This course introduces a range of theories that have influenced art history, which here refers to both the purported narratives of the history of art and the practice of re/writing such narratives. We will analyze biography as a mode of art history; connoisseurship, iconography, formalism, and post-structuralist theory; Marxist and feminist approaches; and queer and trans* methods. Recognizing the Eurocentrism in the texts considered foundational to the discipline of Art History, we will examine the ways that art history was conceptualized in East Asia. The aim is to acquire knowledge of key art historical approaches; to apply that knowledge to assess works of art and art historical texts; and to analyze the impact of the historically specific relationship between the visual text and the viewer/historian on our knowledge of art. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: Humanities Foundations or Introductory Course.
This course examines how ideas of gender and sexuality have shaped the production and consumption of visual culture from the late nineteenth century. We will examine a variety of visual and material texts that shape, criticize, and/or negotiate with contemporaneous gender and sexual norms. Focusing on these expressions’ cultural and historical specificities, the students will assess gender and sexuality—and as an extension, the notions of normality, healthfulness, and self—as ideas that continuously evolve in response to social discourses. The course proceeds roughly chronologically. It starts with the nineteenth-century Euro-American context, in which modern ideas of gender and sexuality began to circulate authoritatively in medical and legal terms. It then moves onto more globalized contemporary perspectives that critique and/or expand the pronouncedly “Western” conceptions of identity and identity categories. Prerequisite: None.
This course surveys Asian art and architecture from the earliest civilizations to the present day through several themes. It focuses more on the arts and monuments from China, Japan, and India but also introduces those from Korea and Southeast Asia. We will study how artistic traditions transmit and develop in distinctive yet interconnected societies in Asia, as well as how those traditions interact with specific political, religious, social, and cultural contexts in which they grow. Issues investigated include (but are not limited to): the spread and metamorphosis of Buddhist art, the artistic exchanges between the “East” and the “West” (and the formations of the ideas of the “East” and the “West”), the production and consumption of art as related to various forms of power such as political authority, social hierarchy, and gender, and the “Asian-ness” in the contemporary world. Prerequisite: None.
A site for IMA NY Students to find equivalent courses outside of IMA NY
For most students joining IMA in Fall 2022 and beyond, our new program structure affects the categorization of courses on this site.
Classes listed in the "IMA Major Electives" categories refer to the old IMA program structure. If you're under the new IMA program structure, these courses count as general IMA Electives.
You can still search the Interchange for most of your courses. You can find "IMA Major Distribution" courses listed here: