This course is a study of twentieth-century and contemporary art history that draws upon philosophies of the archive (as the formalization of knowledge in terms of origins and ends) and the formless (as a deconstructive force of these very same knowledge formations). Through close readings of key texts by Georges Bataille, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, and Giorgio Agamben, an understanding of the complex interrelations between the archive and the formless, and their bearing upon twentieth-century and contemporary art history is developed.

This course examines the significance of the visual arts for the study of contemporary Jewish culture, for the construction of Jewish identities, and as an example of Jewish secularization. It does so through a survey of contemporary Jewish artistic production and visual expression with numerous and comparative examples drawn from producers in North America, Europe, and Israel. In addition, the course is attuned to the social and political dimensions and implications of contemporary Jewish art making. It will be organized thematically and cover a range of topics from the challenges faced by visual artists grappling with the Second Commandment and its prohibition of images to the continuing impact of the idea of diaspora on contemporary Jewish artists. The course will also situate its subject matter in relation to larger debates about the emergence of postmodern subjectivities and the place (or displacement) of religion and religious themes in contemporary art in general.

What makes a photograph funny? What are the ways in which photography as a visual and narrative medium induces laughter and provides amusement? This course explores such questions by focusing on major photographic genres and humorists (e.g., Weegee, Parr, Heartfield, Fontcuberta) and by analyzing key historical and contemporary images that mock conventional assumptions about the nature of photography and its claims to truth, identity, and reference. The course will be structured as a seminar featuring directed discussion and class presentations.

Investigates the role of exile, expatriation, and alienation in art of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Considering the idea of psychological and/or physical displacement as key to the condition of modernity and the formation of artistic modernisms, the course analyzes artistic strategies of representing, coping with, and/or enacting displacement and alienation (of the artist, the viewer, the object) in the work of Gauguin, Dada artists, Pollock, Morimura, Hatoum, Wodiczko, Whiteread, and others.

This course examines materials that have played a role in the making of the modern world as well as modern art. Some are of comparatively recent invention; others are ancient but acquired new significance in the global circuits of economic modernity and the changing aesthetic concerns of modern artists. Ranging across vegetable, animal, and mineral matter(s), we will consider materials’ role in racial capitalism as well as art history; their technical properties and attendant conservation issues; their poetics; and their agencies and animacies.

This seminar examines the age-old dream of creating animate art, from lifelike paintings and moving statues to automata and androids. In addition to tracing historical shifts in the way Western culture has imagined its artificial counterparts through works of literature, fine arts, and film, a major focus of the course will be the effect these creations have on conceptions of the human. Readings include Castle, Dick, Freud, Hawthorne, Hoffman, Shelley, Stafford, Ovid, and Villiers de I'lsle-Adam.

This course explores how museum displays construct cultural narratives for the consumption of the viewer. It focuses on Islamic art. By examining recent (21st-century) Islamic art museums and gallery installations in North America and Europe, the course addresses the topics of art collecting, orientalism, the colonial gaze, Islamophobia, and the current visual narratives of Islam and Muslims through the arts.

In the first part of the course students are introduced to Islamic art through the collections of some of the main international museums including the British Museum (BM) in the UK, the Louvre in France, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Canada, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York. Students will explore the ways in which Islamic art galleries and exhibitions have evolved to reflect academic approaches including post-colonial and object studies. Students will then use the skills acquired in the course and on-line museum collections to develop and propose an Islamic art exhibition thus experiencing the process of developing an object-based narrative, writing it, presenting it, as well as responding to peer review.

This seminar explores the conceptual categories of icon, artwork and fetish in order to think about the frames of value, desire and power within which images circulate, and the ongoing relationships between art, religion, and commerce. Readings drawn from critical theory, art history, anthropology, religious studies, film studies and psychoanalysis will prepare students to research case studies on the transcultural and transdisciplinary careers of particular objects/images of their choosing.

An introduction for advanced students in art history to the historiography and institutional history of the discipline of art history. This reading-intensive course will focus on major figures and key texts from the 19th century to the present, including Burckhardt, Wölfflin, Riegl, Warburg, Panofsky, Hauser, Baxandall, Schapiro, Alpers, Clarke, Nochlin, and others.

This course concerns the global circulation of objects or things in the early modern world (ca. 1500-1700) when new trade routes brought about an unprecedented mobilization of artifacts of visual culture, foodstuffs and other goods. We will be concerned with the manifold appearances of uprooted objects, new arrangements, and the invisible layers of skill, materials, and manufacture that resulted from heightened exchange. Objects of study will range broadly: porcelain, tableware and foodstuffs, screens and silver, naturalia and their elaborate mounts, miniatures, prints and books, paintings (Dutch Still Life, Las Meninas) which put the world of things on display.

This seminar takes a historical and comparative view of"landscape" as the representation of land, situating it within European ideas about "nature" and its relationship to ideas about who we are as humans. It compares Western landscape painting traditions with visual forms from other traditions that could be seen as "landscapes," but might be based on very different ideas. These include Indigenous art from Canada, as well as East and South Asian forms.Understanding these multiple traditions equips students fora more globally oriented, historically informed, and critical approach to modern and contemporary art concerned with the environment and our existence in the geological age lately dubbed the Anthropocene. The seminar readings provide the basis for final research papers pertaining to the broad theme of landscape or eco-aesthetics in modern or contemporary art, as well as in other image practices across a range of global traditions.

This 4th-year seminar explores collaborations between art historians, conservators and material scientists in the technical study of works of art, especially of the early modern period. With ever more portable and effective means (like X-Radiography and 3D Scanning) that allow us to study the material composition and the inner structures and layers of works of art, the technical study of art has become an important new direction in art history. This course will situate technical art history (also known as technical studies) in the discipline, tracing its rise in the early 20th century as a new scientifically-based discipline that was distinguished from the traditional and intuitive practice of connoisseurship.

A senior research and creation seminar exploring topics that advance conversations in Contemporary Indigenous art. This course will look at a selection of influential Canadian and International Indigenous Art projects by living artists as case studies. Topic will vary with faculty research interests; the course may cover such matters as environmental justice, accountability in accomplice-building between Indigenous and non-indigenous artists, and the influence of social movements in shaping local and international conversations on Indigenous Art and culture from Alcatraz and Idle No More to Standing Rock. May include a practical workshop component. May include a research, curatorial or art project.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

Students who have demonstrated unusual ability in earlier years will be encouraged to undertake, under the supervision of one or more staff members, special research projects culminating in a major research paper. Not more than two half-courses in Independent Studies may be taken in a single year. Students must have written consent of their faculty supervisor(s) and the undergraduate counsellor before registering.

An in-depth examination of a topic in ancient 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 20 students.

An in-depth examination of a topic in Medieval 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 20 students.

An in-depth examination of a topic in modern 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 20 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 20 students.

An in-depth examination of a topic in contemporary art and/or theory. Topics vary from year to year, and the content in any given year depends upon the instructor. A seminar course limited to 20 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 20 students.