Art History

Art history embraces a wide array of objects and images and contexts: paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, film, and digital technologies; sculpture large and small, permanent and perishable; domestic and public buildings; urban and rural settings; museums and gardens; books, magazines, manuscripts, and archives; and performances, both past and present. Art historians across the world form a community of scholars who are dedicated to understanding the visual and material world around us and to developing new perspectives and methods with which to better think about these things and the diverse people who made them. Art historians are also dedicated to constantly critiquing established valuations of objects, materials, and spaces. They recognize the need to situate our understandings of the material world within the pressing social debates of both our times and those of the more distant past. Art history is viewed as a process, one that is always in need of refining, and one that always welcomes debate.

Art history students learn how to approach objects, images, buildings, museums, archaeological materials, archives, and the internet as evidence, and how to integrate that evidence into broader social webs of meaning. They learn to write well and effectively, and to utilize those skills in the ongoing processes of writing and re-writing history. They recognize the relationship between histories of art and larger issues of social justice. Perhaps most importantly, they learn to recognize the power of their own voices in contributing to how we continue to construct histories of art. These critical thinking, writing, research, and communication skills effectively prepare them for a range of academic and professional occupations.

The Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Art History degree is structured much like a liberal arts degree in that it emphasizes writing, research, language, and social engagement, and prepares students to be global citizens.