AAMW740 - Medieval Art Now

Topics vary from semester to semester. For the Fall 2021 semester, the topic will be: Medieval Art Now. How has the field of medieval art history, here understood in the ecumenical sense to include the Byzantine and Islamicate worlds, changed since the 1990s and the methodological reorientations brought about by the so-called "new art history"? Indeed, what is happening in medieval art now? This graduate seminar will introduce students to the key developments and theoretical interventions that have shaped the field over the past twenty years. Topics will include: vision and visuality; materiality; thing theory; phenomenology; art's intersection with science; ecocriticism; the global turn; critical race theory; and the rise of the digital humanities. By critically engaging with some of the most invigorating recent scholarship, we will reflect on the state of medieval art history and consider what its future might or should look like.