40 courses with the subject ARTH, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
ARTH 10002 Art and Culture in the Gilded Age6
Staggering wealth inequality spurred by transformative technological innovation and unbridled corporate power. Political tumult fueled by backsliding civil rights legislation, disputed elections, and anti- immigrant sentiment. Culture wars. American imperialism. Such characteristics have increasingly fueled comparisons between the present day and the late-nineteenth century in the United States. The Gilded Age witnessed the flourishing of mass culture alongside the founding of many elite cultural organizations—museums, symphony halls, libraries—that still stand as preeminent civic institutions. With an occasional eye to the present, this seminar examines the art, architecture, and cultural history of the Gilded Age. Offered: Fall 2025 Liberal Arts Requirements: AI/WR1, Argument & Inquiry/WR1 only allowed to register for one A&I course at a time. If a student wishes to change the A&I course they are enrolled in they must DROP the enrolled course and then ADD the new course. Please see our Workday guides Drop or 'Late' Drop a Course and Register or Waitlist for a Course Directly from the Course Listing for more information. Tags: CL: 100 level Faculty: Baird Jarman
Student is a member of the First Year First Term class level cohort. Students are
ARTH 101Introduction to Art History I6
An introduction to the art and architecture of various geographical areas around the world from antiquity through the “Middle Ages.” The course will provide foundational skills (tools of analysis and interpretation) as well as general, historical understanding. It will focus on a select number of major developments in a range of media and cultures, emphasizing the way that works of art function both as aesthetic and material objects and as cultural artifacts and forces. Issues include, for example, sacred spaces, images of the gods, imperial portraiture, and domestic decoration. Offered: Winter 2026 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis CX, Cultural/Literature Tags: ARCN Pertinent ARTH Pre-1800 ARTS ARTH Prior to 1900 CL: 100 level MARS Core Course MARS Supporting EUST Transnational Support Faculty: Jessica Keating
An introduction to the art and architecture of various geographical areas around the world from the fifteenth century through the present. The course will provide foundational skills (tools of analysis and interpretation) as well as general, historical understanding. It will focus on a select number of major developments in a range of media and cultures, emphasizing the way that works of art function both as
ARTH 120Art and Archaeology of Ancient Egypt and West Asia2
This course will provide students with foundational knowledge in the art, architecture and archaeology of Egypt, East Africa, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Iran and Central Asia from the Neolithic through Late Antiquity (ca. 7,000 B.C.E. – 650 C.E.). Students will gain an understanding of the relationship between the visual material and the social, intellectual, political and religious contexts in which it developed and functioned. In this regard, students will also gain an understanding of the evolution of, and exchanges and differences among, the visual cultures of these time periods and regions. It will also expose them to the preconditions for contemporary geopolitics in the region. Offered: Spring 2026 Credits: 6 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement Tags: ARCN Pertinent ARTH Non Western ARTH Pre-1800 CLAS Archaeological
This course will survey art and architecture in China from its prehistoric beginnings to the end of the nineteenth century. It will examine various types of visual art forms within their social, political and cultural contexts. Major themes that will also be explored include: the role of ritual in the production and use of art, the relationship between the court and secular elite and art, and theories about creativity and expression. Offered: Fall 2025 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis CX, Cultural/Literature Tags: ARTH Non Western ARTS ARTH Prior to 1900 ASST East Asia CL: 100 level EAST Core EAST Supporting MARS Supporting ASST Literary Artistic
ARTH 205Invisible From Space: Representing Ecosystems6
Since NASA's "Whole Earth" photographs emerged in the late 1960s, people have struggled with humanity's place in the cosmos and our interconnection with all life on our "blue marble." How can we comprehend the whole while valuing each component of this complex system? In the U.S., Romantic landscapes and frontier imagery continue influencing perception despite tensions with vast scales of space, time, data, history, and non-human perspectives. These challenges of seeing our planet and ourselves have inspired diverse creative responses across photography, new media, mapping, alternative archiving, theater, music, data visualization, and other interdisciplinary approaches. Offered: Fall 2025 Liberal Arts Requirements: LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2 Tags: AMST Democracy Activism AMST Space and Place ARTH Post-1800 ARTS ARTH Post 1900 CL: 200 level AMST Production Consumption of Culture Faculty: Dave Bailey
ARTH 207Cultivating the Future: “Growing” Together6
Artists have long explored the dual themes of plant cultivation and knowledge cultivation. What explains this connection between horticulture and pedagogy in art? This course examines these interconnections, beginning with early modernist art circles and following their influence on developments like Black Mountain College and Joseph Beuys's Free International University. We then explore contemporary artists who employ permaculture gardens, traditional ecological knowledge, ecofeminist principles, guerrilla plantings, and foraging as tools to foster new social, political, and spiritual understandings. Through these practices, artists cultivate not just plants but future-oriented ways of knowing and being in the world. Offered: Fall 2025 Liberal Arts Requirements: LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2 Tags: AMST Democracy Activism AMST Space and Place ARTH Post-1800 ARTS ARTH Post 1900 CL: 200 level AMST Production Consumption of Culture Faculty: Dave Bailey
ARTH 215Cross-Cultural Psychology in Prague: Czech Art and Architecture4
This course will examine key developments in Czech visual art and architecture from the early medieval to the contemporary periods. Slide-based lectures will be supplemented by visits to representative monuments, art collections, and museums in Prague. Not offered in 2025-26 Grading: S/CR/NC Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis completed any of the following course(s): PSYC 110 with a grade of C- or better. Tags: CL: 200 level
Prints after the Digital Turn The Middle East participated in the global revolutionary moment at the turn of the century, when photography and print played a crucial role in the mobilization and memorization of political, social, and cultural change. This course examines a vast range of revolutionary images at the beginning of the twentieth century, their specific contexts, and expressions in the Middle East. The course also investigates the impact of the Digital Turn in Art History and the intricacies of digital exhibitions. The students contribute to a digital exhibition on comparative revolutions hosted by Khamseen: Islamic Art History Online in 2025-26. Not offered in 2025-26 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis Tags: ARTH Non Western CL: 200 level MEST Supporting Group 2 DGAH Cross
Is it theater? Is it dance? Is it music? Is it even art? Mocked in popular culture and censured by government officials, performance art has long been the art world’s most troublesome medium. This course provides an historical survey of performance and body art, beginning with the Futurists in early
ARTH 235Revival, Revelation, and Re-animation: The Art of Europe’s “Renaissance”6
This course examines European artistic production in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. The aim of the course is to introduce diverse forms of artistic production, as well as to analyze the religious, social, and political role of art in the period. While attending to the specificities of workshop practices, production techniques, materials, content, and form of the objects under discussion, the course also interrogates the ways in which these objects are and, at times, are not representative of the “Renaissance.” Offered: Spring 2026 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis course with a grade of C- better. Tags: ARTH Pre-1800 ARTS ARTH Prior to 1900 CL: 200 level MARS Core Course MARS Supporting EUST Transnational Support Faculty: Jessica Keating
Art from abstract expressionism to the present, with particular focus on issues such as the modernist artist-hero; the emergence of alternative or non-traditional media; the influence of the women’s movement and the gay/lesbian liberation movement on contemporary art; and postmodern theory and practice. Offered: Spring 2026 Liberal Arts Requirements: IDS, Intercultural Domestic Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis WR2 Writing Requirement 2 course with a grade of C- better. Tags: AMST America in the World AMST Space and Place ARTH Post-1800 ARTS ARTH Post 1900 CAMS Extra Departmental CL: 200 level GWSS Elective AMST Production Consumption of Culture EUST Transnational Support Faculty: Vanessa Reubendale
This course will trace major trends in western architecture from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to the dawn of the Cold War, concentrating especially on the decades from the 1870s through 1950s. We will discuss technological developments and stylistic issues in different cultural and political contexts, such as Chicago after the Great Fire and Berlin after the Great War. We will consider critiques of modern
ARTH 260Planning Utopia: Ideal Cities in Theory and Practice
This course will survey the history of ideal plans for the built urban environment. Particular attention will be given to examples from about 1850 to the present. Projects chosen by students will greatly influence the course content, but subjects likely to receive sustained attention include: Renaissance ideal cities, conceptions of public and private space, civic rituals, the industrial city, Baron Haussmann’s renovations of Paris, suburbanization, the Garden City movement, zoning legislation, Le Corbusier’s Ville Contemporaine, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, New Urbanism and urban renewal, and planned capitals such as Brasília, Canberra, Chandigarh, and Washington, D.C. Offered: Spring 2026 Credits: 6 Liberal Arts Requirements: LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis course with a grade of C- better. Tags: ACE Applied ARTS ARTH Post 1900 CL: 200 level Faculty: Baird Jarman
ARTH 263Architectural Studies in Europe Program: Prehistory to Postmodernism6
This course surveys the history of European architecture while emphasizing firsthand encounters with actual structures. Students visit outstanding examples of major transnational styles–including Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Moorish, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical and Modernist buildings–along with regionally specific styles, such as Spanish Plateresque, English Tudor and Catalan Modernisme. Cultural and technological changes affecting architectural practices are emphasized along with architectural theory, ranging from Renaissance treatises to Modernist manifestos. Students also visit buildings that resist easy classification and that raise topics such as spatial appropriation, stylistic hybridity, and political symbolism. Not offered in 2025-26 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis Tags: ARTH Pre-1800 ARTS ARTH Prior to 1900 CL: 200 level FFST History and Art History MARS Core Course MARS Supporting EUST Transnational
Acceptance in the Carleton OCS Architectural Studies in Europe program.
ARTH 265Architectural Studies in Europe Program: Urban Planning in Europe3
This course uses metropolitan areas visited during the program as case studies in the history and contemporary practice of urban planning. Students will explore cities with the program director and with local architects and historians—as well as in groups on their own. Specific topics include the use of major international events, such as Olympic Games and World’s Fairs, as large-scale planning opportunities, the development of municipal housing programs, the reduction of automobile traffic and mass transit initiatives, the adaptive reuse of former industrial districts, the use of cultural institutions as civic anchors, and more. Not offered in 2025-26 Liberal Arts Requirements: LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis Tags: AMST Space and Place ARTH Post-1800 ARTS ARTH Post 1900 CL: 200 level
An intensive study of the nature of art history as an intellectual discipline and of the approaches scholars have taken to various art historical problems. Attention as well to principles of current art historical research and writing. Recommended for juniors who have declared art history as a major or a minor. Offered: Spring 2026 Liberal Arts Requirements: LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis Tags: ASST Disciplinary ASST Methodology CL: 200 level Faculty: Jessica Keating
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in China, unprecedented economic development and urbanization expanded the number of educated elite who used their wealth to both display their status and distinguish themselves as cultural leaders. As a result, this period experienced a boom in estate and garden building, art collecting and luxury consumption. This course will examine a wide range of objects from painting and calligraphy to furniture and ceramics within the context of domestic architecture of the late Ming dynasty. It will also examine the role of taste and social class in determining the style of art and architecture. Not offered in 2025-26 Liberal Arts Requirements: IS, International Studies LA, Literary/Artistic Analysis Tags: ARTH Non Western ARTS ARTH Prior to 1900 ASST East Asia CL: 300 level EAST Core EAST Supporting MARS Core Course ASST Literary Artistic
The integrative exercise for the art history major involves an independent research project, on a topic chosen by the student and approved by faculty members, resulting in a substantial essay due late in the winter term. One credit is awarded, usually in the spring term, for a formal presentation that contextualizes the project and summarizes the argument of the essay. The other five credits may be distributed in any fashion over the fall and winter terms. Art History 400 is a continuing course; no grade will be awarded until all six credits are completed. Offered: Fall 2025, Winter 2026, Spring 2026 Grading: S/NC Faculty: Jessica Keating
