AH 100
3 credits
History of Art and Culture in a Global Context
Prerequisite(s): None
This course will introduce students to the study of visual art and culture in a global context. Thematic approaches to the art of various cultures will encourage students to appreciate distinct cultural traditions while also considering collisions, connections and cross-fertilization between cultures. Some reference will be made to Indigenous Art in British Columbia.
AH 101
3 credits
Visual Culture in the West to 1400
Prerequisite(s): None
Images, monuments, and buildings are integral to the societies that create them. This introduction to the history of image-making and the built environment is designed to foster knowledge, understanding, and an appreciation of visual culture from Prehistory to circa 1400. Historical and geographical contexts will be considered, along with the dominant political, religious, and social concerns of each period.
AH 102
3 credits
Visual Culture in the West from 1400 to Present
Prerequisite(s): None
This course explores visual arts and culture in a social context from the Renaissance to the contemporary era. The course focuses on understanding how artistic production changed in the centuries leading up to the modern era as well as the radical re-definitions of art that occurred in the 20th century. While this course may be best taken as a sequel to AH 101, it can also be taken independently.
AH 200
3 credits
Critical Approaches to Thinking and Writing about Art
Prerequisite(s): 3 credits of any 100-level AH course
This course introduces students to a variety of critical approaches to the study of art, emphasizing the value of applying different theoretical models to enrich and broaden our understanding of the visual arts. Successful completion of this course will allow students to proceed to upper-level courses with an understanding of how and why to apply theoretical methods to the study and making of art.
AH 203
3 credits
History of Posters - the Art of Persuasion
Prerequisite(s): None
From the spirit of agitation to the selling of products and services, posters have played an important role in the last two centuries. The poster has played a particular role in times of revolution, war, protest, and in cultural circulation. Analyses of posters – whether cigarette advertisement during the art nouveau period, students' voices of dissent in 1968, or current promotion of Japanese anime movies – will include an investigation of the political, social, and economic motivations behind their production as well as their diverse audiences and contexts of reception.
AH 204
3 credits
Indigenous Art of the Northwest Coast
Prerequisite(s): None
This course provides a survey of the art and visual culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Students will consider the complex range in which such images and objects have functioned: used in rituals and ceremonies, appropriated for monetary gain, incorporated into visions of a new Canada, promoted as fine art, reclaimed as a tool of Indigenous activism, and integrated into globalized display cultures. In addition to analyzing the formal elements of Northwest Coast art, the course relates these forms to a range of issues informing contemporary critical consciousness, including debates over class, race, gender, colonialism, and Indigeneity.
AH 205
3 credits
Art Practices and Popular Culture I
Prerequisite(s): AH 102
This course offers an examination of popular culture in relation to contemporary art-making practices, emphasizing the cross-fertilization of "fine" and "popular" art in recent decades. Students will investigate relevant art historical movements (e.g. Cubism, Dada, Pop), and the social and political role of art and the artist. This course fosters skills in visual literacy, stressing their critical importance in understanding and participating in a culture that increasingly embraces the visual and the popular. Students will be required to participate in a curatorial/exhibition assignment.
Note: This course is offered as VA 205 and AH 205. Students may take only one of these for credit.
AH 214
3 credits
The Art of English and French Canada , 1665- 1945
Prerequisite(s): None
This course provides an introductory survey of non-native art from the time of French and English settlement to the end of the second World War. Art works will be contextualized with regard to period style, regional style, and personal style, and signification will be discussed with reference to missionary purpose, colonial rhetoric, and nationalism.
AH 215
3 credits
Contemporary Canadian Art
Prerequisite(s): None
This course provides an introduction to Canadian art produced since 1945. The rich and multifarious artworks produced in Canada are representative of the country’s regional and ethnic diversity, while national interests and international influences are also much in evidence. The course may be taught as a chronological survey, or organized to focus on specific themes or issues; please consult the department for current offerings.
AH 230
3 credits
Issues in Exhibition
Prerequisite(s): Any three credits of lower-level Art History
This course offers a ‘hands on’ introduction to how institutions, physical and ideological, express and determine public taste. It is a one-semester course of directed study with a study tour experience that may vary from weekend tours of local galleries to tours of ten days to 3 weeks of national or international sites. Students will analyze curatorial objectives, elements of display, and supportive exhibition materials.
AH 250
3 credits
French Art and Architecture
Prerequisite(s): None
This course offers a study of French art and architecture. It focuses on selected works from the medieval era to the contemporary period with an emphasis on the social and political context for their production, circulation, and reception. Special attention is given to the metropolis of Paris as a city vested with cultural and symbolic meaning.
AH 267
3 credits
Signs and Meaning: An Introduction to Semiotics
Prerequisite(s): ENGL 105 and one of the following: ENGL 108, 115, 120, 130, 150, or 170; FILM 110 or 120; MACS 110, 130, or 221; or AH 200 or 205.
This course is an introduction to the specialized language and concepts of semiotics, which offers students a useful approach for the critical examination of literature, film, visual arts, and media. By the end of the term, students will perform their own semiotic analysis of a text, film, work of art, or popular media.
Note: This course is offered as ENGL 267, MACS 267, and AH 267. Students may take only one of these for credit.
AH 270
3 credits
Architecture and Nature: Building Between Earth and Sky
Prerequisite(s): Three credits of any 100-level AH course.
This course seeks to probe social, political, and cultural meanings of built structures in their historical contexts with particular attention to the changing relationship between architecture and nature – i.e., the physical universe and its elements and phenomena. It explores Western and non-Western architecture, urban planning, garden design, and commemorative monuments by investigating case studies from prehistory to the present day. To illuminate this association of the human-made environment to the natural world, this course draws on references and examples both built and imagined in art and visual culture.
AH 310
4 credits
Studies in Medieval Art
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- or 200-level Art History. Students who do not meet these pre-reqs
but have completed 45 university-level credits may obtain instructor's permission
This course focuses on developments in the visual culture of Medieval Europe within a specific period from the fifth through the fifteenth centuries. This rich and extensive period encompasses many cultures, styles, genres, media, and regions, ranging, for example, from Anglo-Saxon jewelry of the British Isles, through monumental Gothic buildings emanating out of northern France, to the more classically-nuanced art and architecture of the Italian peninsula. The visual culture of this era will be examined in relation to historical and geographical contexts, and the dominant political, religious, and social concerns of each period. The specific period to be considered may vary. Please consult the instructor.
AH 311
4 credits
Studies in Renaissance Art
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- or 200-level Art History. Students who do not meet these prerequisites,
but have completed 45 university-level credits may obtain instructor's permission.
This course will examine developments in the visual culture of Renaissance Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. This is a time of intense artistic productivity and intellectual exploration that stimulates profound changes in the production, circulation, and reception of visual art, marking the beginning of the early modern period. The visual culture of this era will be examined in relation to historical and geographical contexts, and the dominant political, religious, and social concerns of the period. The specific topic will vary. Please consult the instructor.
AH 312
4 credits
Studies in Baroque Art and Architecture
Prerequisite(s): 3 credits of 100- or 200-level Art History or 45 university-level credits.
From the vantage points of the Counter-Reformation and rise of modern European states, this course addresses visual culture from the late 16th through the early 18th century in relation to the rise of the art academies, art theory, religious conflict, scientific discovery, political geography, and colonial expansion.
AH 313
4 credits
Arts in Context: Romanticism
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- and/or 200-level Art History, or 45 university-level credits and instructor's permission.
This course investigates the visual arts and culture of the Romantic movement, with a primary focus on its manifestations in Western Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century. The production, circulation, and reception of the imagery of Romanticism will be examined in relation to the dominant themes of the movement and the profound political and social upheavals of its era. The related literary and musical arts of the period will also be considered, as time permits.
AH 314
4 credits
Arts in Context: Modernism
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- and/or 200-level Art History, or 45 university-level credits and instructor's permission.
The primary objective of this course is to foster an understanding of how visual arts from between circa 1850 to 1945 demonstrate and contribute to the social and political phenomenon called Modernism. This course offers an investigation of the ways in which the arts in Europe participated in a redefinition of the past, present, and future in times of political and social upheaval. Modernism, as defined here, is a unique historical attitude, which deeply affects our current understanding of the world.
AH 315
4 credits
Arts in Context: Contemporary
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- and/or 200-level Art History, or 45 university-level credits and instructor's permission.
This course explores the production, circulation, and reception of contemporary arts and visual culture since the second half of the twentieth century. After the end of WWII, in the context of post-colonial and civil rights movements, Western culture experienced the strain of challenges and diversification as never before. This course considers various forms and theories of visual arts and culture in their relation to contemporary philosophies, socio-political movements, and globalization.
AH 316
4 credits
Arts in Context: Gender, Art and Society
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- and/or 200-level Art History, or 45 university-level credits and instructor's permission.
This course offers an examination of the ways in which gender has influenced the creation and reception of works of art. Hence we investigate topics related to works of art representing women and by women, as well as works of art addressing problems centered on masculinity and gender identity, including lived experiences. Various issues are discussed, particularly in relation to the history of women’s art, such as the traditional marginalization of women’s art; the debate regarding art and craft; the institutional and social obstacles and opportunities of women artists and patrons; the nature of traditional genres in women’s art; the interrelations of gender, class, race, and sexualities; and the impact of the feminist movement and critical theory on both the production and study of women's art.
AH 320
4 credits
Art & Culture: Special Topics
Prerequisite(s): 9 credits of 100- and/or 200-level Art History, or 45 university-level credits and instructor's permission.
The specific topic of this course will vary as opportunity permits (consult timetable), but students will encounter the artistic and cultural production of a non-western society (e.g., Haida, Japanese), or related group of societies (e.g., Oceanic or African) from an interdisciplinary perspective.
AH 321
4 credits
Canada Contact Zone
Prerequisite(s): 3 credits of 100- or 200-level Art History or 45 university-level credits.
This course explores the role of art and visual culture as a mediator between Indigenous and Settler communities in pre-and post-Confederation Canada. Conflict, negotiation, appropriation, and resistance characterize such cross-cultural exchanges, and – in this complex context – the course considers the social, political, and economic implications of post-Contact art objects.
Note: Students with credit for AH 320D cannot take this course for further credit.
AH 330
4 credits
Museum Principles and Practices
Prerequisite(s): 3 credits of 100- or 200-level Art History or 45 university-level credits.
This course provides a theoretical and practical study of how museums perpetuate aesthetic, cultural, and political interests. Students will examine how galleries construct meaning and determine public taste by analyzing exhibitions in terms of broad institutional mandate as well as specific curatorial objectives, issues of display, and issues of reception.
AH 340
4 credits
Fashion in Art / Fashion as Art
Prerequisite(s): Any 100- or 200-level AH course, or FD 193
What we wear, drape, and attach to our bodies is a visible, physical, and symbolic signifier of our place in society, history, and culture. This course explores questions of fashion as popular art, as design, as mass culture, and as high art. While considering fashion and clothing as cultural phenomena and a means of communication, it explores the production of visual arts and the design of clothes as interconnected creative processes.
Note: This course is offered as AH 340 and FD 340. Students may only take one of these for credit.
AH 341
4 credits
Addressing Clothing Piece by Piece
Prerequisite(s): One 100- or 200-level AH course, or FD 193
This course explores the ways according to which the society "covers" and leaves the body "uncovered," thereby conditioning our individual and corporeal identities through such signs and symbols. Clothes are society's ways of showing where we belong in the order of things, our role and position in the social pageantry. This course recognizes that dress has "emblematic" dimensions beyond mere functionality. By analyzing various garments in their historically fashioned contexts we focus on the social and cultural significance of dress as marker uncovering our ambitions and inhibitions.
Note: This course is offered as AH 341 and FD 341. Students may take only one of these for credit.
AH 401
4 credits
Senior Seminar I
Prerequisite(s): Two upper-level Art History courses, to include either AH 314 or AH 315, plus 30 university-level credits.
This course presents an overview of key theoretical issues important to the practice and reception of contemporary art. Modern and contemporary cultural theories, art theory, and art criticism are examined. Topics may include Marxist-Realist and Formalist debate, early Structuralist and Post-Structuralist criticism, Aesthetic Reception theory, Pyschoanalytic art criticism, and selected Postmodern and Feminist cultural critiques. This course forms the required foundation for AH 403.
Note: This course may be offered as either AH 401 or VA 401. Students may take only one of these for credit.
AH 403
3 credits
Senior Seminar II
Prerequisite(s): AH 401 or VA 401
This seminar course is designed to further develop a comprehensive understanding and awareness of theoretical issues as they pertain to art making practice. Students will work independently in consultation with the instructor on in-class presentations related to projects established in Senior Studio II. They will acquire research skills necessary to the development and understanding of contemporary art practice, cultural theory, and art criticism. Weekly readings and in-class presentations will provide the basis for discussion.
Note: This course is offered as VA 403 and AH 403. Students may take only one of these for credit.
AH 490
4 credits
Directed Studies in Art History and Visual Studies
Prerequisite(s): 60 university-level credits, including 12 credits of Art History with a minimum of 4 credits at the upper-level.
For upper-level students who wish to pursue an independent course of concentrated study in a topic not otherwise offered, or a supervised practicum.
Note: Institutional policy requires the submission of a proposal prior to registration in this course. [UFV Policy 207]
