Art History, Curating and Visual Studies Module Descriptions 2018/19 Level H (i.e. 3 rd Yr.) Modules Please be aware that all modules are subject to availability. Where a module s assessment happens in a different semester or term, and you are unsure if you will be here, please contact the Art History, Curating and Visual Studies department at ahcvsadministrator@contacts.bham.ac.uk to see if they are happy for you to take this module. For many of these modules, some experience of studying History may be required, and you should remember this when choosing your modules. If there is another module that you need to have studied before taking this, it will be stated in the module description (pre-requisite). Please note that at the time this document has been prepared (March 2018) the following information is provisional, and there may be minor changes between now and the beginning of 2018/19 academic year.
Turning the Pages: Manuscript and Print, Past and Present MODULE CODE 28857 ASSESSMENT METHOD Essay: Coursework (50%) Exam: Exam (Centrally Timetabled) - Written Unseen (50%) TBC SEMESTER 1 This module explores medieval and early modern books from the perspectives of art history, political and socio-cultural history, conservation and digital humanities. It introduces students to the ways in which manuscripts were made and what we can learn from them about the past as material objects. It will examine the social and political value that these often lavishly illustrated productions had for aristocratic patrons like the Burgundian dukes. It will consider the role of images in books in relation to the texts, as beyond simple illustration. Through consideration of inventories and original books themselves, it will also look at how manuscripts and printed books functioned in the everyday lives of ordinary people, as repositories of prayer, important dates, and mnemonic images. The module will also examine the fate of medieval and early modern books in the nineteenth century, and the policies/politics of libraries in the twentieth and twenty-first. The module will draw closely on the collections in the Cadbury Research Library and encourage students to engage with the numerous online archives available through institutions such as the British Library, John Rylands Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale. Students will therefore not only gain a familiarity with pre-modern sources, but will also be encouraged to engage critically with questions relating to changing notions of use, conservation, research and access.
Inside Out: Interior and Interiority in French Art, Design and Culture 1840-1940 MODULE CODE 28862 ASSESSMENT METHOD 2,000 word essay : Coursework (50%) Exam : Exam (Centrally Timetabled) - Written Unseen (50% TBC SEMESTER 1 This module analyses the changing uses and meanings of the interior and notions of interiority in French art, design and culture. During the modern period the interior constituted more than a mere backdrop to visual representation. It was the active subject of artistic and other forms of visual and textual culture and increasingly the object of design practice and its attendant representations. Moreover, the interior was considered a metaphor for self, so the issues of subjective and corporeal interiority will be considered at length, as will issues deriving from feminist methodologies. We will consider a range of media, including painting, magazines and the novel; debate the practices of key art and design figures including Edgar Degas, Edouard Vuillard, Henri Matisse, Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand and analyse the interiors produced by the Nabis, Cubism and Surrealism. The module considers visual forms in relation to textual forms including artistic and architectural theory, popular psychology, and literary fiction by J.K. Huysmans to show the range of interiors constructed by and for the modern imagination.
Beauty, Goodness and Truth: Topics in the Philosophy of Art MODULE CODE 29017 ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 3000-word essay (50% of the final module mark), 1 x 1.5-hour unseen examination (50% of the final module mark) SEMESTER 1 This module explores key debates in the philosophy of art. It does not focus on the work of particular authors, but rather on questions that have been at forefront of debates in Englishlanguage philosophy about art. These include questions such as: What is art?; What is aesthetic experience? Are beauty and ugliness relevant to the experience of art? Is intention to the meaning of art? Is art universal? What is the relation between art and morality? What is the difference between art and pornography? How do we respond emotionally to artworks? The module examines these questions in relation to a wide range of examples, from visual art to music and literature, but its main focus is on theoretical ideas and as such it is based on close reading of philosophical texts.
Postcolonial Readings of Contemporary Art MODULE CODE 30803 ASSESSMENT METHOD 1 x 3000-word essay (50% of the final module mark) 1 x 1.5-hour unseen examination (50% of the final module mark) SEMESTER 1 This module explores in depth contemporary art (produced roughly over the last 20 years) from the perspective of Postcolonialism. It will draw attention to the problems involved in defining and analysing contemporary art (how recent must a work of art be to be called contemporary? What is art in light of the existence of popular culture, the borders to Performance Art and film, and the discussions of art history as the history of images and as visual culture? What art should be studied, if an art-historical canon existing for art produced in previous centuries is missing?) and argue that one way of dealing with contemporary art is by choosing an approach with which to interpret works of art. For this module, the choice consists of those postcolonial theories, which comment on the impact of imperialism and forced migration to a post-colonial culture and society that questions fundamentally western art as Eurocentric. We will concentrate on seminal writings (Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said and Gayatri Spivak) and major postcolonial themes (the other, diaspora, hybridity and ethnicity) with which a range of contemporary art works will be studied. This module is designed to enable students to analyse an art work and relate it to a theory without having a fixed canon beyond that provided by the module outline. It therefore teaches and encourages students to select appropriate works themselves and analyse these accordingly.
Queen City of Europe : Art, Culture and Commerce in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp MODULE CODE 30824 ASSESSMENT METHOD Coursework (100%) SEMESTER 2 Informed by a recent trend in art history that has sought to rediscover the art of less well-known cities, this module will consider the artistic culture of Antwerp during its economic heyday in the first three quarters of the sixteenth century. In 1567, Lodovico Guicciardini an Italian émigré living in Antwerp published a lengthy and illustrated panegyric on the wonders of Antwerp in his Description of all the Low Countries, in which he justly described Antwerp as the Queen City of Europe. By the time of his writing, Antwerp had established itself as Europe s most populous city, its largest and its richest: it was a sprawling multi-cultural metropolis that was home to over 100,000 people (extremely large by sixteenth-century standards); and it stood at the epicentre of an extensive international trade network that connected the Americas with India and China, and the Mediterranean with the Baltic, and through which every conceivable commodity passed. Significantly, the city had also become the artistic capital of Northern Europe. Nurtured by its enormous wealth, its sheer size and cosmopolitanism, hundreds of artists established ateliers there in order to take full advantage of preferable market conditions. Drawing heavily on primary visual and literary evidence, and fostering a critical approach towards that evidence, this module will develop an in-depth understanding of Antwerp art produced in the period c.1500 to c.1575. It will address major themes, such as: the commercialisation of art in Antwerp and the rise of the open art market; art and its display, with a focus on innovation in art being produced specifically for domestic display and sociability; the extent to which artists engaged in their art with major debates being conducted at the time, relating to religion, national identity and political upheaval; and, significantly, contemporary attempts to construct a Netherlandish Canon. In order to do so, the module will consider works by famous artists, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Frans Floris, but it will also examine lesser-known works by unfamiliar artists. It will also examine the diverse outputs of contemporary chroniclers (such as Guicciardini), printmakers, mapmakers and publishers, whose works provide vivid snapshots of the social, political and cultural life of the city. Moreover, it will examine cultural ephemera, and the problems relating to their study, including public performances, temporary works of art produced for ritual spectacles, and drama on stage, all of which are known from contemporary testimonies and illustrated accounts. Throughout, the module will develop a robust command of methodological issues relating to audience studies and reception theory, as well as social art history.
An Unnatural History: Animals in Modern Western Art MODULE CODE 30794 ASSESSMENT METHOD Essay: Coursework (50%) Exam: Exam (Centrally Timetabled) - Written Unseen (50%) SEMESTER 2 Drawing on recent developments in the field of animal studies, this special subject module will explore the representations, and uses of, animals (or non-human animals ) in Western art from the nineteenth century to the present day. As an interdisciplinary, and often highly politically-charged, field of study, animal studies can offer us a new perspective on modern art, demanding consideration of objects and artists usually seen as being outside the canon. Though images of animals have always been popular (think Edwin Landseer s Victorian dog paintings), and despite the centrality of animals in the contemporary art scene (Damien Hirst s shark suspended in formaldehyde), art historians have often been resistant to the representation of animals perhaps mindful of the dark truths many of these images conceal. This module offers a thematic rather than a chronological overview of the subject, with key themes including empathy, ethics, anthropomorphism, imperialism, domestication, symbolism, sexuality, and conservation. We will examine a wide range of material, from natural history illustrations to children s books, equestrian portraits to performance art, zoo architecture to taxidermy. There may even be some works of art by animals. Artists discussed will include figures as varied as George Stubbs and Mark Dion, Beatrix Potter and Lucian Freud.
Prague, Budapest, Cracow: Art and the Politics of Identity in Central Europe, 1867-1918 MODULE CODE 28451 ASSESSMENT METHOD one examination of two hours duration (70%); one piece of written work of 2000 words (30%) one one-hour lecture per week plus one two-hour seminar per week - Lecture: Monday 2-3 SEMESTER 2 The module examines art and architecture during the final 60 years of the existence of Austria- Hungary, from 1867 up to its demise in 1918 as a result of the First World War. Complementing the module on fin-de-siècle Vienna, this module looks away from the imperial capital and focuses on the cities of Prague, Cracow and Budapest. It considers art and architecture against the background of the cultural politics of late nineteenth century Austria-Hungary. Topics analysed will typically include: the invention of national traditions; national conflict; historicism; folk art and vernacular culture; representations of gender; museums and exhibitionary cultures; concepts and practices of modernism; monuments and heritage policy; Secessionism and the relation to Vienna.
Contemporary Art and Home MODULE CODE 30798 ASSESSMENT METHOD SEMESTER 2 This module focuses on the theme of home in contemporary art. Home has become a prominent and important subject for contemporary art, particularly with the rise of identity politics, decolonisation, continued conflict, and increasing global movement after 1945. In this module, students will explore how artists around the world have represented or engaged with the theme of home since 1960. They will engage with a variety of artistic media painting, sculpture, performance, photography, installation, film and demonstrate a critical engagement with academic work on the history and theory of home in this period. The module will work thematically, touching on themes such as the Pop home, the home of migration, the violent home, the lost home, the uncanny home, the queer home, the mobile home, and the fragments of home.