4.661 Theory and Method in the Study of Architecture and Art, Fall 2002
Name
4-661-fall-2002/contents/index.htm
Size
34.02 KB
Format
HTML
Checksum (MD5)
1075b843b0e5c9f27d07a552a06d6fec
Author(s)
Jones, Caroline
Alternative Title
Theory and Method in the Study of Architecture and Art
Date Issued
December 2002
Abstract
This seminar is open to graduate students, and is intended to offer a synoptic view of selected methodologies and thinkers in art history (with some implications for architecture). It is a writing-intensive class based on the premise that writing and editing are forms of critical thinking. The syllabus outlines the structure of the course and the readings and assignments for each week. The discipline of art history periodically surges into "crisis." The demise of formalism as a guiding tenet, or connoisseurial appreciation as a general guide, plunged the field into confusion during the 1970s when the battle raged over "social histories of art" or "revisionism;" in the late 1990s the debate was staged between "visual studies" versus "normative art history." The course takes this confusion as itself worthy of study, and seeks to make available some of the new methodologies that have emerged over the past two decades. The ultimate goal is to bring students closer to discovering their own individual methods and voices as writers of art historical prose. In broader terms, we will attempt to understand the historiography of visual art and images more broadly. Our efforts will be predicated on the conviction that art history can serve as a generative discipline for all humanistic disciplines, and even those that style themselves as "Bildwissenschaft" (or "image-science").
Subjects
Theory
Method
Architecture
art history
demise of formalism
formalism
connoisseurial appreciation
art historical prose
writing
intensive
writing-intensive
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
Terms of Use
Persistent DSpace Link
