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2021-2022 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Course Descriptions
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Course Numbering System
The following lists include all courses normally offered at Albion College. However, not all courses are offered every year. When possible, courses offered in alternate years are designated. For details, students should consult the Class Schedule for each semester, available online at: www.albion.edu/registrar. The College reserves the right to add or withdraw courses without prior announcement, as conditions may require.
Unless otherwise stated, 100 level courses are intended for freshmen, 200 level for sophomores, 300 and 400 level for juniors and seniors.
A list of courses which meet the core and category requirements, organized by departments, is available online at www.albion.edu/registrar.
Further information may be obtained at the Registrar’s Office in the Ferguson Student, Technology, and Administrative Services Building.
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Art and Art History: Art History |
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ARTH 116: World Art
(1 Unit)
An introduction to world art in its historical context, considering the dominant arts of each continent framed within historical, religious, political, economic and social events. Incorporates basic tools of art historical analysis and criticism. Wickre, Staff.
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ARTH 117: Global Art History Before 1400
(1 unit)
This course provides students with a survey of artifacts, art objects, and architectural sites from across the globe, before the year 1400. Through focused analyses of visual cultures and built environments across different spaces and times, this record of the deep past demonstrates how humanity, arguably, has always been creatively expressive. It also illustrates how closely tied artistic patronage is to economic and political power. This course underscores how art-making is rooted in the exchange of ideas inasmuch as the economic and political realities of trade, migrations, pilgrimage, diplomacy, war and conquest. Students will explore how various cultures adopted artistic practices shaped by social networks, economic exchanges, religious beliefs, political power and historical events before the year 1400. Demerdash, Wickre.
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ARTH 118: Global Art History After 1400
(1 unit)
This course provides students with a survey of artifacts, art objects, and architectural sites from across the globe, beyond the year 1400. It examines the histories of artistic and architectural traditions across many cultures and geographies of the world, from the early modern period to the present day. Through focused analyses of visual cultures and built environments across different spaces and times, this course demonstrates how closely tied artistic patronage is to economic and political power. This course underscores how art-making is rooted in the exchange of ideas inasmuch as the economic and political realities of trade, migrations, pilgrimage, diplomacy, war, conquest, slavery, colonialism and imperialism, and the spread of technologies. Students will explore how various cultures adopted artistic conventions shaped by social networks, economic exchanges, religious beliefs, political power and historical events after the year 1400. Demerdash, WIckre.
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ARTH 206: Art of Egypt and North Africa
(1 Unit)
Explores how works of art and architecture contributed to these important cultures. Looks closely at art in its religious and socio-political contexts, including especially the contents and decorations of tombs and temples in the Nile river valley. Also examines architecture and art objects from Mesopotamia as reflections of early ideas of personal religion and the city-state. Staff.
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ARTH 208: Early Christian and Byzantine Art
(1 Unit)
Provides a foundation of knowledge in Early Christian and Byzantine art, including painting, sculpture, textile, metalwork, glasswork, architecture and illumination created from the period of the late Roman Empire and early Middle Ages to the fifteenth century in the Eastern Empire, or Byzantium. Emphasizes the identification of works, styles, artists and the broad political/religious contexts in which pieces of art were conceived and executed. Staff.
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ARTH 212: Art and Religion of the Medieval World
(1 Unit)
Studies art and Christianity in Western Europe from the late Roman Empire to the fifteenth century, including consideration of style and iconography, through art forms ranging from catacomb paintings to manuscripts for private devotion to Gothic cathedrals. Considers interpretations of the Middle Ages from the ninth century to the present, emphasizing how these interpretations reflect and construct the intellectual traditions of their authors. Staff.
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ARTH 213: Art and Science of Leonardo’s Day
(1 Unit)
Investigates Italian Renaissance painting and sculpture from 1400 to 1550, including works by Giotto, Piero, Leonardo, Michelangelo and others. Considers interpretations of Renaissance art, architecture and science, and the concepts of Humanism and Renaissance from the time of Petrarch to the present. Wickre.
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ARTH 214: Baroque Art
(1 Unit)
Explores the diversity of artistic styles in Europe between 1600 and 1750. Considers the expanding concepts of world geography, trade and colonization and its impact on art, an awakening sense of self for both artists and patrons, systems of training, theories of gender in the production and consumption of art works, and ways of describing and inscribing gender, race, class and sexual orientation in baroque art. Wickre.
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ARTH 216: Modern and Contemporary Art
(1 Unit)
Survey of twentieth and twenty-first century European and American painting, sculpture, photography, and time arts. Examines stylistic trends, changes in ideas about the nature and purposes of art and the relationships between art and society. Discussion of the impact of contemporary critical theory on the evolution of the art of the twentieth century. Wickre.
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ARTH 217: American Art, 1600-1913
(1 Unit)
Examines the major cultural movements, artists and art works in what would become the United States from the colonial period to the advent of modernism with the Armory Show in New York in 1913. Wickre.
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ARTH 219: Impressionism: Précis to Prologue
(1 Unit)
Critically examines paintings of the Impressionists in France in the context of historical documents from the period, contemporary critical writings about the artists and paintings, and the art historical texts generated about the art. A study of Impressionism’s roots in French romanticism and realism introduces the course. Special attention is paid to the particular historical circumstances that gave rise to Impressionism as a movement, and to the gendered nature of both the production and reception of Impressionist paintings. Wickre.
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ARTH 220: American Indian Art
(1 Unit)
Examines the art history of American Indian cultures in the United States, with a focus on traditional arts at the time of European contact, in the immediate aftermath of that contact, and on the emergence of a contemporary arts culture within American Indian contexts. Also considers how mythology and stereotyping have created an image of “the Indian” and how that image was and is used in majority culture. Presents a broad array of resources, including Albion College’s collection of American Indian objects and prints, and public and private art collections. Wickre.
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ARTH 310: Women and Art
(1 Unit)
Examines the roles women have played as creators, subjects, patrons and critics of art through history. Special emphasis will be placed on theories of the social construction of gender through art in all periods and on responses of contemporary women artists to such constructions. Wickre.
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ARTH 311: Art as Political Action
(1 Unit)
Examines art that invites or encourages social awareness and/or action. Includes studies of “high art” media, such as photography, painting and sculpture, and non-traditional art forms including performance art, public murals, crafts, environmental art and others. Thematically arranged around politicized issues such as race, rape and domestic violence, concepts of the body, pacifism and war, poverty, illness and AIDS. The course begins with political movements that relied heavily on visual images to achieve their purposes. Wickre.
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ARTH 312: Race and Its Representation in American Art
(1 Unit)
Examines representations of individuals and groups who traditionally have been viewed as “others”: African Americans, Native Americans, Asians and Chicanos/Chicanas as contrasted with images of members of the dominant culture. Considers how visual art has served to reflect social conditions and situations and to construct identities for all ethnic groups in the American psyche. Wickre.
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ARTH 313: History of Prints
(1 Unit)
Focuses on how artists have used the forms and techniques of printmaking to express themselves visually from the fifteenth century to the present. The course uses three approaches: (1) art history lectures and discussions based on readings; (2) connoisseurship in studying prints from the College’s permanent collection; and (3) practical application in producing prints in some of the major printmaking techniques. Students will begin to understand how the potential and limitations of various traditional techniques enable particular types of visual communication. Emphasis is placed on student-facilitated learning, exploration, discovery and collaborative processes. Wickre, McCauley.
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ARTH 315: Earth, Art, and the Environment
(1 Unit)
Examines American (U.S.) and European art and architecture that interacts with the environment and calls attention to the benefits and consequences of human interaction with the environment in a national and global context. Focuses on art, architecture and design projects produced from 1960 to the present and materials that set the context for artistic concerns about the environment beginning in the nineteenth century. Wickre.
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ARTH 317: Art and Theory
(1 Unit)
Introduces students to a variety of methods used to interpret works of art. Examines the specialized literature of art history from the sixteenth century to the present. Theories and methods will be applied to art from all periods. Wickre.
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ARTH 320: Feminist Art
(1 Unit)
The 1970s Feminist Art Movement introduced to the art world a revolution in attitudes and practices. The significant reverberations of that movement are felt to the present. Covers the social context, causes and effects, and major players in the Feminist Art Movement as well as its continuing impact. Wickre.
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ARTH 326: Issues in Contemporary Art
(1 Unit)
Examines issues, theory and art from the 1960s to the present, from the standpoint of theory, practice and the objects produced. Focuses on painting, sculpture, and new media from around the world and emphasizes critical reading, writing, and discussion. Wickre.
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Art and Art History: Special Studies |
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ARTH 187: Special Topics
(1/4 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 188: Special Topics
(1/2 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 189: Special Topics
(1 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 287: Special Topics
(1/4 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 288: Special Topics
(1/2 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 289: Special Topics
(1 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 387: Special Topics
(1/4 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 388: Special Topics
(1/2 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 389: Special Topics
(1 Unit)
An examination of subjects or areas not included in other courses. Staff
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ARTH 392: Internship
(1 Unit)
Offered on a credit/no credit basis. Staff
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ARTH 401: Seminar
(1/2 Unit)
Staff
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ARTH 402: Seminar
(1 Unit)
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ARTH 411: Directed Study
(1/2 Unit)
Staff
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ARTH 412: Directed Study
(1 Unit)
Staff
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