History of Art

Loria Center, Rm. 251, 203.432.2668
http://arthistory.yale.edu
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.

Chair
Milette Gaifman (Loria 557, 203.432.2687, milette.gaifman@yale.edu)

Director of Graduate Studies
Nicola Suthor (Loria 655, 203.432.7210, nicola.suthor@yale.edu)

Professors Tim Barringer, Marisa Bass, Edward Cooke, Jr., Milette Gaifman, Jacqueline Jung, Pamela Lee, Jennifer Raab, Kishwar Rizvi, Nicola Suthor, Mimi Yiengpruksawan

Associate Professor Craig Buckley

Assistant Professors Nana Adusei-Poku, Allison Caplan, Alexander Ekserdjian, Joanna Fiduccia, Morgan Ng, Quincy Ngan, Catalina Ospina, Justin Willson

Fields of Study

African art; African American art; American art; Asian art; British art; Byzantine art and architecture; Caribbean art; colonial Latin American art; contemporary art; eighteenth-century art; film and media; Greek and Roman art and architecture; history of photography; Native North American Art; Islamic art and architecture; Italian Early Modern Renaissance art and architecture; material culture and decorative arts; medieval European art and architecture; modern architecture; modern art; Netherlandish, Dutch, and Flemish art; nineteenth-century art; Northern Renaissance art; Pre-Hispanic art; seventeenth-century-European art and architecture; Slavic art.

Special Requirements for the Ph.D. Degree

All students must pass examinations in at least two languages pertinent to their field of study, to be determined and by agreement with the adviser and director of graduate studies (DGS). One examination must be passed during the first year of study, the other not later than the beginning of the third term. During the first two years of study, students typically take twelve term courses. In March of the second year, students submit a qualifying paper that should demonstrate the candidate’s ability successfully to complete a Ph.D. dissertation in art history. During the fall term of the third year, students are expected to take the qualifying examination. Candidates must demonstrate knowledge of their field and related areas, as well as a good grounding in method and bibliography. By the end of the second term of the third year, students are expected to have established a dissertation topic. A prospectus outlining the topic must be approved by a committee at a colloquium by the end of the third year. Students are admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. upon completion of all predissertation requirements, including the prospectus and qualifying examination. Admission to candidacy must take place by the end of the third year.

The faculty considers teaching to be an important part of the professional preparation of graduate students. Students are required to complete four terms of teaching. This requirement is fulfilled in the second and third years. Students may also serve as a graduate research assistant at either the Yale University Art Gallery or the Yale Center for British Art. This can be accepted in lieu of one or two terms of teaching, but students may accept a graduate research assistant position at any time after the end of their first year. Application for these R.A. positions is competitive.

Combined Ph.D. Programs

Students enrolled in combined programs normally receive a single en route degree if both programs offer the same en route degree. If only one of the programs offers an en route degree, the student will be eligible to receive it from that program. If the two programs offer different en route degrees (for example, one offers an M.A. and the other an M.S.), the student may receive only one en route degree and will choose which one in consultation with their departments and the appropriate academic dean. This policy also applies to ad hoc combined degree programs. See Degree Requirements under Policies and Regulations.

History of Art and Black Studies

The Department of the History of Art offers, in conjunction with the Department of Black Studies, a combined Ph.D. in history of art and Black studies. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program. For further details, see Black Studies.

Admission  If a student intends to apply for this combined Ph.D. in Black Studies and History of Art, he or she should contact the respective department and request a description of all Ph.D. requirements and courses.

Course Requirements Students are required to take five courses in Black Studies, generally at least one course each term.  Any variance in scheduling requires DGS approval. Core courses are:  1. Theorizing Racial Formations (AFAM 5005) which is a required course for all first-year graduate students in the combined program, and 2. Dissertation Prospectus Workshop, a two-semester course, which graduate students in their third-year of study must satisfactorily complete. This workshop is intended to support preparation for the dissertation proposal; each student will be required to present his or her dissertation prospectus orally to the faculty and to submit a written prospectus draft by the end of the spring term. Three other graduate-level Black Studies courses are required: 1. a history course, 2. A social science course, and 3. A course in literature or culture.

In History of Art, students are required to take the First Year Colloquium (HSAR 5500) in the fall of their first term.

The total number of courses required will adhere to the requirements of the participating department or program.  Each student must complete the minimum number of courses required by the participating department or program; Black Studies course (excepting the dissertation prospectus workshop) count toward the participating departments or program’s total. For further details, see Black Studies Department.

Graduate Teaching  Two years of teaching-one course per term are required: two in History of Art (one must be a 1000-level introductory course) traditionally in the student’s second year and two in Black Studies in the student’s third year. Students may be required to teach two-sections per course if the course registration requires it.

Qualifying Paper  History of Art requires a Qualifying Paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The Qualifying Paper will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art.

Qualifying Examination  See the History of Art department registrar to arrange the oral and written examination.

  • Written exam: The written exam addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic. Three hours, written by hand or on a non-networked computer provided by the department. No books allowed.

  • Oral exam:  The combinded oral exam, which is held one week after the written exam, should cover four broad topics, two of which must be given by a faculty member of Black Studies. The other two topics must be given by History of Art faculty members. Each section in the exam will be twenty-five minutes long. The oral exam should be jointly chaired by the DGSs of both departments.

Colloquium  Following History of Art requirements, a Prospectus must be submitted and approved in a Colloquium by the end of the student's sixth term. Of the four faculty members in the Colloquium two should come from Black Studies. The colloquium should be jointly chaired by the DGSs of both departments.

Language Requirements  There are no language required by Black Studies, but joint students in History of Art must pass examinations in two languages other than English. Student should meet with their History of Art adviser(s) and the DGS to determine which two languages would fit their field of study.  

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a first chapter reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of fourth year). The dissertation committee that include faculty members from both programs, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format. Neither department DGS are required to attend.

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee, and is required in History of Art. The student’s adviser(s), committee members, and the DGS of both Black Studies and History of Art are expected to attend the Defense.

Dissertation  Procedures for the submission and evaluation of dissertations will be those followed in History of Art, though the board of readers will normally include a member of the Black Studies Department. For further details, see Black Studies.

History of Art and Comparative Literature

The Department of the History of Art offers, in conjunction with Comparative Literature, a combined Ph.D. in the History of Art and Comparative Literature. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program. For further details, see Comparative Literature.

Admission  Applicants will apply either directly to the department of Comparative Literature, mentioning History of Art, or they would apply to the department of History of Art, mentioning the Comparative Literature Department. Only applications which are short-listed by the committee that receives them first will be forwarded to the other unit for consideration. Students originally admitted only to Art History or Comparative Literature may apply to switch to this joint program at the end of their first year. If their application is successful, they will be expected to fulfill all the requirements outlined here.

Course Requirements  The combined coursework requirement is fourteen courses, seven each in Comparative Literature/ History of Art. In History of Art, this includes the First Year Colloquium (HSAR 5500) and one course outside the student’s core area. In Comparative Literature, this includes the proseminar as well as (i) at least one course each in Ancient or Medieval literature; in Early Modern or Baroque literature; in the Enlightenment or the Modern Age; (ii) at least two courses devoted to theory; (iii) at least one course each on two of the major three literary genres (poetry, narrative, drama). Please note that one course can fulfill more than one of these distribution requirements and that up to two of the historical distribution requirements can be fulfilled by an appropriate Art History course.

Grades  The departmental grading system is in accordance with Graduate School policy: Honors, High Pass, and Pass. Each student in the combined History of Art and Comparative Literature program must earn the grade of Honors in at least four term courses by the end of the second year of residence at Yale. Students who have not met this standard by the end of the second year will be warned; those who have not met it by the end of the third term will be asked to leave the program. Two grades of Honor are required for the MA degree. Only one grade of Pass is acceptable. 

Language Requirements  Before taking their qualifying exams, every student must demonstrate:

  • A high level of proficiency in English and two other languages (fluent reading of primary and secondary texts without a dictionary)

  • A reading ability in a fourth language

The distribution of these languages must meet Comparative Literature’s philological requirement, to be fulfilled in one of the three following ways:

  1. By learning to read an ancient or medieval language (such as Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Classical Chinese, Old Church Slavonic, etc.). We strongly encourage all students whose research focuses on literatures before 1800 to pursue this option.

  2. By learning to read an Indigenous or Aboriginal language (Nahuatl, Quechua, Tlingit, Alyawarr, Cherokee, Guarani, etc.)

  3. By becoming proficient in languages from THREE different language families, besides English (e.g. German+Russian+Arabic; Hindi+Igbo+Swahili; Chinese+Hebrew+Portuguese, etc.).

Students may prove their proficiency either by taking courses where texts are studied in the original languages, or by a written exam administered in this department.

Graduate Teaching  Two years of teaching-one course per term are required: two in Comparative Literature and two in History of Art (one must be a 1000-level introductory course). Students may be required to teach two-sections per course if the course registration requires it.

Qualifying Paper  History of Art requires a Qualifying Paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The Qualifying Paper will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art and one professor from Comparative Literature. Students who fulfill this requirement do not also need to submit a second-year essay to the Department of Comparative Literature for feedback, though they may choose to do so.

Qualifying Examination

  • Written exam (History of Art): The written exam addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic. Three hours, closed book, written by hand or on a non-networked computer provided by the department.

  • Oral exam: The combinded oral exam, which is held one week after the written exam, should cover six fields: three in Comparative Literature and three in History of Art (fifteen minutes each, fields to be agreed on in advance with advisers and DGS). Exam lists will be developed by the student in consultation with faculty examiners. The directors of graduate studies and registrars in both departments will work together to arrange these exams. The oral exam should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

Colloquium (Prospectus Conference)  The Dissertation Prospectus must be approved by both Comparative Literature and History of Art.  The prospectus conference will take place in the spring term of the third year of study.  The committee will include at least one faculty member from each department.  As is implied by its title, the colloquium is not an examination, but a meeting during which the student can present ideas to a faculty committee and receive advise from its members. The Colloquium should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments. The faculty members present may pass the prospectus as is, request revisions, or request revisions and an additional meeting to review them.

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a First Chapter Reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of year four). The dissertation committee, including faculty members from both programs, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format. (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy)

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long Defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee. Present at the defense will be the student’s advisers, committee, and the directors of graduate studies in both Comparative Literature and History of Art; others may be invited to comment after the committee’s questions is completed. (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy)

History of Art and Early Modern Studies

The Department of the History of Art offers, in conjunction with the Early Modern Studies Program, a combined Ph.D. in the History of Art and Early Modern Studies. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program. For further details, see Early Modern Studies.

Coursework  History of Art students in the combined program take the same number of courses as those on the regular History of Art track. In years one and two, a student in the combined program will complete ten seminars in the History of Art, including the First Year Seminar (HSAR 5500)and three seminars on early modern topics, as well as the Workshop in Early Modern Studies (EMST 7000). Students will also participate in the Early Modern Studies Colloquium (EMST 8000).

Qualifying Paper  The qualifying paper is to be submitted for consideration according to the policies of the Department of the History of Art, typically in the second semester of the second year.

Language Requirements The language requirement will follow History of Art department requirements.

Qualifying Exams See the History of Art department registrar to arrange the oral and written exam.

  • Written exam: The written exam addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic, Three hours, closed book, written by hand or on a non-networked computer provided by the department.
  • Oral exam: Students will follow the usual procedures for oral qualifying exams in History of Art, with the additional requirement that three of their four lists must concentrate on early modern texts and topics (between 1350 and 1800). The combinded oral exam, which is held one week after the written exam, should cover four broad topics, two of which must be given by a member of Early Modern Studies. The other two topics must be given by a History of Art faculty member. Each section in the exam will be twenty-five minutes long. The oral exam should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

Colloquium  Students in the combined program will enroll in the Professional Skills Workshop (EMST 9000)(Skills Workshop for Early Modern Studies). This course will typically be taken in spring of the student’s third year of graduate study as a one-semester course designed to support students as they begin to form their dissertation projects. Skills covered will include abstract writing, preparing fellowship applications, interviewing, and presenting, with a focus on how to communicate the contribution of an interdisciplinary dissertation project to a range of audiences. This funded workshop will also culminate in a conference and will offer each student the opportunity to invite one scholar to campus from outside Yale for one-on-one mentoring on their developing research and career goals. The EMS DGS does not need to attend the colloquium.

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a first chapter reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of year four). The dissertation committee, including faculty members from both programs, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format. The EMS DGS does not need to attend the first chapter conference.

Dissertation Defense  At least one faculty member affiliated with the Program in Early Modern Studies must be on the committee. The chair of the committee will be in the History of Art, but students in the combined program are encouraged to include at least one faculty member from outside of History of Art on their committees. The defense should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

History of Art and English

The Department of the History of Art also offers, in conjunction with the Department of English Language and Literature, a combined Ph.D. degree in History of Art and English Language and Literature. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program. For further details, see English.

Admission  Applicants will apply either directly to the English Department, mentioning History of Art, or they would apply to History of Art, mentioning the English Department. Only applications which are short-listed by the committee that receives them first will be forwarded to the other unit. The DGS of both units will then discuss the possibility of a recommendation. Since the English Department will be distributing its applicants to several departments simultaneously, no assurances about admission to the joint program can be given until all departments have shared their opinions about possible candidates.

Course Requirements  In year one and two, a student in the combined program will complete sixteen courses: ten seminars in English, including The Teaching of English and one course in at least three out of four designated historical periods: medieval, early-modern, eighteenth- and/or nineteenth-century, twentieth-, and/or twenty-first-century, and six in History of Art, including the First Year Colloquium (HSAR 5500) and one course outside the student’s core area. Up to two cross-listed seminars may count toward the number in both units, reducing the total number of courses to fourteen.

Grades  The departmental grading system is in accordance with Graduate School policy: Honors, High Pass, and Pass. Each student in the combined History of Art and English program must earn the grade of Honors in at least four term courses by the end of the second year of residence at Yale. Students who have not met this standard by the end of the second year will be warned; those who have not met it by the end of the third term will be asked to leave the program. Two grades of Honor are required for the MA degree. Only one grade of Pass is acceptable. 

Language Requirements  Two languages pertinent to the student’s field of study have to be determined by agreement with the advisers and directors of graduate studies.  Normally the language requirement will be satisfied by passing a translation exam administered by one of Yale’s language departments, with the exception of French, German, Italian, and Spanish language exams that will be administered by History of Art. One examination must be passed during the first year of study, the other by the end of the third year.

Graduate Teaching  Two years of teaching—one course per term in years three and four—are required:  two in English (up to two sections per course) and two in History of Art (one must be a 1000-level introductory course). English TF assignments are typically one-section per course. In the third year students in History of Art may be required to teach two-sections per course if the course registration requires it.

Qualifying Paper  History of Art requires a qualifying paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The qualifying paper will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art and one professor from English.

Qualifying Examination  English primary students should contact the English department graduate registrar to arrange the Qualifying Exams. HoA primary students should see the History of Art department registrar to arrange exams.

  • Written exam:  The written exam addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic. Three hours, closed book, written by hand or on a non-networked computer provided by the department.
  • Oral exam: The combinded oral exam, which is held one week after the written exam, should cover six fields: three in English (twenty-five minutes each, covering thirty texts each, representing two distinct fields of literary history) and three in History of Art (twenty-five minutes each, fields to be agreed on in advance with advisers and DGS). Exam lists will be developed by the student in consultation with faculty examiners. History of Art will arrange those oral exams for the Department of History of Art. English will arrange those orals for the English Department. The oral exam should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

Colloquium  The Dissertation Prospectus must be approved by both English and History of Art.  The Colloquium will take place in the spring term of the third year of study.  The committee will include at least one faculty member from each department.  As is implied by its title, the Colloquium is not an examination, but a meeting during which the student can present ideas to a faculty committee and receive advise from its members. The Colloquium should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a first chapter reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of year four). The dissertation committee, including faculty members from both programs, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format. (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy)

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee. The student’s advisers, committee members, and the directors of graduate studies in both English and History of Art are expected to attend the defense. (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy.)

History of Art and Film and Media Studies

The Department of the History of Art offers, in conjunction with the Film and Media Studies Program, a combined Ph.D. in the History of Art and Film and Media Studies. Students are required to meet all departmental requirements, but many courses may count toward completing both degrees at the discretion of the directors of graduate studies in History of Art and Film and Media Studies. For further details, see Film and Media Studies.

Admission  Applicants will apply either directly to the Film & Media Studies (FMS), mentioning History of Art, or they would apply to History of Art, mentioning the Film & Media Studies.  Only applications which are short-listed by the committee that receives them first will be forwarded to the other unit. The DGS of both units will then discuss the possibility of a recommendation. Since FMS will be distributing its applicants to several departments simultaneously, no assurances about admission to the joint program can be given until all departments have made their feelings known about possible candidates.

Course Requirements  Because the candidate will need to develop two large (though often related) disciplines, 15 courses will be the norm (see below chart for a typical program of study).

  1. Requirements in History of Art: 7 courses. These include the First Year Colloquium (HSAR 5500). They may also include Film and Media Studies courses that have a HSAR graduate course number. Students are expected to take at least one course in HSAR outside of their core areas. Students receive one course credit as Teaching Fellows within the HSAR department. See below for further teaching requirements.
  2. Requirements in Film and Media Studies: 8 courses.These include the two core Film and Media Studies seminars (offered alternately in the Fall term), and four additional seminars in FMS, two of which may carry a HSAR cross list.   
    1. Films and their Study (offered every other Fall semester)
  3. Other courses: upon consultation with the DGS of both units, two courses may be taken in other departments when relevant to the student's special interests, reducing the required number in either HSAR or FMS.

Language Requirements  Students must pass examinations in two language pertinent to their dissertation. Immediately upon completion, the student will request the instructor to email the grade to both the DGS and Department Registrar for credit.

Graduate Teaching  During the second and third years a student will be required to teach a section (two sections: 3rd year) in a introductory survey lecture class in HSAR, and one other art history lecture (this may in some cases be substituted by a museum research assistantship). In FMS, the student will be required to teach a section(s) in Introduction to Film and Media Studies, and in a lecture in Film Theory or in World Cinema.

Qualifying Paper  History of Art requires a Qualifying Paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The QP will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art.

Examinations  See the History of Art department registrar to arrange the oral and written examination. The one-hour film oral is arranged only by the Film and Media Studies department registrar.

  • Written exam:  The written exam addressing a question or questions having to do with a broad state-of-the-field or historiographic topic. Three hours, closed book, written by hand or on a non-networked computer.
  • Oral Exam: An oral exam in four broad topics, two of which must be given by a member of the Film and Media Studies Graduate Committee. The other two topics must be given by a History of Art faculty member. Each section in the exam will be twenty-five minutes long. The oral exam should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.
  • Film Oral Exam: Joint History of Art and Film and Media Studies Ph.D. students will also need to take and pass a one-hour film oral, covering a standardized list of films and texts, at some point before receiving the degree. One-hour film oral, given by two members of the Film and Media Studies Graduate Committee, covering a standardized list of films and texts.

Foundation Texts in Film and Media Studies  By October 1st of the third year, all candidates must have met the requirement regarding foundational texts in the FMS field. See the Film and Media Studies webpage detailing this requirement.

Colloquium  Following History of Art rules, a Prospectus must be submitted and approved in a Colloquium by the end of the student's sixth term. Of the four faculty members in the Colloquium two should be members of the Film and Media Studies Graduate Committee. The Colloquium should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

First Chapter Reading  Students will participate in a First Chapter Reading (also known as a first chapter conference) normally within a year of advancing to candidacy (spring term of year four).  The dissertation committee, including faculty members from both programs, will discuss the progress of the student’s work in a seminar-style format. The FMS DGS does not need to attend the first chapter reading.

The Defense of Method  A 60-90-minute oral is taken the semester before submission of the dissertation.  The committee consist of the DGS in FMS and the three readers chosen to eventually assess the submitted dissertation, at least one from each unit.

Provisional Admission to Candidacy  Following the History of Art rules, students must be in good standing, fulfill language requirements, and submit a Qualifying Paper to the HSAR department by the end of their second year of full-time study at Yale.

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee. Present at the defense will be the student’s advisers, committee, and the directors of graduate studies in both FMS and History of Art; others may be invited to comment after the committee’s questions is completed. (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy). The defense should be jointly chaired by the directors of graduate studies of both departments.

Dissertation  The dissertation will give evidence of methods and materials important to both disciplines. At least one member of the dissertation panel should come from FMS and one from HSAR (who is not a member of the FMS committee). (See information under Provisional Admission to Candidacy)

Internships  One or two Film and Media Studies internships exist for candidates past their third year, providing a stipend during which the candidate helps plan the annual film series and conferences held at the Whitney Humanities Center. This experience is designed to give candidates pertinent experiences in planning and carrying out film-related work in archiving, curatorship, etc. Students may undertake, instead, internships involving museum/curatorial work following the recommendations of HSAR and possibly relating to film and video exhibitions in the museums. As such internships might prolong the student's course of study, they should be undertaken with the approval of both DGS, and in no case should extend longer than one year.

History of Art and Slavic and Eurasian Literature and Cultures

The Department of the History of Art offers, in conjunction with the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures a combined Ph.D. in the History of Art and Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures. The requirements are designed to emphasize the interdisciplinarity of the combined degree program.

Admission  Applicants should apply directly to the Slavic Department, mentioning History of Art. Only applications that are short-listed by Slavic will be forwarded to History of Art. The DGS of both departments will then discuss the possibility of recommending the applicant for the combined program. If not accepted to the combined program, the applicant may still be admitted to the PhD in Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures.

In special cases, current PhD students in Slavic may request admission into the combined program with History of Art. If possible, such requests should be made within the student’s first year of coursework. To discuss this option and initiate the process of consideration, the student should contact the DGS.

Advising  On acceptance into the combined program, the student, in consultation with the DGS from each department, will select one faculty advisor from Slavic and one faculty advisor from History of Art, who together will oversee their progress in the doctoral program.

Course Requirements  In year one and two, a student in the combined program will complete sixteen courses, chosen in consultation with the DGS of each department. These sixteen courses will include nine in Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures: “Proseminar: Theory and Methods” (RUSS 5851) being mandatory; and eight courses in Slavic or Eurasian literature or culture. These eight courses should include at least one before the eighteenth century, two in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and two in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (the remainder can be distributed according to the student’s areas of specialization). The remaining seven courses should be in History of Art, including First Year Colloquium (HSAR 5500) and one course outside the student’s core area.

One cross-listed seminar may count toward the number in either Slavic or History of Art. The student may also request that one course in either Slavic or History of Art be waived in recognition of prior graduate-level work.

Language Requirements  All entering students should have a sufficient knowledge of their research language to permit them to do satisfactory work at the graduate level, and are required to pass a departmental proficiency examination in Russian at the beginning of the first semester of study. Based on the results of this exam, the DGS and Language Supervisor in the Slavic Department will work with the student to develop a plan for acquiring and/or maintaining necessary language proficiency. If the student’s primary research language is not Russian, these language requirements may be adjusted accordingly in consultation with the DGS of both departments.

Students must also demonstrate competence in one other language relevant for their research by passing a reading examination in the chosen language by the beginning of the fifth term of study.

Graduate Teaching  Two years of teaching—one course per term in years two and three—are required: two in Slavic (one language, one literature/culture), one in History of Art (typically a 1000-level introductory course), and the fourth in either History of Art or Slavic, depending on student needs and department offerings.

Qualifying Paper  Students must submit a qualifying paper in the spring term of the second year. The paper must demonstrate original research, a logical conceptual structure, stylistic lucidity, and the ability to successfully complete a Ph.D. dissertation. The qualifying paper will be evaluated by two professors from History of Art and two professors from Slavic.

Comprehensive and Qualifying Examinations  In early October of their third year, students will take two comprehensive examinations:

  • One 3-hour take-home written exam on Russian literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present. This exam is meant to test the students’ knowledge of the broad scope of Russian literature and culture, as well as their ability to analyze various kinds of cultural products and position specific works within their historical, cultural, and critical contexts. Students should use the departmental reading list as a guide for preparing for this exam.
  • One 3-hour take-home written exam on a topic in Slavic or Eurasian art history, to be decided by the student and their advisors. This exam will be based on a reading list constructed by the student.

In early December of their third year, students will take a qualifying examination based on two specialized reading lists: one on a topic in Slavic or Eurasian art history (the same list which forms the basis for the second comprehensive exam) and one on a literary or cultural topic of the student’s choice. The fields and reading lists for each field will have been agreed upon in advance with the student’s faculty examiners, and approved by the advisors and the DGS of both Slavic and History of Art.

Dissertation Prospectus and Colloquium  A pre-prospectus discussion with the student’s two faculty advisors occurs soon after the oral exam, and generally before spring break of the third year.  Once these advisers and the student agree on the topic and the contour of the dissertation, a written prospectus of 20–25 pages is presented at a colloquium held by the end of the third year. The prospectus will be circulated in advance. After the colloquium, the faculties of Slavic and History of Art will determine whether to approve the dissertation prospectus or request significant revisions before advancing the student to candidacy. The decision will be communicated to the student by the DGS of Slavic.

Dissertation Research and Funding  Students typically undertake intensive dissertation research abroad during their fourth year. Students in the joint program are eligible to apply for research support from the History of Art Department, as well as pre-dissertation and dissertation fellowships from the MacMillan Center.

First Chapter Colloquium  During the fourth year of study, all graduate students will participate in a departmental hour-long colloquium in which they formally present a first chapter of their dissertation to their committee and the DGSes of each department. Normally, this will entail distributing the student’s chapter to members of the committee two weeks before the colloquium and then engaging in a discussion and analysis of the work.

Dissertation Defense  The hour-long Defense is a serious intellectual conversation between the student and the committee. Present at the defense will be the student’s advisors, committee, and the DGSes in both Slavic and History of Art.

The Center for the Study of American Art and Material Culture

The Center for the Study of American Art and Material Culture provides a programmatic link among the Yale faculty, museum professionals, and graduate students who maintain a scholarly interest in the study, analysis, and interpretation of American art and material culture. It brings together colleagues from a variety of disciplines—from History of Art and American Studies to Anthropology, Archaeological Studies, and Earth and Planetary Sciences—and from some of Yale’s remarkable museum collections, from the Yale University Art Gallery and Peabody Museum to the Beinecke Library. Center activities will focus upon one particular theme each year and will include weekly lunch meetings in which a member makes a short presentation centered on an artifact or group of artifacts followed by lively discussion about methodology, interpretation, and context and an annual three-day Yale-Smithsonian Seminar on Material Culture.

Master’s Degrees

M.Phil. See Degree Requirements under Policies and Regulations.

M.A. (upon withdrawal) Students who withdraw from the Ph.D. program may be eligible to receive the M.A. degree if they have met the requirements and have not already received the M.Phil. degree. For the M.A., students must successfully complete eight term courses and have proficiency in one required foreign language. Candidates in combined programs will be awarded the M.A. only when the master’s degree requirements for both programs have been met.


Program materials are available online at http://arthistory.yale.edu.

Courses

HSAR 5500a, First-Year Colloquium  Nicola Suthor

The focus of the first-year colloquium is to analyze and critique the history of art history and its methodology from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The seminar discusses foundational texts as well as new methods relevant to the study of the history of art and architecture today, notably those concerned with issues of race, gender, and representation. It also engages with debates about museums and the ethics of collecting and display. The seminar is structured around selected readings and includes workshops with guest speakers. It also includes an option to conduct in-person research in the Yale University Art Gallery.
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6535a / RUSS 6655a, Russian Style: Material Culture and the Decorative Arts in Imperial Russia  Molly Brunson

This seminar examines the historical development of a national style in Russian decorative arts and material culture from the eighteenth century to the early twentieth. Although known for borrowing liberally from western European artistic traditions, Russian imperial culture—from the baroque and neoclassical courts of Elizabeth and Catherine to the exported “native” imaginaries of the Ballets Russes—also sought to distinguish itself in design, scale, manufacture, and style. Structured around a series of case studies, this seminar considers highlights from the history of Russian decorative arts, all while exploring broader questions about the transnational movement of style, the intersection of nationalism and design, the invention of “native” cultures, and the materialities of empire and modernity. Topics include the branding of Catherine the Great; Russia’s natural resources and trade networks; consumer culture in St. Petersburg; the materialism of realism; the Abramtsevo artists’ colony and the discovery of folk art; russkii stil’ (Russian Style) at the World’s Fairs; curating ethnographies and archaeologies; and the “relics” of the Romanovs. Organized as an intensive research seminar, this course brings the central conceptual and theoretical concerns of visual and material culture studies (e.g., materiality and thing theory, ornament and the decorative, the socioeconomics of taste) to a historical and object-based consideration of Russian style. Significant use is made of the museum and library collections at Yale and nearby.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6553a, Embodied Artisanal Knowledge  Edward Cooke

The development and transmission of knowledge during the early modern European world has lately been a dynamic subject of scholarly inquiry. Much of this work has focused upon the work of royal academies’ explorations of natural philosophy and the mechanical arts. This seminar seeks to move beyond that narrow geographic focus and descriptive taxonomies to consider embodied artisanal knowledge throughout the world in the period from 1500 to 1800. As Tim Ingold reminds us, embodied knowledge is a skilled, socially generated practice distinct from the innate talents of mechanical execution. It is a cognitive skill that prizes resourcefulness; efficiency of effort; and informed, intensive use of tools. This tacit knowledge, the intellect of the hand, is experienced and felt rather than written about and illustrated. Making things depends upon constant attention to the transmission of ideas from brain to hand and from tool to material, with feedback channeled back through the tool to the body and mind of the maker. This seminar combines reading, object-driven inquiry, and hands-on exercises to explore the role of materials, techniques, and human agency in the making of objects. Students expand their own approaches to the study of artisans and objects from many periods and places.
W 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6557a / CLSS 7737a, Art and Text in Greek Antiquity  Milette Gaifman

One of the prominent traits of ancient Greek visual culture, starting from the rise of the Greek city-state (ca. 750 BCE), is the complex relationship between art and text witnessed in images related to mythological subjects, in written descriptions of works of art, and in combining inscribed texts with pictorial representations in various media and contexts. The seminar examines the relationship between word and image and between the visual and the literary in Greek antiquity. Taking Lessing’s Laokoon of 1776 as a point of departure, the seminar considers several related themes including the notion of pictorial narratives, the literary genre of ekphrasis, and the significance of inscriptions in Greek artistic representations.
M 4pm-5:55pm

HSAR 6564a / ANTH 5331a / CLSS 7000a / EALL 7730a / HIST 6000a / JDST 6553a / NELC 5330a / RLST 8030a, Archaia Seminar: Art, Architecture, and Climate Change in the Premodern World  Avary Taylor

This seminar explores artistic, architectural, and material responses to environmental transformations, such as floods, droughts, volcanic events, and periods of exceptional abundance, across the premodern world. Foregrounding the indivisibility of natural worlds and human creativity, we examine how ancient peoples conceived of, and responded to, the disruptions and affordances of their environment. Through a comparative framework that puts cultures across the ancient world into conversation—from Mesopotamia to Mesoamerica and beyond—we trace the entanglements of art, politics, and climate, asking: how, if at all, did environmental change materialize in the things people made? This course serves as an Archaia Core Seminar. It is connected with Archaia’s Ancient Societies Workshop (ASW), which runs a series of events throughout the academic year related to the theme of the seminar. Students enrolled in the seminar must attend all ASW events during the semester in which the seminar is offered.
M 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6565b, The Media of Architecture and the Architecture of Media  Craig Buckley

Architecture’s capacity to represent a world and to intervene in the world has historically depended on techniques of visualization. This seminar draws on a range of media theoretical approaches to examine the complex and historically layered repertoire of visual techniques within which architecture operates. We approach architecture not as an autonomous entity reproduced by media, but as a cultural practice advanced and debated through media and mediations of various kinds (visual, social, material, and financial). If questions of media have played a key role in architectural theory and history over the past three decades, recent scholarship in the field of media theory has insisted on the architectural, infrastructural, and environmental dimensions of media. The seminar is organized around nine operations whose technical and historical status will be examined through concrete examples. To do so, the seminar presents a range of differing approaches to media and reflects on their implications for architectural and spatial practices today. Key authors include Giuliana Bruno, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Beatriz Colomina, Robin Evans, Friedrich Kittler, Bruno Latour, Reinhold Martin, Shannon Mattern, Marshall McLuhan, Felicity Scott, and Bernhard Siegert, among others.
W 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6570b, Language and the Study of Indigenous Art  Allison Caplan

What role has language played in the creation of Indigenous art of the Americas, and how should language inform its art historical interpretation? The question of language’s role in art has a specific history and inflection in the study of the Indigenous Americas, which have often been described as a field without texts. Through a transhistorical series of case studies of the art of Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Native North America, we examine what fueled this vision of Indigenous art and how it intersects with colonialist and nationalist discourses, as well as counter-efforts for Indigenous storywork and language revitalization. By critically analyzing major works of scholarship from art history, anthropology, and Indigenous studies, we examine how different writers and thinkers approach and employ the relationship between verbal and material expression. Additionally, we apply language-based analysis as a method for the study of specific works of Indigenous art, while also thinking critically about this methodology’s particular resonances in light of regional histories of colonialism and nationalism.
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6574b / ANTH 5332b / CLSS 7001b / EALL 7731b / HIST 6010b / JDST 6554b / NELC 5331b / RLST 8031b, Archaia Seminar: Literacy, Books, and the Materiality of Writing in the Premodern World  Victoria Almansa-Villatoro and Joe Glynias

What is literacy? What is reading? This course takes a longue durée approach to how premodern individuals produced and engaged with texts. From hieroglyphs to alphabets (and everything in between), this course considers ways of writing and the intersection between orality, aurality, and textuality in the premodern world, focusing on (but not limited to) the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Due to its focus on the physical media of writing and the preservation and study of premodern writing materials by modern scholars, roughly half of the meetings of this course take place in Yale Collections. Topics covered by the course include pseudoscripts and pseudepigrapha, scribes and scholars, and the ideological and ritual uses of writing across premodern cultures. This course serves as an Archaia Core Seminar. It is connected with Archaia’s Ancient Societies Workshop (ASW), which runs a series of events throughout the academic year related to the theme of the seminar. Students enrolled in the seminar must attend all ASW events during the semester in which the seminar is offered.
W 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6579a, Modernism and the Middle East  Kishwar Rizvi

This course studies the concepts that inform the making and reception of modern architecture in the Middle East. In the Islamic world, new fundamentalisms and shifting religious trends have created an environment in which each country must renegotiate its past and reconsider its collective future. Whether by suppressing their Islamic roots, as in the case of republican Turkey, or through reinventing them, as in the case of post-Revolution Iran, such countries must constantly transform their national image. It is through public works, such as architecture and planning, that they convey their political and religious ideology. This course examines the debates and theories of modern architectural production that have informed the discourse on Islamic architecture by situating cases of colonial and nationalist architecture in the context of their particular social and religious history.
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6580a / CPLT 5480a / GMAN 5480a, Art/Work: On Aesthetics and Labor  Kirk Wetters

Since the 1980s, so-called “postfordistic forms of labor” have increasingly replaced the production processes of industrial good manufacturing in modern information societies and service economies. These new forms of work bear a remarkable resemblance to the ways the artist and artistic processes have been understood in aesthetic discourses since the end of the eighteenth century. The course explores this relation between art and labor from two different angles. (1) It gives an historic overview over the development from ancient concepts of leisure and contemplation to a modern understanding of work as anthropologically crucial and the role art and aesthetic concepts did play in it. (2) It discusses contemporary literature and theories on “new capitalism”, forms of subjectification, and discourses of creativity with regard to their connection to aesthetics around 1800, while also addressing the question of how this development is currently being decisively changed once again by AI.
TTh 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6616a, Capital Building: Histories of Design and Accumulation  David Sadighian

How has design shaped the rise of global capitalism, c.1700 to present? Surveying a wide range of buildings, objects, infrastructures, and landscapes across the Atlantic World, our aim is to understand how the built environment evolved to guide practices of capital accumulation—from the plantations of the early modern Caribbean to the “supertalls” of Billionaires’ Row. Readings draw from a growing body of scholarly literature that approaches design as an agent of political economy as opposed to a reflection of pre-existing ideas and economic structures. The seminar’s case studies therefore emphasize the reciprocity between themes of architectural and capitalist modernity (e.g., Circulation, Development) as well as the spatial forms and extractive processes that accompany them. Coursework results in new critical perspectives for the historical study of present-day spatial inequality. Moreover, moving beyond familiar narratives and geographies of modernity, we consider design’s relation to not only the production of wealth but also counter-models of local autonomy, mutual aid, and redistribution.
Th 9:20am-11:15am

HSAR 6660b, Writing the Object, Writing the World  Jennifer Raab

What does it look like to place an object at the center of inquiry, to develop modes of narration that revolve around and evolve with that object, to write history from a visual and material nexus? This course explores the paradigm and possibilities of crafting a text focused on a single object. We spend the first part of the course reading such texts (books, essays, articles) to think about method, voice, and structure. We consider ekphrasis and description, archives and ghosts, fabulation and biography, history and ethics. The second part of the course is devoted to developing student projects, research practices, and object-centered writing, with workshops of paper proposals and drafts, as well as final presentations, enabling ample feedback and emphasizing constructive, collaborative discussion and critique. This course is open to all humanities Ph.D. students whose work foregrounds objects, whether in history of art or in allied fields. Those who are already undertaking dissertation work (and are still in residence) are also considered. Instructor permission required.
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6678b / ENGL 6775b, Portraiture and Character from Hogarth to Woolf  Ruth Yeazell

Case studies in the visual and verbal representation of persons in Anglo-American painting and fiction, with particular attention to novels that themselves include portraits or address relations between the two media. Novelists tentatively include Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Virginia Woolf. Painters include William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence, James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent, and Vanessa Bell. Selected readings in recent theories of fictional character and in the history and theory of portraiture. Whenever possible, we draw on paintings in Yale’s collections.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6682a, Gesamtkunstwerk  Tim Barringer

This seminar explores the long history of the “total artwork,” or Gesamtkunstwerk. Brought to prominence by composer Richard Wagner in the middle of the nineteenth century, the term is widely associated with his signature form, the music drama, which he understood as a synthesis of music, poetry, and theater. But the roots of this concept lie decades earlier, in the aesthetic theory of the Romantic period; and its offshoots reach far beyond Wagner’s own day, into the choreographed interiors of the fin de siècle, and undergird pivotal twentieth-century attempts to unite art and life. Expanding on Wagner’s vision of the Gesamtkunstwerk as a musical and literary phenomenon, this seminar proposes it as central to the formation and theorization of modern art and design from the nineteenth century to today. This course explores the Gesamtkunstwerk in relation to histories of art and design. We examine the precursors of the Gesamtkunstwerk; its manifestations in Wagner’s operas and stagecraft; its influence on the aesthetic movement, art nouveau, twentieth-century European modernisms, and its relevance for art and design strategies of the present day. The seminar is taught collaboratively between Yale University and the Bard Graduate Center, where the instructor will be Professor Freyja Hartzell. It includes opportunities for students from both institutions to meet and exchange ideas. There are two field trips to New York City, funded by the History of Art Department.
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6689a, Utopias, Counter-Utopias, Heterotopias: An Architectural and Urban History  Craig Buckley

The seminar engages the recent return of utopian thinking at a time defined by multiple catastrophes—from climate change to housing shortage to rising authoritarianism. The seminar begins with an introduction to canonized utopian narratives, including Plato, More, and Bacon. Throughout the seminar we engage with key authors who have interpreted utopian traditions in architecture (including Marx, Balibar, Benhabib, Bloch, Foucault, Hayden, Jameson, Marin, and Vidler, among others). Particular emphasis is given to changes in the conception of utopia across time together with the shifting representational techniques through which utopia was envisioned. The readings are structured around a series of architectural projects for utopian cities or buildings that have emerged since the early nineteenth century. Topics may include Charles Fourier’s Phalansteries, the Shaker Village of Hancock, Robert Owen’s Plans for the town of New Harmony, late nineteenth century cooperative housing schemes, expressionist utopias of the early twentieth century; the Situationist New Babylon project, communes of the 1960s, Afro-futurism, and the counter-utopias of the Italian Radical movement, among others. Sessions utilizing material from Yale’s collections are emphasized to the greatest extent possible.
T 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6700a, Media Cultures of the Cold War  Pamela Lee

This course examines the intersection of politics, aesthetics, and new media technologies in the United States between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Topics include the aesthetics of “thinking the unthinkable” in the wake of the atom bomb; Abstract Expressionism and “modern man” discourse; game theory, cybernetics, operational research, and emergent art practices; the rise of television, intermedia, and the counterculture; and the continuing influence of the early cold war on contemporary media aesthetics. Readings are drawn from primary and secondary sources, and from the fields of art history, communication, and critical theory. Open to graduate students only, with priority given to History of Art students. Enrollment is by permission only; please contact the instructor for more information.
M 9:25am-11:20am

HSAR 6701b, Animals, Nonhuman and Otherwise  Pamela Lee

In “Why Look at Animals?” (1977), a canonical essay in the literature of animal studies, John Berger writes on the historic dynamic between humans and nonhuman animals as a question of seeing and being seen, subject and object, vision and power. Charting this relationship from the distant past to the industrial present, Berger focuses on the modern spectacle of nonhuman animals as an index of the progressive marginalization of animal life; the public zoo, for example, constitutes “the living monument of their own disappearance.” Visitors to the zoo, Berger notes “ . . . proceed from cage to cage, not unlike visitors in an art gallery who stop in front of one painting, and then move on to the next or the one after next.” In rendering the modern zoo continuous with the modern art gallery, Berger prompts us to consider the role of the animal in modern and contemporary art with respect to the priority accorded the human subject. This seminar attends to the wide-ranging interests of this dynamic within the history of art and visual culture, addressing, among other issues, the status of “Man” versus nonhuman animals and the hierarchies of personhood, race, class, gender, and power that underwrite their representation. We consider topics ranging from the relationship between the natural sciences and the visual arts; companion animals, domestication, and domesticity; animals, technology, and bio-media; animal rights and interspecies collaboration; race and colonialism; animals in times of war. In addition to literature from animal studies and the history of art, readings are drawn from philosophy, critical theory, Black studies, gender studies, and science and technology studies. In part following the model of a bestiary, the syllabus introduces many nonhuman animals as case studies: dogs, sharks, termites and ants, nonhuman primates, horses, birds, mollusks, tigers, elephants, etc. A transhistorical roster of artists includes Goya, John Singleton Copley, George Stubbs, Edwin Landseer, Samuel Daniell, Winslow Homer, Kerry James Marshall, Anicka Yi, Kara Walker, Sue Coe, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Tomás Saraceno, Mark Dion, Juliana Huxtable, Jeffrey Gibson, Sammy Baloji, Lin May huSaeed, Jes Fan, and Agnieszka Kurant. Campus visits to the Yale Center for British Art, the Peabody Museum and the Beinecke. Enrollment is restricted to graduate students in the History of Art and graduate students in the humanities (with permission of the instructor). No auditing.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6716b / AMST 7716b / ANTH 7269b / ARCG 7269b, Landscapes of Meaning: Museums and Their Objects  Anne Underhill

This seminar explores how museums convey various meanings about ethnographic, art, and archaeological objects through the processes of collecting, preparing exhibitions, and conducting research. Participants also discuss broader theoretical and methodological issues such as the roles of museums in society, relationships with source communities, management of cultural heritage, and various specializations valuable for careers in art, natural history, anthropology, history, and other museums.
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6768a / CPLT 5970a / ENGL 6768a, The Birth of Aesthetics  Jonathan Kramnick

This is a course on the emergence of aesthetic theory in Enlightenment and Romantic era Europe. We'll examine how a new language of art and nature focused on the experience of the beholder and track evolving categories of the sublime, beautiful, and picturesque in key texts of philosophy and literature. We'll connect ideas of aesthetic judgment and autonomy to central institutions and ideologies of the modern era, including the public sphere, secularism, the private subject, racial capitalism, and the market. Readings begin with empirical philosophies of perception and early accounts of the aesthetic in Locke, Addison, Hutcheson, Pope, Hume, and Burke and continue through the watershed moment of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Kant, and Schiller. The seminar ends with a consideration of aesthetic theory in the long contemporary period of Adorno, Scarry, Rancière, and Ngai. Previously ENGL 768.
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6770a / AMST 6663a / FILM 6070a, Video Art, Guerrilla Television, and Alternative Media  Tom Day

Video art has been an important aspect of contemporary art since the 1960s, born out of the increasing pull of mass media on society and alongside the political unrest of the times. A form of moving image unique to the later half of the twentieth century, video is the embodiment of the heterogeneity and repetition that characterize postmodernism, as noted by theorists like Rosalind Krauss and Fredric Jameson. This course places video art within wider cultural, theoretical, and political contexts. Over the course, we trace video and other moving image media as an alternative ecosystem of production, distribution, and exhibition, observing artists, collectives, and movements that have used the technology to communicate, comprehend, and critique the changing media and lived realties of the second half of the twentieth century. Emphasis is the connections between video and corporately controlled media as we examine artists who attempted to provide an alternative vision of mass media through subversive interventions and utopian alternative programming. We also analyze video’s changing place within recent exhibition practices with the increasing presence of documentary modes and works reacting to an increasingly networked and surveilled society since the 1980s.
W 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6791a, Unfinished Conversations: Black Contemporary Art  Nana Adusei-Poku

This seminar offers an introduction to the complexities, diversity, and specificity of contemporary African diasporic art. The course examines how artists across the African diaspora, specifically the UK, Germany, and France engage (and disengage) with history, identity, memory, migration, and cultural exchange through a wide range of artistic practices. We discuss the practices of a.o. Sonia Boyce, John Akomfrah, Isaac Julien, Ima Abasi-Okon, Rhea Dillon, Alberta Whittle, Liz Johnson Arthur, Julien Creuzet, Julia Phillips, Marc Brandenburg, James Atkins, and Philip Metz. Students consider how these practices intersect with key aesthetic, cultural, and theoretical developments within the Black diaspora. Through the close study of selected artists and artworks, the seminar explores the tensions, contradictions, and possibilities that contemporary artists are proposing, particularly around questions of race, grief, belonging, displacement, and representation. We discuss how artists negotiate inherited histories of colonialism, slavery, and migration while also imagining new cultural futures and forms of expression. The seminar analyzes works across multiple media, including painting, collage, installation, sculpture, video, and photography, paying attention to both formal strategies and conceptual frameworks. Readings draw from art history, Black studies, cultural studies, visual culture studies, and diaspora studies to provide critical tools for understanding how contemporary artists contribute to ongoing conversations about the Black global experience. By the end of the course, students have a foundational understanding of the major themes, debates, and artistic approaches shaping contemporary African diasporic art, while developing the skills to critically interpret artworks within broader social, historical, and theoretical contexts. Knowledge in the history of art and Black studies is highly requested.
M 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6833a / RUSS 7890a / SLAV 6240a, Paper Icons  Justin Willson

Print profoundly transformed how people thought about images and the nature of depicted subject matter. This seminar examines the impact of print through the prism of the early modern Balkans, Eastern Europe and Russia. Our focus is on the trajectory of looseleaf prints, though we attend to the relation of standalone compositions and book printing. We begin in the fifteenth century with the earliest Greek and Cyrillic prints and end in the late nineteenth century, exploring, along the way, the techniques of woodcut, engraving, monotype icon tracings, and lithography. Key themes are the epistemic challenges posed by an ephemeral medium, the archaeology of medieval iconography, economies of loss, pilgrimage cartography, Slavic poetics and the emblem, and the monastic pastoral. Primary sources in translation complement secondary readings, shedding light on key artistic actors. Extensive use is made of the Greek and Slavic collections at the Beinecke and Yale University Art Gallery. No previous coursework in art history is required.
Th 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 6841a and HSAR 6842b / ANTH 8897a and ANTH 8898b / HIST 5804a and HIST 5805b / HSHM 7691a and HSHM 7692b, Topics in the Environmental Humanities  Paul Sabin

This is the required workshop for the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities. The workshop meets six times per term to explore concepts, methods, and pedagogy in the environmental humanities, and to share student and faculty research. Each student pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities must complete both a fall term and a spring term of the workshop, but the two terms of student participation need not be consecutive. The fall term each year emphasizes key concepts and major intellectual currents. The spring term each year emphasizes pedagogy, methods, and public practice. Specific topics vary each year. Students who have previously enrolled in the course may audit the course in a subsequent year. This course does not count toward the coursework requirement in history. Open only to students pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Humanities.  ½ Course cr per term
T 11:30am-1:20pm

HSAR 6845b, Adaptive Reuse in Karachi: History, Documentation, and Intervention  Kishwar Rizvi

This seminar considers the challenges of adaptive reuse in a global mega-city and explores and enact the potential of cultural preservation to resist mechanisms of erasure that stem from capital-driven development. Karachi is considered as an interdisciplinary case study and working site, bringing together graduate students from history of art, architecture, and related disciplines. This multidisciplinary collective of students and faculty with diverse backgrounds and skills in research, documentation, analysis, and design works as a team to both learn from, and contribute to, ongoing work that is being led by The Heritage Foundation of Pakistan (HFP). The HFP, established by Sohail and Yasmeen Lari in 1980, has been documenting the British Colonial era buildings of Karachi and Lahore for several years. At present, Yasmeen Lari has designed a pedestrian pathway through Kharadar, with the help of local shop-owners, on the principals of community engagement and participatory design. Countering urban decay and climate change, the aim of this seminar is to consider how future architects, urbanists and historians may approach the issues facing the region. From this vantage point, we consider the manners in which urban space is instrumentalized towards narratives of imperial and national identity; how gentrification and ex-urbanization effects historical city-centers; how revitalization projects must be understood ad critiqued; and what role collaborative and interdisciplinary study may play as a conduit and conveyer of positive solutions. Starting with a comparativist approach, the seminar digs deep into the histories and cultures of Sindh, Pakistan, foregrounding how culture is made manifest through buildings and cities. We then move to contemporary Karachi and how these histories confront the dynamics of a city of over twenty million inhabitants per the 2023 census. Finally, the group takes an in-depth look at Kharadar, its urban form and the forces that are shaping the context that HFP is working with and responding to. These three inputs inform a mid-semester report integrating text and drawings collectively compiled by the student group in preparation for on-site fieldwork in Karachi. In Karachi, we collaborate with the HFP, using the Kharadar pedestrian pathway project as both site and substrate to directly participate in an ongoing cultural preservation project. This fieldwork includes collection of contextual documentation (architectural, oral, and historical); engagement with community stakeholders, policymakers, and urban designers; and collaboration with the shop-owners, craftspeople, and designers creating the pathway. Finally, we work with HFP to outline envisioning a project that the students will undertake over the second half of the semester that contributes to the Kharadar pedestrian pathway, while also identifying strategies for its expansion in the old city. On return to New Haven, the student group synthesizes material from the fieldwork, articulates the scope of the project, and again works collectively to craft a design proposal, in text, drawings, and models, that is theoretically and materially responsive to the context of the old city and the contemporary forces that it is negotiating. The results are presented to a group of academics, architects, preservationists, and Mrs. Lari herself, whose travel to Yale is supported by the School of Architecture as part of a presentation and celebration of her career and work. Prerequisite: permission of instructors.
T 1:30pm-3:25pm

HSAR 9512a, Directed Research  Joanna Fiduccia

By arrangement with faculty.
HTBA

HSAR 9546a, Critical Readings in American Art  Jennifer Raab

Readings in American art in preparation for Ph.D. examinations. Discussions of texts, methods, and works of art. Prior permission of the instructor required.
T 1:30pm-3:25pm