Courses for Spring 2023 | Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World

General Information About Courses

AAMW course numbers are crosslisted with departmentally based courses. Not all courses of relevance to AAMW students have AAMW numbers. Potentially relevant courses can be found in the rosters from the departments and programs in the History of Art, Ancient History, Anthropology, Classical Studies, History, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Religious Studies, Architecture and Historic Preservation. In addition courses may be taken for Penn credit at Bryn Mawr and Princeton. Advanced students may also request to take a specialist course at other universities in commuting range. If the professor teaching the course agrees, the AAMW Graduate Chair will give the class a Penn Independent Study number, and transcribe the grade received.

	Title	Instructors	Location	Time	Description	Cross listings	Syllabus URL
AAMW 5120-401	Petrography of Cultural Materials	Marie-Claude Boileau			Introduction to thin-section petrography of stone and ceramic archaeological materials. Using polarized light microscopy, the first half of this course will cover the basics of mineralogy and the petrography of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The second half will focus on the petrographic description of ceramic materials, mainly pottery, with emphasis on the interpretation of provenance and technology. As part of this course, students will characterize and analyze archaeological samples from various collections. Prior knowledge of geology is not required.	ANTH5211401, CLST7311401
AAMW 5200-401	Aegean Bronze Age Art Seminar: Minoan, Cycladic, and Mycenaean Architecture	Elizabeth Shank	JAFF 113	W 10:15 AM-1:14 PM	In this class, we will explore the art and cultures of the Aegean Bronze Age in Greece, a period from roughly 3,300-1,100 BCE. From this time, we have the first evidence of complex society in Greece with three geographically and materialistically distinct groups of people located on the Greek Mainland, the Cycladic islands, and the island of Crete. Topics will vary from semester to semester, but may include and not be limited to the examination of the architecture, pottery, wall paintings, stone carvings, jewelry, seals, weapons and other metalwork, and the iconography of these prehistoric arts. We will also delve into issues of the organization of society and the distribution of power, the role of women and men, trade and the unique position of the (rather small) Aegean world as it existed between two huge powerhouses of the ancient Mediterranean: the Ancient Near East and Egypt.	ARTH5200401
AAMW 5239-401	Surface Archaeology	Jason Herrmann Thomas F Tartaron	GLAB 103	W 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	Non-invasive and non-destructive methods make up an ever-greater proportion of archaeological investigations, for both intellectual and practical reasons. These methods comprise collection of data from the surface (pedestrian surface survey, geophysical prospection, geoarchaeology) and from above-ground platforms (drones, aircraft, balloons, kites, satellites), using a variety of sensors from human perception to multispectral scanning devices. The data acquired from these methods complement the contextual information drawn from traditional excavation, but also allow the archaeologist to address diverse research questions at a scale much greater than the excavated site. Aspiring archaeologists should have a good working knowledge of surface archaeological methods. In this course, we will delve deeply into these methods, and read and analyze case studies to expose strengths and weaknesses and to identify best practices. Students will have the opportunity for hands-on training in the Philadelphia area or elsewhere.	ANTH3221401, ANTH5231401, CLST3321401, CLST5321401
AAMW 5241-401	Courtly Life in Mesopotamia, Persia, and the Mediterranean	Holly Pittman Ludovico Portuese	MUSE 419	R 3:30 PM-6:29 PM	Who could approach and speak with the Sumerian Queen? What rules governed a banquet with the Persian king? What was the most elegant way to drink wine? Where were the women in the Assyrian court? With hundreds of people crammed into a palace, was hygiene important? How were court guests treated? What games were played at court? Is the stereotypical image of the “Oriental” court characterized by lust, backstairs intrigue, flatteries, and secrets sustainable in the light of new evidence and theoretical approaches? The court at the same time is considered as a large amorphous body in a physical location or an institution, or a group of people, or even to particular events. This seminar style course considers Middle Eastern courts from the Sumerians through the Assyrian and Persian empires articulating shared and diverse features. Textual, visual, material and archaeological sources are considered through sociological and anthropological theories and core concepts such as groups, individuals, ultrasociality, proxemics, sociopetal, sociofrugal and purity to name a few. Comparisons with later courts in the Middle East are welcome.	ARTH5241401, NELC5054401
AAMW 5250-401	Borderlines: Art and Artifact in the Roman Empire	Ann L Kuttner			What made art and artifacts `Roman', or not, in a Roman world? `Roman provincial art` is an active scholarly category. This seminar reframes it, to test productive models to understand visual culture outside the empire’s Italian heartland from the Late Republic into Late Antiquity, in the Roman polity’s interactions with many peoples in situations of diaspora, colonization, hegemony, conflict, economic exchange, and religious interaction. As `Rome’ expanded, cultural relations across many borderlines – social, ethnic, territorial - potentially became cultural politics. A traditional topic for that has been Roman interaction with Greek culture. This seminar extends that range, while tackling `Hellenization’, as we reflect on models of `Romanization’, globalism and identity formation within the imperium’s boundaries in its provinces and client kingdoms, and also at its frontier zones. Various disciplines apply: art history, archaeology, history, and more. Case studies, evolved with students, may range from Britain to Iran, northern Africa to the Black Sea in space and, in time, from interactions with the Hellenistic East and West and with Iron Age Europe, to the age of Germanic, Sasanian and Ummayad conquests of Roman terrain, ca 3rd c. BCE-7th c. CE. The market in art and artifact, the nature and status of makers, and conditions of patronage and viewing are key considerations. Private and public objects, images, architecture and urbanism, and landscapes can all concern us, as we try out disciplinary approaches that take in eg cultural appropriation, translation and hybrity, creolization, discrepant experience, object agency, and communities of taste and style. `Ethnicity’ is a loaded concept in ancient Mediterranean studies, as is `race;’ our course must engage those, and the ways in which things and styles have been made to serve those terms. And who owns, is heir to, the cultural legacies we look at, and how to name them, are problems that tangle with current national identity formation, and academic and museum practice. Our own Museum's holdings can make topics. Students are welcome to bring in interests in language and text cultures, in disciplines outside art history and archaeology, and in other world cultures and epochs.	ANCH7403401, ARTH5250401, CLST7403401	https://coursesintouch.apps.upenn.edu/cpr/jsp/fast.do?webService=syll&t=202310&c=AAMW5250401
AAMW 6240-401	Art of Mesopotamia	Holly Pittman	JAFF 104	TR 1:45 PM-3:14 PM	Visual expression was first developed in Mesopotamia in the same environment as the invention of writing. This lecture class will introduce the arts of the major periods of Mesopotamian History ending with the "cinematic" effects achieved by the Assyrian artists on the walls of the royal palaces. The strong connection between verbal and visual expression will be traced over the three millennia course of Mesopotamian civilization from the earliest periods through the imperial art of the Assyrians and Babylonians of the first millennium BCE. The class and the assignments will regularly engage with objects in the collections and on display in the galleries of the Penn Museum.	ARTH2240401, ARTH6240401, NELC0060401, NELC6060401
AAMW 6260-401	Hellenistic and Roman Art and Artifact	Ann L Kuttner	JAFF B17	TR 10:15 AM-11:44 AM	This lecture course surveys the political, religious and domestic arts, patronage and display in Rome's Mediterranean, from the 2nd c. BCE to Constantine's 4th-c. Christianized empire. Our subjects are images and decorated objects in their cultural, political and socio-economic contexts (painting, mosaic, sculpture, luxury and mass-produced arts in many media). We start with the Hellenistic cosmopolitan culture of the Greek kingdoms and their neighbors, and late Etruscan and Republican Italy; next we map Imperial Roman art as developed around the capital city Rome, as well as in the provinces of the vast empire.	ARTH2260401, ARTH6260401, CLST3402401, CLST5402401
AAMW 6400-401	Medieval Art	Sarah M Guerin	JAFF B17	TR 12:00 PM-1:29 PM	An introductory survey, this lecture course investigates architecture, painting, sculpture, and the "minor arts" of the Middle Ages. Students become familiar with selected major monuments of the Romanesque and Gothic periods, primarily in Western Europe as well as relevant sites around the Mediterranean. Analysis of works emphasizes the cultural context, the thematic content, and the function of objects and monuments. Discussions focus especially on several key themes: the role of luxury in the medieval west; the theological role of images; the revival of classical models and visual modes; social rituals such as pilgrimage and crusading; the cult of the Virgin and the status of women in art; and, more generally, the ideology of visual culture across the political and urban landscapes.	ARTH2400401, ARTH6400401
AAMW 7259-401	Troy and Homer	Sheila H Murnaghan Charles Brian Rose	MUSE 330	T 1:45 PM-4:44 PM	An interdisciplinary seminar focusing on the city of Troy both as an archaeological site and as the setting of the legendary Trojan War. We will consider Homer's Iliad (with selected sections read in Greek) together with the topography and archaeology of the site of Troy in order to address a series of interrelated questions: What are the points of continuity and discontinuity between the stories told by the literary tradition and the material record? How do both types of evidence contribute to our understanding of political relations and cultural interactions between Greece and Anatolia in the Bronze Age? How do Hittite sources bear on our reconstruction of the events behind the Troy legend? How have the site and the poem contributed to each other's interpretation in the context of scholarly discovery and debate? We will give some attention to modern receptions of the Troy legend that deliberately combine material and textual elements, such as Cy Twombly's "Fifty Days at Iliam" and Alice Oswald's "Memorial: An Excavation of Homer's Iliad." The seminar will include a visit to the site of Troy during the Spring Break.	GREK7201401
AAMW 7400-401	Medieval Art Seminar	Sarah M Guerin David Young Kim	VANP 625	W 3:30 PM-6:29 PM	Alternating specific topic from year to year, this advanced graduate seminar surveys methodological issues concerning the art of the European Middle Ages, broadly conceived. Seminars take advantage of the rich resources of the Philadelphia area. This course is open to graduate students only.	ARTH7400401
AAMW 8000-001	Pedagogy	Ivan Drpic			Pedagogy
AAMW 8000-002	Pedagogy	James Ker			Pedagogy
AAMW 9900-001	Masters Thesis	Charles Brian Rose			Masters Thesis
AAMW 9950-013	Dissertation	Holly Pittman			Dissertation
AAMW 9950-021	Dissertation	Kimberly Diane Bowes			Dissertation
AAMW 9950-036	Dissertation	Lauren M Ristvet			Dissertation
AAMW 9950-037	Dissertation	Charles Brian Rose			Dissertation