Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism: Courses

This advanced graduate seminar examines the meanings of space in architectural history from different historical, social, philosophical, and regional perspectives. Taking a comparative standpoint with a global reach, the buildings, interiors, and city plans covered in this course include both major and minor works of western and non-western architecture, from antiquity to the present. The focus of the readings is on primary texts by architects and theorists of key historical moments and schools of thought. Special attention is placed on how architecture has been studied in the historiography of architectural history. It continues the ideas explored in the Survey of Modern and Postmodern Architecture and Design, towards an advanced understanding of writing about and studying human built environments. The course is open to all eligible graduate students at SAIC.

This advanced graduate seminar examines the meanings of space in architectural history from different historical, social, philosophical, and regional perspectives. Taking a comparative standpoint with a global reach, the buildings, interiors, and city plans covered in this course include both major and minor works of western and non-western architecture, from antiquity to the present. The focus of the readings is on primary texts by architects and theorists of key historical moments and schools of thought. Special attention is placed on how architecture has been studied in the historiography of architectural history. It continues the ideas explored in the Survey of Modern and Postmodern Architecture and Design, towards an advanced understanding of writing about and studying human built environments. The course is open to all eligible graduate students at SAIC.

Walter Benjamin described answering the telephone when he was a child around the turn of the last century as follows: 'I tore off the two receivers?and was inexorably delivered over to the voice that now sounded. There was nothing to allay the violence that now pierced me.' The new technological media introduced around 1900 had violently disruptive effects on the senses and bodies of their users, on conceptions of time and space, and on the possibilities of art and politics. In this seminar, we examine these media and the use artists made of them in the early twentieth century, from the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann'' invention of the Optophone to the Surrealist practice of dropping in and out of movies at random rather than watching them from start to finish. We draw heavily on Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media and Friedrich A. Kittler's Gramophone, Film, Typewriter in our investigations, so that this course also serves as an introduction to media theory.

Brian Eno?s statement that there is not enough Africa in computers is premised on a distinction between ?straight? technology and ?African? technological disturbances and improvisations. We study theorists, visual artists, and musicians who understand technology as imperialistic and, therefore, the hijacking of technology as anti-imperialistic. We study Frantz Fanon?s essay on radio jamming during the Algerian war for independence, reggae and dub in Jamaica and London, and hacking as postcolonial digital art. We then discuss the growing number of artists making interventions in the virtual and physical spaces of Africa (physical computing): for instance Ralph Borland?s visual maps of ?wardriven? wireless networks in Johannesburg and Robin Rhode?s hip hop performances and photography in the dead zones of urban Cape Town.

This class investigates the contemporary art world through total immersion in the Chicago art scene, including museums, galleries, and artist-run spaces, meeting many art professionals including curators, arts administrators, critics, art historians, and artists. In a succession of field trips, the class looks at art in exhibition spaces and artists' studios, discuss it as a group, do interviews, and analyze our contemporary-art situation in Chicago and internationally, both present and future. Please note that attendance during alternate days and times at galleries, collections, and events will constitute many of the class sessions. The Monday morning sessions on-campus at SAIC noted in the schedule apply only to weeks when the class is not attending events elsewhere. Students must be willing to attend both depending on weekly scheduling of events which will be given out on the syllabus the first week of school.

This course probes the long association in the modern era, between Latin American art and situations of economic, political, ecological, and humanitarian crisis. Crisis, the point at which things break down, is the flipside of developmentalism, the utopian project of modernization that the region?s nations have undergone in different guises from the 1920s through the present. Against the dream that the state could distribute services, maintain order, and educate and uplift its people stand the grim histories and continuing realities of dictatorship, corruption, foreign intervention, mass poverty and migration, state terror, and, more recently, illicit markets and their collateral damage. A major portion of class discussion centers around what an appropriate artistic response to crisis--a truly political art, perhaps--might look like, but we are not limited to pragmatics, as a great deal of Latin American modernism and contemporary art has also explored the poetics of the most exigent circumstances. We remain alert to the dangers of stereotyping the region as irrevocably crisis-ridden as much as to the possibility that its models of crisis may prefigure or even mirror those of North America.

This graduate seminar explores the allographic regimes constituted in the relationship between textual and pictorial representation and multiple technologies of reproduction. Through the close study of representation, reproduction, and the broader media environment, this course will introduce students to the material practices and discursive realities of graphic and typographic cultures in the age of the mass image. Students will take paratextual and intermedial approaches to the examination of text and image in multiple formats, tracking modes of direct transmissions of knowledge. The seminar meets and draws on the wealth of available resources in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at SAIC, and the Newberry Library, among other institutions. Some of the themes: immutable mobility of representation; authorship and audience in the age of mechanical reproduction; movement, space, and ornament; photocomposition and photo reproduction; mediated practices; national and international circulation; and others directly related to the textual and pictorial construction of knowledge sets and expert practices. We look at a tightly constrained range of objects from William Morris' Kelmscott Chaucer and News From Nowhere, to the Zodiaque series on Romanesque art and architecture, from Will Bradley's illustrations for Ladies Home Journal, to the Bauhausbucher series, and Hans Bellmer's Les Jeaux de la Poupee, among others.

This seminar provides a critical framework for contemporary fashion artists and designers. Through close readings of pertinent texts and viewing of visual and tactile material, this course examines pertinent issues in cultural and anthropological studies to contemporary design theory. The impact of technological, economic, and cultural shifts manifested through fashion practice serves as a basis for critical analysis of work.

This seminar will explore the desire for consumer goods as a cultural phenomenon in the second half of the nineteenth century. Looking at the act of display, new modes of marketing, and the depiction of fashion in art and literature will allow us to interrogate a developing modernist iconography (1850-1900) that served both to redefine and disguise the visual codes of class, status, and gender.

This class explores the intersections of design and politics. From the circulation of messages and materials related to revolutions, to personal habits of consumption and use, we will consider how design creates and responds to ideological programs and agendas. Students will develop their own paths of inquiry, selecting core issues (such as environmental, labor, social, or ideological interventions) to track in design history and culture. Our readings and writings will focus on the question, 'do artifacts have politics?' as we consider design practices both official and subversive.

This class takes a critical look at contemporary performance art practices by focusing on the ways in which performance art is presented to audiences around the world. It examines not only world performance events and workshops but also study ways in which performance artists connect to one another and establish communities through performance festivals and workshops as well as via documentation, archival practices and re-performance. It also studies how artists embody history and identity through performance.

The relationship between the visual arts and writing is vexed--and fundamental to the practices of art historians and critics. From the Renaissance doctrine of ut pictura poesis ('As is painting, so is poetry') to Rauschenberg's telegraphed portrait of Iris Clert ('THIS IS A PORTRAIT OF IRIS CLERT IF I SAY SO'), this seminar explores episodes in this difficult relationship, investigating works in the borderlands between text and object to probe problems of description, interpretation, narrative, ekphrasis, and allegory.

Drawing on the recent proposition by Carrie Lambert-Beatty, this course explores the use of fiction as an artistic device throughout twentieth-century art, from tricksterism in Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia to the self-mythologization of figures in the neo-avant-garde such as Yves Klein and Josef Beuys and from the incorporation of fiction in conceptual artists such as Marcel Broodthaers and Bas Jan Ader through the present-day interest in mixing fact and fiction in relation to social and political realities by practitioners of 'relational aesthetics' such as Pierre Huyghe, Walid Raad and the Atlas Group, and The Yes Men.

Imposing order on Pablo Picasso's seven-decade career is a challenge. A sampling of styles allots two phases to Cubism (with collage and Guitar [1912] the sparks for much impolite debate); two, three, or even four stints of Classicism; and the 'starter' phases dubbed the 'Blue' and 'Rose' Periods. Should an intrinsic restlessness across Picasso's work--perhaps one activated by his peerless drawing--be explored instead? We take up this challenge in our seminar. Two touchstones: first, the indispensable works by Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Pierre Matisse in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection; and second, the ascetic (and relatively neglected) attraction of early Picasso (i.e., pre-Les Demoiselles d'Avignon [1907]). Our readings pay special attention to those scholars who have grappled with Picasso's divisions (including Lisa Florman and Yve-Alain Bois) without neglecting commentaries on Picasso's work now considered virtually as monumental as the artist himself (Gertrude Stein's portrait of 1909, Picasso; Leo Steinberg's essay on the Demoiselles [1973; 1988]).

With the overwhelming success of the recent traveling show Rolywholyover, the ubiquitous presence of John Cage in the arts since 1950 has been confirmed by the public. Cage's synthesis of the ideas of luminaries such as Eckhart, Thoreau, Duchamp, Satie, Stein, Hoyce, Varese, Coomaraswamy, Suzuki, McLuhan-and his camaraderie with Moholy-Nagy, Tobey, Pollock, Rauschenberg, DeKooning, Rivers, M. C. Richards, Nevelson, Cunningham, von Fischinger, Fuller, et al.-informed his unique approach to the creative process. His writings and works, both musical and visual, continue to exert a profound influence on the work of artists today. This seminar will examine this phenomenon through Cage's extensive creative output, as well as through actual spoken works from his numerous appearances, including visits to the School of the Art Institute.

The production and consumption of material and, some would argue immaterial objects, is at the heart of cultural formation. The course interrogates issues in relation to the everyday and designed objects through our understanding of design and its objects, their significance in daily life and the cultures of production, mediation and interaction. The course also examines the dilemma we face in contemporary practice in labeling objects as craft, art or design.

This seminar explores core theories of the object in industrial and post-industrial societies. Readings in phenomenology, material culture, and design studies will inform a critical analysis of the roles of objects in various contexts, including intensive explorations of the public, private, commercial, and global lives of things. Classes take a hands-on approach, with discussions of objects (and subjects) in the classroom, the museum, and various non-conventional sites.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.

The thesis, as the final requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism, demonstrates the student's ability to present a lucid, sustained work of scholarly research and critical thinking on a specific topic in the field of 19th, 20th and 21st-century art. The thesis indicates the student's thorough command of the available documentation and scholarly research on the subject and suggests clearly-defined objectives and a methodologically-sound approach to a fresh assessment of the topic. This seminar assists the student in selecting, researching, analyzing, designing, organizing, and writing the Art History thesis. Students learn how to select and narrow their topic by organizing materials; preparing an outline, abstract, and bibliography; and defending their proposal before a faculty panel. During this semester, they select their thesis committee and complete most of the research. This seminar is required for the Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism and is taken in the second or third semester of course work.

In the past twenty or more years the art world has witnessed a multiplication of blockbuster exhibitions in what has been called the 'biennialization of art. These exhibitions are in large part where theories of globalization are formulated and debated. Our course interrogates certain claims that art critics and historians make about biennials, namely that they obliterate nationalism, that their format allows for the exhibition of 'difference' and political chaos as such, and/or that they homogenize the form, medium, and content of art. We will study the histories, conceptual models, and locations of foundational exhibitions such as the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, S?o Paulo, Dak'art, Havana, Documenta, Whitney, Sydney and Venice. We will then examine and relate to these historical exhibitions some newer biennials--Shanghai, Istanbul, Guangzhou, Johannesburg, Luanda, Dubai, etc.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

In this seminar, the genesis of the discipline of art history, its founding and continuing assumptions are examined through close readings of key texts in the discipline up until the period of high formalism in the 1950s. Readings are chosen from among the following thinkers: Kugler, Schnaase, Morelli, Riegl, Wolfflin, Focillon, Panofsky, and Warburg. Student reports focus on others. Discussions introduce issues regarding the rise of art history in universities, professional organizations, and conferences, and the relation between museum and academia. Formalism, contextualism, universal history, and the relation between nationalism and art are explored.

This seminar considers various modern and contemporary approaches to the study of art and design--broadly defined--by a range of historians, critics, and theorists. We will focus on both Anglo-American and Continental traditions without following a strictly historiographical review. Instead, methodologies and theoretical approaches will emerge from our discussions on the manner in which the practice of the study of art and design intersects with conceptual problematics of interdisciplinarity as an analytic and intellectual practice. Readings will include, but are not limited to Focillon, Giedion, Heidegger, Kubler, Latour, Nodelman, Schwartz, Wollflin and others.

In the introduction to Burning with Desire, Geoffrey Batchen suggests that the study of photography has been largely divided by two opposing points of view, one that is interested in the essential, formal characteristics of photography and another that considers photography, and photographic meaning, to be determined by cultural context. Starting with this general rubric, we examine how that divide is addressed, reinforced, reconfigured and dismantled in recent studies of photography. Readings range from the pre-history of photography to digital imaging. We discuss works by cultural historians and art historians, and consider both popular and professional photographic practices. Texts will include books by Geoffrey Batchen, Carol Mavor, Robin Kelsey, Blake Stimson, and Christopher Pinney, among others. Class assignments include rigorous weekly discussions of the readings, two turns at leading class discussions, a final presentation based on the final project for the course, and a final project that may be written (15 pages) or studio-based.

This is a writing workshop for art historians, critics, visual studies scholars, and art theorists. We bring together three discourses: the often impoverished talk about 'good writing' in academia (Alexander Nemerov, T.J. Clark, Leo Steinberg); the scattered examples of poststructural writing on art (Jean-Louis Schefer, Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Helene Cixous, Griselda Pollock); and the flourishing experimental writing scene (Marjorie Perloff, Vanessa Place, Kenny Goldsmith, Caroline Bergvall, Craig Dworkin, and Christian Bok).

Cities make visible the flow and interaction of humans, spatial organization, material, and technology. This dynamic context becomes the source for the creation of new approaches used in a city's own continued resolution. Chicago Tableaux uses the city of Chicago as a case study to examine how it's buildings evidence significant historical influences in architecture, both current and from antiquity, creating linkages from the present-day city to the various tropes and canons that have shaped both thought and form in city and building making over time. Course activity includes reading, discussion, city excursions, descriptive analysis and writing projects.

This lecture course surveys design history, from 1750 to the present day. It introduces the ideas that have driven design in the modern era. Critical and interdisciplinary investigations of artifacts, built environments, and texts throughout the course seek to establish essential links between designers, objects, and users in the history and culture industry of design and architecture. Representative texts of cultural theory supplement lectures for engaged forms of material analysis. In addition to introducing an inclusive overview, the course emphasizes creative ways of probing material sources for writing and critiquing design history and current design practices. It is a required course for all graduate students in the Master of Architecture, Master of Architecture with Emphasis in Interior Architecture and Master of Design in Designed Objects programs.

This lecture course surveys design history, from 1750 to the present day. It introduces the ideas that have driven design in the modern era. Critical and interdisciplinary investigations of artifacts, built environments, and texts throughout the course seek to establish essential links between designers, objects, and users in the history and culture industry of design and architecture. Representative texts of cultural theory supplement lectures for engaged forms of material analysis. In addition to introducing an inclusive overview, the course emphasizes creative ways of probing material sources for writing and critiquing design history and current design practices. It is a required course for all graduate students in the Master of Architecture, Master of Architecture with Emphasis in Interior Architecture and Master of Design in Designed Objects programs.

By the beginning of the century, the Salon exhibition was already as the most important arena in which the reputations of young artists could be made or broken, and it was art critics--by and large--who determined their fates. The Salon's centrality may have diminished over time, but Paris's thriving print culture, along with the traditional prestige of art criticism as an occupation, ensured a continuing and vital role for an array of commentators. This milieu is at the heart of our course. Canonical figures (Baudelaire, Stendhal, Feneon) are considered as well as lesser-known voices (Chaussard, Thore). These contemporary viewers looked long and hard at individual works of art; we will do the same--to this end, visits to the AIC are a vital feature of this course. Previous knowledge of French not essential; translations are given.

This class investigates the contemporary art world through total immersion in the Chicago art scene, including museums, galleries, and artist-run spaces, meeting many art professionals including curators, arts administrators, critics, art historians, and artists. In a succession of field trips, the class looks at art in exhibition spaces and artists' studios, discuss it as a group, do interviews, and analyze our contemporary-art situation in Chicago and internationally, both present and future. Please note that attendance during alternate days and times at galleries, collections, and events will constitute many of the class sessions. The Monday morning sessions on-campus at SAIC noted in the schedule apply only to weeks when the class is not attending events elsewhere. Students must be willing to attend both depending on weekly scheduling of events which will be given out on the syllabus the first week of school.

This seminar provides a critical framework for contemporary fashion artists and designers. Through close readings of pertinent texts and viewing of visual and tactile material, this course examines pertinent issues in cultural and anthropological studies to contemporary design theory. The impact of technological, economic, and cultural shifts manifested through fashion practice serves as a basis for critical analysis of work.

This course aims to give a thorough grounding in a phenomenon, which has been called 'the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties.' In this seminar, students investigate the politics, theory, aesthetics, and practice of Fluxists, whose activities deliberately confused the borders between painting, poetry, music, sculpture, and life. Their work raises problems which echo dada and agitprop, while prefiguring punk and, arguably, postmodernism.

This seminar will focus on critical issues in recent music and audio art. Topics will include: Power and Responsibility-the influence of politics, identity and technology in composed and improvised musical decision making; Pleasure-the role of 'bump and mind' in the crossover of 'high' and 'low' musical culture; Groove, Pit and Wave-recording, transmission and music, the grain beneath the voice; Reducing the Tempo to Zero-the crisis of the beat after Christian Wolff and Morton Feldman, the time of music versus the time of installations; Chip Chop Shop (or Searching for the Perfect Beep)-the role of specific technological objects in the rise of new musical forms. After an initial series of lectures, students will be expected to research topics (chosen in consultation with the instructor), and present them in written and oral form, as well as guide group discussion. The course will draw on the extensive collection of recordings and printed materials in the Flaxman Library, as well as the instructor's and students' personal resources.

This seminar examines the emerging artistic practices of video, performance, and installation, mostly circa 1970. It examines artists use of 'feedback,' which is a concept intended to suggest dynamic interactions between artists, practices, and viewers. We will ask how feedback transforms works of art from metaphors of reality into reality itself, and explore this transformation in terms of culture and ethics. These issues will also be pursued from more recent perspectives, as we conclude the semester by examining the relationship between 'feedback' and 'relational aesthetics.' Artists we consider include Chris Burden, Joseph Beuys, Vito Acconci, Lynda Benglis, Bruce Nauman, Nancy Holt, Robert Smithson, Nam June Paik, Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Dan Graham, Mike Kelley, Judy Chicago, Anish Kapoor, Wolfgang Laib, Felix Gonzales-Torres, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, and others.

Art criticism-the description, analysis, exegesis, contextualization, and judgement of art-is perceived as being a bit bedraggled of late. It just doesn't seem to be doing its job. It is either lumbering under the ponderous weight of crusty deconstructive theory, or fleeing to the safety of the academy with its self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling hermeticism. It is crippled by the strangling constraints of political correctness, wallowing in a solipsistic subjectivism, stuck in celebrity self-aggrandizement, and floundering in a vest undifferentiated sea of relativism. What to do? This seminar comprises reading, writing, and discussion of art criticism and cultural commentary, including a concise historical survey and many field trips to visit area exhibitions, curators, and artists. The current state of criticism is assessed by readings of contemporary art writing in journals, weeklies, daily newspapers, and on the web. Special attention is devoted to understanding different audience for practical as well as theoretical reasons. Emphasis is placed on developing new critical strategies to address new types of artistic practice-installation, video, digital media, interactive and socially engaged projects and service oriented practices-and on new venues for art criticism-new journals, 'zines, CDroms, and the internet. This is accomplished though visiting art exhibitions, class discussion of critical strategies, writing and presenting one analytical research paper.

Walter Benjamin's cultural criticism sought to grasp the nature of the dramatic social upheavals and transformations of his time (1892-1940). This work tried to discern emancipatory possibilities in contemporary social developments and the emergence of new cultural forms such as photography and cinema, but it was nonetheless preoccupied by problems of recovering past social and cultural history. In readings from Benjamin's major essays,the class seeks the critical intention of his cryptic utterances on problems of modern subjectivity in social history. These texts have provoked musings on temporality and the sense of history in present-day and 'postmodernist' social and cultural criticism. Other readings include selections from writers after Benjamin such as Susan Buck-Morss and filmmaker Alexander Kluge.

This course considers various artworks and centers of art production during the Cold War in the United States, the divided Germany, Africa, Latin America, and the divided Korea. We study artists who interrogated the global cultural divide, establishing North/South and South/South networks and complicating the anti-modernism of much of the global proselytizing of Socialist Realism. The course covers key Cold War era exhibitions, theories of developmentalism in art of the Global South, and artwork that envisioned a Socialist modernism.

Roger Brown's art making activities and collections were influenced by and responsive to the material culture of places in which he lived. In this seminar the different aspects of Brown's life will be teased out, through direct contact with paintings and archival materials alongside visits to his Chicago home and remote inspections of the other collections in New Buffalo MI and La Conchita CA. Each week the class will encounter a different painting by Roger Brown and investigate its content. A close inspection of the paintings, and related archival materials at the Roger Brown Study collection, will be supplemented with visits to museum and private collections.

The thesis, as the final requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism, demonstrates the student's ability to present a lucid, sustained work of scholarly research and critical thinking on a specific topic in the field of 19th, 20th and 21st-century art. The thesis indicates the student's thorough command of the available documentation and scholarly research on the subject and suggests clearly-defined objectives and a methodologically-sound approach to a fresh assessment of the topic. This seminar assists the student in selecting, researching, analyzing, designing, organizing, and writing the Art History thesis. Students learn how to select and narrow their topic by organizing materials; preparing an outline, abstract, and bibliography; and defending their proposal before a faculty panel. During this semester, they select their thesis committee and complete most of the research. This seminar is required for the Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism and is taken in the second or third semester of course work.

In Spring 2012 students will work on the Graduate Exhibition ('MFA show') as part of a curatorial team. Directly aligned with one of the guest curators, they will assume responsible positions for a section of the overall show. Students will benefit from conceptual discussions, hands-on training, and participation in this overall scheme of curators, graduate assistants, faculty, staff, and participating artists in this major exhibition. By instructor consent only.

This graduate seminar explores the historical interactions of technology and architecture beginning with Gottfried Semper?s Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts (1862) and ending with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown?s Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (rev. 1977). Through the study of the practical and allegorical interaction of architecture and technology, students will gain not only a more robust understanding of modern architecture and its historical formations but also a greater appreciation for the technological in contemporary architectural practice. An examination of the historiography of architecture and technology moves us closer to understanding the history of architectural practice as both integration and index of complex assemblages.

This graduate seminar explores the historical interactions of technology and architecture beginning with Gottfried Semper?s Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts (1862) and ending with Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown?s Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (rev. 1977). Through the study of the practical and allegorical interaction of architecture and technology, students will gain not only a more robust understanding of modern architecture and its historical formations but also a greater appreciation for the technological in contemporary architectural practice. An examination of the historiography of architecture and technology moves us closer to understanding the history of architectural practice as both integration and index of complex assemblages.

This independent study program for Master of Arts in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism candidates is taken in the final term of coursework.