From the haunted images of William Mumler in the 1860’s to contemporary manifestations of digital ghost hunting, the search for elusive and invisible spirits by means of the camera lens has been an ongoing preoccupation in the history of photography for over 150 years. Starting with the emergence of phantasmagoric visual entertainments (ca. 1800), this course reviews this rich and fascinating history in Europe and North America but also with a few non-Western cultural examples (e.g., Japan, Philippines) focusing on key case studies in spirit photographic practice. The course considers various reasons why people have wanted to believe in the veracity of these phenomena (e.g., followers of the religious movement of Spiritualism) as well as why others have wanted to debunk spirit photography as a hoax or fraud (e.g., Harry Houdini and P.T. Barnum). Exploring theories derived from deconstruction and psychoanalysis, we seek to understand the philosophical and psychological significance of spirit photography introducing constructs such as hauntology, spectrality, the uncanny, and the work of mourning. The course also reviews how contemporary artists (e.g., Oursler, Beloff) have incorporated motifs and themes related to spirit photography in their works.

Examines art and architecture during the emergence of Christianity in the West until ca. 600, focusing primarily on Italy. Assesses the connections between polytheistic, imperial Roman art and new Christian traditions in a variety of media, including mosaics, metalwork, wall painting, and sculpture. Also considers the role of primary texts in the interpretation of Early Christian art.

Thematically organized treatment of major figures (Caravaggio, Carracci, Poussin) in the context of art theory and viewer response.

Art and architecture of royal and imperial families from ca. 800 to 1400 in western Europe, including Norman, Capetian, Plantagenet, and Hohenstaufen dynasties. Topics include the role of courts in the development and diffusion of new styles, and monuments as expressions of piety, chivalry, and political propaganda. May be taken for credit for the Specialist/Major programs in Architecture (St. George).

This course examines medieval works of art and architecture that challenge long-held ideas about the European Middle Ages as monocultural and exclusively Christian. It considers the mobility of people, objects, and ideas through migration, trade, diplomacy, conquest, and pilgrimage, and focuses on particular places where multiculturalism flourished, including Spain, Sicily, and Venice. It also evaluates multiculturalism from different eras, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary world, to better understand its different meanings and manifestations, as well as its impact on art history.

Examines the experience of pilgrimage from an interdisciplinary perspective, with focus on major Christian and Islamic shrines in the Middle Ages. Considers monuments associated with sites such as Santiago, Jerusalem, and Mecca, as well as objects collected by pilgrims. May be taken for credit for the Specialist/Major programs in Religion (U of T Mississauga), Christianity & Culture (St. George), and Architecture (St. George).

Study of origins, architecture and decoration of the Gothic Cathedral in the Ile-de-France, treating function and symbolism, intellectual and social contexts, and initial diffusion of the style to other countries. Considers post-medieval Gothic as well.

Topics in the sculpture, architecture, methods and biographical legacy of the principal 17th-century artist of the Roman baroque, GianLorenzo Bernini. Focus of the course changes from year to year. May be taken for credit for the Specialist/Major programs in Religion (U of T Mississauga), Christianity & Culture (St. George), and Architecture (St. George).

This lecture course will examine processes of cultural transfer and transformation in the planning of cities, churches, and viceregal palaces from the early days of contact through the Baroque in the Viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru and in Brasil. The persistence of indigenous beliefs and forms will be tracked in painting, sculpture, and architecture alongside the emergence of unique genres (i.e., castas, feather paintings), building types, and forms based on the particular makeup of a colonial society.

This course examines European painting, sculpture, architecture, landscape architecture, print culture, decorative arts, exhibition strategies, and art criticism of the eighteenth century. Key artists and writers to be studied from the age of enlightenment and revolution include Blake, Burke, David, Diderot, Fragonard, Girodet, Goya, Hogarth, Reynolds, Vigée-Lebrun, Watteau, Winckelmann, Boullée, Ledoux and Wright of Derby.

This course examines ideas, practices, and politics of craft that have emerged in the modern period in response to the industrial and digital revolutions, and other significant social and political changes. Topics covered include the place of craft in modern and contemporary art; gendered, classed, and raced understandings of craft; craft’s relationship to the environment; and Indigenous perspectives and practices.

This class embraces land- and earth-based skills as tools in the production and maintenance of revitalization efforts in Indigenous culture and knowledge. Throughout the course students will lead the development, production and maintenance of a Community Medicine Garden initiative to be located in the heart of the UTM campus. Topics include environmental liberation, food sovereignty, kinship, gardening as resistance, matriarchy, land stewardship, landscaping with regional indigenous plants, Indigenous feminisms, place-based knowledge and knowledge sharing. Activities will include: film screenings, community feasts, public readings, drumming circles, and guests speakers with Traditional Indigenous knowledge carriers, artists, environmental activists, and local grassroots community-based partners.

A study of artistic genres in contemporary art, including: video, performance, installation, site-specificity and digital media. Such new genres will be studied as alternative modes of artistic practice collaborative, ephemeral, institutionally critical, and discursive, and as a means to address questions and issues such as public space, community, networks of information, and global capitalism and activism.

What do we know about the pre-modern artists of the Muslim world? This course explores the lives or artist from the Muslim world and what we know about their education, status, styles, techniques and influences. The course includes examples of a calligrapher, a painter, a metalworker, a ceramicist, and an architect.

This course explores the three major cities of the pre-modern Muslim empires: Istanbul under the Ottomans, Isfahan under the Safavids, and Delhi under the Mughals. The course addresses the urban formation, architectural style, and visual symbolism of these cities.

This course traces a chronology of South Asian art from its genealogies in late colonial image-making traditions from the 1850s to the present, situating modernist 'high' art in terms of its conversation with the broader field of cultural practice in modern India: cinema, vernacular bazaar prints, rural and tribal craft traditions, practices of popular devotion, and 'classical' artistic traditions. It investigates the theoretical and political concerns animating South Asian cultural practices and their criticism (nationalism, Marxism, secularism, anti-fundamentalism, Islam, feminism, postcolonialism, issues of diaspora and globalization), and addresses the key question of how to approach practices of modernism and postmodernism in the postcolony.

Investigates the historical development of the Western discipline of art history through the theories that have shaped it; topics covered include formalism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, the social history of art, feminism, post-colonialism, queer studies and deconstruction.

An examination of a topic in modern art and or architecture. Topics vary from year to year; the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. This will be a lecture course for approximately 30 students.

An examination of a topic in modern art and or architecture. Topics vary from year to year; the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. This will be a lecture course for approximately 30 students.

An examination of a topic in the art and architecture of classical antiquity. Topics vary from year to year; the area of study and content in any given year depends upon the instructor. This will be a lecture course for approximately 30 students.

An in-depth examination of a topic in early modern (Renaissance and/or Baroque) art and/or architecture. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. A seminar course limited to approx. 30 students.

An examination of a topic in Islamic art and or architecture. Topics vary from year to year; the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. This will be a lecture course for approximately 30 students.

An examination of a topic in medieval art and or architecture. Topics vary from year to year; the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. This will be a lecture course for approximately 30 students.

This course provides a richly rewarding opportunity for students in their third year or beyond to work on the research project of a professor in art history/theory in return for 399Y course credit. Students enrolled have an opportunity to become involved in original research, enhance their research skills, and share in the excitement and discovery of acquiring new knowledge. Participating faculty members post their project descriptions for the following summer and fall/winter session on the ROP website in mid-February and students are invited to apply at that time. See Experiential and International Opportunities for more details.

Introduces a variety of approaches for interpreting, criticizing, evaluating, and theorizing photographs and photography in general. Examines how the thinking of photography is revisioned via major theoretical models.

Examines the art and architecture of the Mediterranean basin, including Western Christian, Byzantine, Islamic, and Jewish art, from the first century through the fifteenth. Considers their points of convergence as well as their distinct differences and priorities. Organized around key works of scholarship that have defined the emerging field of Mediterranean studies, along with primary sources. Considers works in all media, from monumental arts to textiles, metalwork, manuscripts, and ceramics. Also makes use of local museum holdings.

This course examines collections of medieval art assembled during the Middle Ages and today. It considers the formation of collections within religious and secular institutions of the Middle Ages (treasuries), and the ways in which objects entered such collections through diplomacy, war, dowries, wills, and new commissions. It examines how the collections expressed historical memory, family ties, religious ideas, and political ideologies, and how the objects were displayed. The course also examines collections of medieval art in the GTA, including those at the Aga Khan Museum, Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, and University of Toronto Art Centre. A variety of methodologies will be explored, including Digital Humanities.

This seminar examines the art and architecture of Rome from the first century CE through the fourteenth. It focuses on the city's art and image in the wake of Christianization and its often ambivalent attitudes toward its classical past. Works in all media, from large-scale churches, wall paintings, and icons will be considered, along with liturgical arts and manuscripts. Medieval texts will figure prominently as well.

An interdisciplinary study, including feminist analysis, of the roles of women in the Middle Ages, their representation in medieval art, and their impact on varying aspects of the art as subject, object, patron or artist.

Students will research and develop a curatorial project proposal in the form of an exhibition, a public installation, a public event, a performance, a website, etc., as the culminating assignment for the course. The emphasis of the course will be on the application of knowledge gained in FAH310H5 and consideration of the multi-level preparatory stages entailed in the mounting of a curatorial project, placing particular emphasis on conceptualization and methodology, and on the premise that curatorial practice is an intellectual endeavour that manifests its ideas in form. Students will learn how to turn a concept into a project proposal and become equipped to develop innovative solutions to future challenges in curatorial practice.