas and practices that waxed, waned, and coexisted throughout the Middle Ages. A body could be understood as an earthly body — sexed, fleshly, corruptible — as well as a heavenly and divine body, including Christ’s own. Our considerations will further contextualize representations of gendered, racialized, clerical, monstrous, animal, virginal, non-Christian, heretical, resurrected, and uncircumscribable bodies. Readings of the secondary literature will broaden readings of primary source materials, and our discussions will remain cognizant of gender-, sexuality-, race-, and performance-critical methods. There are no prerequisites for this course, but students will find it helpful to have some familiarity with either the history of art or with medieval history. 3hrs sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2023

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

The Rhetoric of Public Memory
This course focuses on public memory and the various statues, memorials, sites, and spaces that construct public memory in contemporary U.S. society. In this course, we will study local Middlebury and Vermont public memories, Civil War and Confederate memories, and spaces of contention and controversy, while visiting nearby memorials and museums. Students in this class will compose analyses on these public memories and create arguments on the viability of memories in different shapes and forms. Overall, students will leave this class with a stronger understanding of not only public memory rhetoric but the various components that keep these memories alive. 3 hrs. lect.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Spring 2023, Spring 2025

Requirements

AMR, CW, HIS, SOC

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Course Description

Digital Methodologies for Art Historians: NW x NE
In this seminar we will apply new technologies to the study of ancient art. Our primary case study will be the ninth-century BCE relief of a winged genie at the Middlebury College Museum of Art, which will be considered alongside other panels from the Northwest Palace of King Ashurnasirpal II in the Assyrian capital at Nimrud in Iraq. The sculptures still in situ at this site were destroyed by ISIS in 2016, but fragments remain in nearly two dozen museums across the northeastern United States. In this class we will uncover the history of the creation, removal, collecting, and display of these works, while at the same time learning about the latest digital tools for data management, analysis, visualization, and imaging used by curators and art historians. Our larger goal will be contributing to an ongoing multi-institution project called "NW x NE" that aims to digitally reunify these works and facilitate the sharing of information and resources between museums. No prior experience with art history necessary. 3 hrs. sem

Terms Taught

Spring 2020

Requirements

AAL, ART, MDE

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Course Description

Awe
What is the place of awe in contemporary experience? In our fractious and turbo-charged world, what are the objects and experiences that still have the power to bring us up short, leaving us slack-jawed and spellbound? This seminar will engage these questions in conjunction with the opening of the exhibit, "An Invitation to Awe", at the Middlebury College Museum of Art . Grounding our conversation in early literary and artistic explorations of the sublime, we will also consider awe through the lenses of religion, scientific discovery, creativity, and the natural world. Definitions of awe almost invariably include references to fear, dread, even terror, so readings and class discussions will move well beyond the celebratory and reverential. There are no prerequisites for this course, and students from a wide range of majors and fields of interest are encouraged to enroll. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Orientalism and the Visual Arts
In this course we will consider the relationship between visual culture and the politics of knowledge. Comparatively examining a series of cross-cultural encounters in modern and contemporary art, we will ask how knowledge is visually codified, labeled, and displayed. The course will begin with a reading of Edward Said’s Orientalism. We will then examine a series of case studies in order to identify and compare strategies of both “representing the other” and “speaking back.” We will address notions of exoticism, cultural difference, authenticity, and native authority with a particular focus on the ways in which the visual arts construct notions of race and gender and difference in representations of the Middle East, and more specifically, the Arab world. Case studies, drawn from the late eighteenth century until today, will be focused in the discipline of art history and the geographical regions of primarily the Middle East and Africa, as well as Europe and the U.S. 3 hrs sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS, MDE

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Course Description

Toward a Global Survey: Reassessing the Art Historical Canon
In this course we will interrogate the decades-old approach to teaching the survey of Western Art History, and by extension the deeply ingrained understanding of the art historical canon. We will analyze survey texts and syllabi that have long guided these courses, and we will consider the decision on the part of institutions like Yale University to abandon this course for a more global and inclusive approach. What would a global survey look like at Middlebury, and what are the works of art every current student of the discipline should know? (HARC 100 or 102) 3 hrs. lect/dsc

Terms Taught

Fall 2020

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Artemisia Gentileschi
Who was Artemisia Gentileschi, and why do her personal history and her art continue to provoke such a wide range of scholarly and artistic responses? In this course we will investigate the culture of early seventeenth-century Rome, as well as the artistic training that shaped Artemisia’s style and approach. At the same time, we will vigorously examine the ways in which gender and sexuality conditioned the reception—and distortion—of Artemisia from the start. A consideration of recent scholarship, literature, film, and painting will invite us to critically examine the construction of this singular artist’s identity. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2025

Requirements

ART, EUR

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Course Description

Art’s Worlds: Topics in Contemporary Art
The word contemporary is relational; to be con-temporary means to exist with others in time. In this seminar we will explore themes in very recent art, paying particular attention to how various practices draw attention to the constitutive relation of “with” through form. Topics may include artistic responses to social conflict, technological change, expanding global art centers, among others. Specific topics will vary, in part, based on student interests and current debates. Readings will be drawn from critical texts, recent scholarship and artists’ writings. Prior exposure to post-1945 art is helpful, but not required. 3 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Art, Migration, and Museums
Can artists and museums respond to the current refugee crisis? The 21stst century has witnessed the undeniable prevalence of the refugee, the migrant, and the politically displaced — categories produced by global capitalism’s uneven distribution of resources. Against this reality, artists and curators engage with representations of the disposed. In this course we will consider how the art world integrates the figure of the refugee into the traditionally reified space of the museum and examine the possibility of art to transcend barriers and generate empathy and solidarity. Possible topics include art programming and refugee integration; museum responses to the migrant crisis; migration and repatriation; boycott and divestment efforts. This course is part of the Public Humanities Labs Initiative administered by the Axinn Center for the Humanities./

Terms Taught

Spring 2022, Spring 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Leonardo da Vinci and the Invention of Artistic Genius
Famed for paintings such as The Last Supper and Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci was a dedicated observer and a prolific journal writer. His notebooks reflect an insatiable appetite for learning, and a mind equally engaged by engineering and sculpture, hydraulics and oil paint, human nature and faith. By reading Leonardo’s writing and by examining his commissions, we will explore how this single artist came to define our understanding of artistic genius. More recent scholarship will spark robust discussions of how to best understand the “afterlife” of an artist and his work. 3 hrs sem.

Terms Taught

Spring 2021

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

The State of Emergency and its Aftermaths: Kitchen Design to Counter-History
In this class we will uncover how architecture and design have mitigated and exacerbated the human tragedy of modern industrialized war in the 20th century. Taking the First World War and its inheritances as a through line to the present-day refugee crisis, we will discover how conflicts have manifested spatially (refugee camps to military installations, villages to capital cities), how design cultures of education, care, and memory emerged from battle and conditions of scarcity, and how war often blurred the meaning of what constitutes “architecture.” Shifting the focus from trenches, monuments, and imperial building projects to the architecture of the everyday, we will think about the politics of food systems and garden design, urban (and rural) recovery and reconstruction efforts, the creation of ephemeral and ad-hoc architectures, the role of mechanization, technology, and governmentality, and the gendered implications of states of emergency.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Art, Colonialism & the Digital Humanities
The field of Digital Humanities (DH) combines computational or digital technologies with humanistic research. In this course, digital humanistic inquiry will provide the lens through which we examine the artistic, textual, and archival legacies of European colonialism from the early modern period (late 15th through 18th centuries) to the present. Our focus will be on the visual and material culture of the Spanish, Dutch, and English empires, which included paintings, prints, illustrated texts, ceramics, and textiles, among many other items. Readings for the course will interrogate the structural inequities of power engrained in these sources—many of which persist in museums and other cultural institutions today—alongside recent scholarship in the digital humanities. Students will learn to think critically about the emerging “digital cultural archive,” while also acquiring the skills to create their own digital projects.

Terms Taught

Spring 2023

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS

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Course Description

Exhibiting Africa: History, Theory, and Praxis
In this seminar, we will explore the (im)possibilities of representing Africa’s arts in museums. Through readings, images, websites, discussions, and museum visits, we will survey Euro-America’s shifting valuation of artworks from Africa from the late 19th century to the present and the implications for installation and interpretation. We will consider recent curatorial strategies to address the challenges of representing African art in museums, examining the categories of contemporary vs. “traditional” art, questions of authenticity, the art market’s influence on museum collections, issues of provenance and repatriation, and efforts to decolonize the museum. Culminating in an imaginary exhibit, the course probes the past and the present to introduce students to the theoretical and practical aspects of museology.

Terms Taught

Fall 2023

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS, SAF

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Course Description

Seeing Double: Ideas of Duality in Sub-Saharan African Art
From idealized sculptural pairs to hermaphroditic figures, ideas of doubling and duality are enduring concerns in many sub-Saharan African cultures. In this seminar, we will explore this theme by closely analyzing artworks from Mali to Madagascar from the 12th to the 21st century whose iconography features couples and dualistic imagery as well as bipartite figurative and masquerade traditions, among others. Through weekly readings, written and verbal reflections, and museum visits, we will elucidate relationships between the objects and the worldviews that inspired them. Culminating in a virtual group exhibit and complementary individual research papers and presentations, we will learn how these artworks make visible powerful abstract forces that influence the behaviors, well-being, and lives of their users.

Terms Taught

Spring 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS, SAF

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Course Description

The Rise and Fall of Detroit: Urban Histories and Architectural Fragments
In this class, we will investigate the rich and complicated built environment of Detroit. By looking at both visual evidence and textual sources we will uncover how the city was transformed from its roots as a trading outpost into an industrial powerhouse and “arsenal of democracy,” and then became synonymous with urban “blight,” racial animus, and ruin tourism. We will orient ourselves to the different neighborhoods of Metro Detroit, diving into the past as we examine the buildings, monuments, and landmarks—both existing and destroyed—that constitute the city. Together, we will create a map of the city, which we will add to and adulterate through the term. This shared work will help serve as the basis for informal discussions and presentations throughout the term. By the conclusion of this course, you will be comfortable “reading” buildings and spaces and will be able to navigate both the physical city of Detroit and the many layers of (contentious) history buried within. An interdisciplinary endeavor, this course draws on writings by architectural historians, landscape historians, art historians, anthropologists, geographers, urban historians, scholars from ethnic studies and cultural studies, among many others.

Terms Taught

Spring 2025

Requirements

AMR, ART, HIS

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Course Description

Design, Ornament, and Adornment: Self-Expression and Dissent
Considering the 20th and 21st century disparagement of ornament and fetishization of minimalism by Western design practitioners and the art world, why, when, and by whom has ornament been celebrated? In this seminar course we will consider how makeup, clothing, and the curation of domestic space are related to social status, commodity culture, religious practices, and broader design cultures (product design, architecture) over a range of cultures and epochs. What constituted “power dressing” in fifteenth century Peru versus Spain? What does historical makeup application (including the use of poisonous Venetian ceruse!) tell us about social status and morality in Elizabethan England? We will read primary and secondary sources, examine material culture and physical spaces, blend pigments, design product components, and work with Special Collections to curate a physical and virtual exhibition.

Terms Taught

Fall 2024

Requirements

ART, CMP, HIS

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Course Description

AS/Habitat for Humanity Housing Unit: Research, Planning, and Schematic Design
Architectural Studies at Middlebury partners with Habitat for Architectural Studies at Middlebury partners with Habitat for Humanity of Addison County for the design and realization of high-quality, energy-efficient, affordable housing. The objective of this studio is to research, plan, and begin the architectural design for a housing unit with a specific program and location. Students will work primarily in the studio space and rely heavily on internal and external review of their work. The course provides a foundation for more advanced study in architecture, landscape architecture, and other fields related to the design of the built environment, and provides opportunities to work with professionals and Cameron Visiting Architects. This studio will continue into HARC 0372. Students should expect a substantial amount of work outside of class time. (HARC 0130 or by permission) 3 hrs. lect./3 hrs. lab.
John McLeod is a current faculty member and a practicing architect./

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023

Requirements

ART, WTR

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Course Description

AS/Habitat for Humanity Housing Unit: From Design Development to Bidding
Architectural Studies at Middlebury partners with Habitat for Humanity of Addison County for the design and realization of high-quality, energy-efficient, affordable housing. The objective of this interdisciplinary studio course is to develop the design of the housing unit from a conceptual level to the point that it can be bid upon competitively by contractors. This intensive process will be driven by a schedule of deliverables conceived to allow for construction to start in the following spring. Studio components include materials selection; energy analysis; code review, construction detailing; permitting; physical and digital modeling; engineering coordination; and construction specifications. This studio will continue into HARC 0373 (formerly INTD 0274) during WT: AS/Habitat for Humanity: Design Production. Students should expect a substantial amount of work outside of class time. (HARC 0330 or HARC 0371 or by permission) 3 hrs. lect./3hrs lab

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

AS/Habitat for Humanity Housing Unit: Construction Documents
Architectural Studies at Middlebury partners with Habitat for Humanity of Addison County for the design and realization of high-quality, energy-efficient, and affordable housing. The objective of this interdisciplinary studio course is to finalize and generate the construction documentation for the housing unit design generated in HARC 0371 & HARC 0372. A schedule of deliverables with an accompanying set of deadlines will need to be met to allow for construction to start in spring 2021. The studio components include final architectural and constructional detailing; building code compliance; building permitting finalization; physical and CAD modeling; structural coordination; and construction specifications. Students should expect a substantial amount of work outside of class time. (Approval Required) (formerly INTD 0274)

Terms Taught

Winter 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Spring 2025

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Course Description

WWI and Its Legacies in Art and Photography
“We will glorify war,” declared the Italian poet Marinetti in the 1909 Futurist Manifesto. For Marinetti and his fellow writers and artists, military conflict held the promise of restoring a decadent Europe. Meanwhile, the new technology of photography was being deployed across the Ottoman Empire by European governments to document a declining empire with vast territory up for grabs. The outbreak of World War I, however, soon exposed the grim realities and failed promises of modernity and technologies of warfare. In this course we will consider how art and photography in Europe, America, and across the Ottoman Empire documented, portrayed, and confronted World War I, and the colonial and aesthetic legacies of the first industrialized global war in today’s world.

Terms Taught

Fall 2022

Requirements

ART, CMP, EUR

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Course Description

Design Lab I
High quality design succeeds through problem solving and iteration. In this studio course, students first each identify a problem and devise a solution that that uses high-tech equipment like CNC fabrication, robotics, 3D printing, laser cutting, or 2D/3D graphics. They also build a production calendar with at least two design iterations toward a final deliverable. And then they head out on the adventure of project work where they discover the unforeseen surprises, knowledge and experience gaps, and calendar setbacks that define serious design work. The outcome is a final deliverable in metal, wood, plastic, or pixels.

Terms Taught

Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Design Lab II
In this collaborative follow-up to Design Lab 1, students move beyond their independent practice and work with a project partner (a professor or instructor, a not-for-profit or business collaborator) to identify a real-world problem. Students conduct outreach, research, planning, execution, revision, and final delivery of a solution to the problem defined. Along the way, they practice effective communication with their partner toward the goal of building strong relationships with entities on- and off-campus.

Terms Taught

Fall 2024

Requirements

ART

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Course Description

Advanced Studies
Supervised independent work in art history, museum studies, or architectural studies. (Approval Required)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Supervised independent work in architectural analysis and design. (Approval Required)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Supervised Independent Work in Museum Studies
This practicum builds upon the Museum Assistants Program (MAP), the hands-on museum education program at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. In MAP, the Curator of Education trains students to conduct tours of the Museum’s permanent collection and of special exhibitions for audiences of peers, school groups, and the general public. Combining service learning with the opportunity to both support and learn more about the arts, students gain expertise in public speaking, art history, and public programming. HARC 0540 should be taken concurrently with the second semester of MAP. The class will culminate with a public presentation on a museum-related topic evaluated by a faculty member of the Department of History of Art & Architecture. (Approval required)

Terms Taught

Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2021, Fall 2021, Spring 2022, Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025

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Course Description

Senior Thesis Research Seminar
In this course students will conceive, undertake research, and plan the organization of their senior thesis in art history or senior museum studies projects. Seminar discussions and workshops will focus on research strategies, conventions in art historical writing, project design, and public presentation skills. (HARC 0301; Approval Required) 3 hr. sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

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Course Description

Senior Thesis: Research and Writing
This course is a continuation of HARC 0710 which consists of ongoing, supervised independent research, plus organizing, writing and presenting a senior thesis. (HARC 0301 and HARC 0710).

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Winter 2021, Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Fall 2024, Winter 2025

Requirements

WTR

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Course Description

Thesis in Architectural Studies: Research
This studio course constitutes the first part of the two-term senior design project in Architectural Studies. Pre-design research includes precedent study, programming, site analysis, and formulation of a thesis to be investigated through the design process. Preliminary design work begins with conceptual studies, and culminates in a coherent schematic design, to be developed further in Senior Architectural Design, Part II. Students present their work in graphic, oral, and written formats. (HARC 0330 or equivalent) 6 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024

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Course Description

Thesis in Architectural Studies: Design
This studio course constitutes the second part of the two-term senior design project in Architectural Studies. Building upon the architectural research, analysis, and preliminary design work conducted during the fall semester, students develop their thesis projects to a higher level of understanding and refinement. Students also engage in intense peer review and work with visiting design critics, concluding with public presentations of the final projects, and a project portfolio describing all aspects of the completed design. (HARC 0731) 6 hrs. sem.

Terms Taught

Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023, Spring 2023, Winter 2024, Winter 2025

Requirements

WTR

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Course Description

Senior Thesis: Museum Studies
This course is a continuation of HARC 0710, which consists of ongoing, supervised independent work with an advisor, plus organizing, writing, and presenting a curatorial or museum-based thesis or exhibition. (Approval Required)

Terms Taught

Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023, Winter 2024, Winter 2025

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Course Description

Bollywood and Beyond: Topics and Themes in Indian Cinema
‘Bollywood,’ the term given to the Indian film industry juggernaut in Bombay (Mumbai), India, has gained an avid following of millions of viewers worldwide. In this course we will provide a critical consideration of the history and development of this popular Indian film industry. We will focus on such topics as the construction of an Indian national identity, notions of gender, idealized beauty, caste, class, religion, social norms, globalism, modernity, politics, nationalism, and fundamentalism. Films are subtitled and no knowledge of another language is expected. Lectures, discussion, and readings will accompany screenings.

Terms Taught

Winter 2022, Winter 2024, Winter 2025

Requirements

AAL, ART, SOA, WTR

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Course Description

Museum Studies: Exhibit Design
In this course we will explore the many aspects of the exhibit design process in a museum setting–from object care and interpretation through space analysis, display furniture design, graphics, and lighting. Utilizing digital images, readings, and discussions, the class will explore the history of exhibit design from Victorian curiosity rooms to current trends in interactive exhibits and designing for the disabled. Through hands-on exercises, model making, and electronic CAD and graphics programs, students will experiment with exhibit lighting, gallery layouts, and graphic design. Students will keep a daily design journal and as a final project, each student will present a formal design proposal of a particular museum installation. This course will count as an elective towards the History of Art Major.
Ken has designed more than 150 exhibits, mostly for his 35-year career at the Middlebury College Museum of Art./

Terms Taught

Winter 2023

Requirements

ART, WTR

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Course Description

I'm So Mad I Made This Sign
In an increasingly visual world understanding the constructions intertwining image and text are an essential skill. Graphic design explicitly engages these structures, and in this course we will explore its history and practice through the design of Posters. The poster format offers a variety of challenges for the beginning designer in its uses of direction, narrative, and illustration.  Central to the course will be the history and theory of poster design. Putting this history into practice, each student will choose their own topic, research it, and design their own poster. By term’s end each student will have their own 18”x24” poster to be displayed.
With an MFA in Design, and a BS in Graphic Design, Sepi Alavi has been designing for 20 years./

Terms Taught

Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023

Requirements

ART, WTR

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Course Description

Photography and the Ethics of Witnessing
In this course we will consider photography as an eyewitness to violence and human suffering and the ethical position of the viewer. What does it mean to regard the pain of others? Can there be beauty in violence? Can a photograph alone speak truth? Can photographs initiate empathy or spark activism? Are we so bombarded with images of violence that we are immune to their power? To explore these questions, we will examine a series of case studies, from photography’s earliest documentation on the battlefield to contemporary examples of drone imagery used to wage war from a distance. We will also consider contemporary artists who integrate documentary photography into their practice as a form of resistance.

Terms Taught

Winter 2022

Requirements

ART, WTR

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Course Description

Abenaki Art Then and Now
This course provides a broad overview of over 12,000 years of regional Native American culture, including history, arts, cultural perspectives on place, kinship, relationship building, and self-determination through Abenaki voices and artistic expressions. Interactive class discussions will cultivate new understandings about decolonization, identity, gender, blood quantum, cultural appropriation versus appreciation of art, and allyship with the local Abenaki community. Through an Indigenous methodology called “Two-Eyed Seeing” in the Mi’kmaw language, we bring Western and Indigenous Perspectives together by exploring Western views through one eye and Indigenous views through the other. Diverse perspectives of scholars such as Ruth Phillips, Jason Baird Jackson, Lisa Brooks (Abenaki) and Indigenous culture bearers will be brought together to illuminate course themes. No prerequisites.

Vera Longtoe Sheehan, scholar, educator, activist, and artist, is the Executive Director of the Vermont Abenaki Artists Association, Founder of the Abenaki Arts & Education Center, and formerly a Museum Educator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Vera is an Executive Board Member for the Vermont Humanities Council and on the Act 1 Task Force (2019 – present) dedicated to ethnic and social equity studies./

Terms Taught

Winter 2024, Winter 2025

Requirements

ART, WTR

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Course Description

The Renaissance Artist at Work
In this course we will explore the role and practice of the Italian Renaissance artist. Through lectures, readings, discussions, and hands-on studios, students will learn about the distinctive forms of training and tradition that all 15th century artists followed, from the now anonymous to celebrities such as Leonardo and Michelangelo. The professions of painter and sculptor were shaped by strict expectations that extended from who could practice to what constituted an apprenticeship. Once weekly, we will create our own (more inclusive) Renaissance studio. Working with a local expert, we will learn to make charcoal and silver point drawings, pounce a cartoon, make small tempera and oil paintings, and even try our hand at fresco technique.

Terms Taught

Winter 2024, Winter 2025

Requirements

ART, EUR, HIS, WTR

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Course Description

Print Culture and the History of the Book, 1450-1800
Students will learn the historical background and bibliographic skills needed to use printed books from the hand-press period (1450-1800) in their own research. Readings and discussions will focus on: the material culture of the printed book and its impact on Western society; the technical aspects of printing and publishing in the hand-press period, including binding techniques/styles, print illustration processes, bibliographic description; and how bibliographic studies can inform humanities scholarship. This course will be partially embedded in the Middlebury Special Collections Library, and students will conduct original research on a book of their choosing from the collection.

Terms Taught

Winter 2022

Requirements

WTR

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Course Description

Data Science Across Disciplines
In this course, we will gain exposure to the entire data science pipeline—obtaining and cleaning large and messy data sets, exploring these data and creating engaging visualizations, and communicating insights from the data in a meaningful manner. During morning sessions, we will learn the tools and techniques required to explore new and exciting data sets. During afternoon sessions, students will work in small groups with one of several faculty members on domain-specific research projects in Sociology, Neuroscience, Animation, Art History, or Environmental Science. This course will utilize the R programming language. No prior experience with R is necessary.
ENVS: Students will engage in research within environmental health science—the study of reciprocal relationships between human health and the environment. High-quality data and the skills to make sense of these data are key to studying environmental health across diverse spatial scales, from individual cells through human populations. In this course, we will explore common types of data and analytical tools used to answer environmental health questions and inform policy.
FMMC: Students will explore how to make a series of consequential decisions about how to present data and how to make it clear, impactful, emotional or compelling. In this hands-on course we will use a wide range of new and old art making materials to craft artistic visual representations of data that educate, entertain, and persuade an audience with the fundamentals of data science as our starting point.
NSCI/MATH: Students will use the tools of data science to explore quantitative approaches to understanding and visualizing neural data. The types of neural data that we will study consists of electrical activity (voltage and/or spike trains) measured from individual neurons and can be used to understand how neurons respond to and process different stimuli (e.g., visual or auditory cues). Specifically, we will use this neural data from several regions of the brain to make predictions about neuron connectivity and information flow within and across brain regions.
SOCI: Students will use the tools of data science to examine how experiences in college are associated with social and economic mobility after college. Participants will combine sources of "big data" with survey research to produce visualizations and exploratory analyses that consider the importance of higher education for shaping life chances.
HARC: Students will use the tools of data science to create interactive visualizations of the Dutch textile trade in the early eighteenth century. These visualizations will enable users to make connections between global trade patterns and representations of textiles in paintings, prints, and drawings.

Terms Taught

Winter 2021, Winter 2022

Requirements

ART, DED, EUR, WTR

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