What does it mean for a museum to be alive? This intensive four-week field course uses Barcelona and Berlin as living laboratories for that question. In Barcelona, we encounter institutions animated by modernist art, civic identity, and community memory. In Berlin, we confront museums built around absence, trauma, and contested ownership. Moving between them, students…
This course will expose students to the art and culture of France. Walk the streets of Paris, experiencing the tastes and sounds of one of the world’s greatest cities. Through its art, France has revealed its cultural and political power to the world. From towering cathedrals to postmodern art, key art museums to cultural sites,…
The Netherlands will serve as our classroom as we investigate how museums, galleries, public art, architecture, neighborhoods, and everyday places communicate culture and meaning. Through Place-as-Text explorations, discussions, readings, and reflective assignments, students will develop skills to closely observe and critically interpret the spaces they encounter, and to examine how choices about selection, placement, interpretation,…
Set in two countries, Korea and Japan, this immersive course invites students to explore both places through digital photography, collaborative storytelling, and personal reflection. Guided by Seth Gitner’s Multimedia Storytelling and inspired by Sophie Calle’s Venetian Suite, students will engage with the city as a visual text – full of quiet drama, pattern, and poetry.…
This course examines the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance in Rome and Florence, with particular attention to the values and philosophies that shaped artistic production. Students will study both canonical works and a broader range of visual culture, situating them within the intellectual framework of humanism, religion and evolving approaches to knowledge that…
This course surveys Italian art and architecture from antiquity to the modern era, tracing visual culture across political, religious, and intellectual periods. It examines how classical vocabulary and architecture shaped later art, then follows stylistic developments through medieval, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance Italy, focusing on continuity and change over time.
Daily excursions provide opportunities to capture the unique light, textures, and forms of Greece, while independent sketching helps students develop their personal artistic voice. Draw directly from Greece’s landscapes, ruins, and museums in this hands-on studio course. Students explore graphite, ink, charcoal, and watercolor while building a sketchbook that captures their observations, creativity, and personal…
Explore Greek art and architecture through on-site observation and studio projects. Students sketch, draw, and photograph artifacts, monuments, and buildings, then use these studies as inspiration for creative work, culminating in a portfolio that showcases technical skill, cultural understanding, and personal artistic response. This course is open to all students/majors and will serve as an…
Independent coursework is done on an individual basis under the guidance of a selected faculty member. Students are expected to propose a specific topic related to the sites, monuments (works of art), or artists available for study in Prague.
A selective chronological study of the major visual arts from Gothic through modern times. Taught exclusively on sites (churches, museums, galleries, etc.), the course surveys art of the Western tradition. Emphasis is placed on understanding art within a particular historical and social context, giving students a sense of the history of ideas as well as…
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