VAPA Courses

Instructor TBA
MWF 10–11
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Ann Johns
MW 10–11 + Discussion Section
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Hybrid

Art is a language: how do we decode its meaning and its extraordinary effect on us, the viewers? How does art reflect the era, location, and culture of both its maker and its patron? Through a blend of online lectures (2 per week), quizzes (each class through Canvas), and tests (3 on Canvas), as well as TA-led visits to UT’s Blanton Museum of Art, students will learn that art is a prism—often beautiful, always challenging—through which we can view the human experience, both past and present. Throughout the semester, students will increase their visual literacy and critical thinking skills by looking at a global array of works from many eras and locations. The only prerequisites are open eyes and open minds! We will concentrate on the familiar media of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but we will also examine drawings, prints, photography, garden planning, ceramics, textiles, earthworks, installation art, and other forms of visual culture, both through live online lectures and through in-person visits to UT’s collections of art.

Nassos Papalexandrou
MW 11–12 + Discussion Section
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course discusses art from the prehistoric period to the Early Renaissance (ca. 1300) in Europe, the Middle East and the ancient Americas, with emphasis on style and social and cultural context. The focus on arts—architecture and city planning, sculpture, painting, metalwork, and ceramics—is global with special attention lavished on ancient Near East, Egypt, Africa, Greece, Rome, Islam, Mesoamerica, India, and the European Middle Ages. The control of the viewer’s experience, the political and religious use of art, the meaning of style, the functions of art in public and private life, and the role of art in expressing cultural values will be among the major themes considered. This is also an introduction to the discipline of art history and archaeology, training students in basic vocabulary and techniques of close looking and analytical thinking about visual material.

Instructor TBA
TTH 5–6:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Instructor TBA
MWF 11–12
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Douglas Cushing
TTH 8–9:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

A study of selected visual works throughout the world from 1400 CE to the present.

Ann Johns
MW 12–1:30
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

Florence, Venice, Siena: the cultural landscape of Italy is dominated by cities so rich in artistic treasures that any one example is worthy of a whole course. We begin with the most famous Renaissance city-state, Florence. We will explore the development of art and architecture in civic, ecclesiastic, monastic, palatial, and private settings, from Brunelleschi’s dome to private, secular decoration in the city’s palazzi. We will then examine the cities of Venice and Siena; each of these cities is distinguished by its own unique style of art and architecture. We’ll study Italy’s “court” cities, including Ferrara, Mantua, and Urbino. We’ll observe the unique sense of “place” that distinguishes these communities, but we’ll also discover cultural, artistic, and urban commonalities throughout Renaissance Italy.

We’ll also examine issues such as the role of women and the family; the importance of race and international trade; the rise of specialized hospitals and quarantine islands in an era of plague; and the delicate balance between the growing urban centers and the control of the surrounding territory, so necessary for crops and other resources.

All readings will be posted on Canvas. Assignments include reading responses and other urbanistic analyses. All tests are non-cumulative.

Art History Majors
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

John Clarke
TTH 2–3:30
Fulfills →  VAPA
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course surveys the major movements in American art from about 1958 to about 1985. We will look at the work of selected artists associated with the major trends, including pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, site-specific art, performance and body art, photorealism, patterning and decoration, and the varieties of figural art that emerged in the 1980s, including neo-expressionism, graffiti, and appropriation.

We will look at these trends from three principal points of view: their relationship to prior historical developments, their self-stated aims, and their treatment by contemporary critics.

This course should give you a good survey knowledge of the art—including much more than traditional painting and sculpture—between 1950 and 1985. You will gain an understanding the interactions between art movements, artists, critics, and dealers, and you should be able to walk into a museum or art gallery and recognize all of the styles and approaches mentioned above. More importantly, you will learn how visual representation reflects social change. “Art”—broadly defined—always reflects social change, but in this period there were many Counter-Cultural Movements. Most importantly, the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality. But also important were the development of Feminism, the Hippie Movement, and the Gay Liberation Movement—all with important visual components.

This is primarily a lecture course. To help you study the content of these lectures, I will post lecture outlines and the PowerPoints of each lecture on Canvas after I present them to you in class. I expect you to keep up with the assigned readings on canvas and to memorize a group of images.

There will be three one-hour examinations at the end of each of three modules, testing you on the content of that group of lectures and images. I also regularly set “plus” assignments that will give you the opportunity to raise your exam grades.

Art History Majors
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

George Flaherty
MW 11:30–1
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Face-to-Face

This course looks closely at Mexican art and visual culture from the late nineteenth century through the 1950s, a period characterized by rapid modernization but also violence and glaring social and political injustices. With the Mexican Revolution, the first major social upheaval of the twentieth-century, the country became a beacon for politically committed art throughout the Americas and beyond. Our focus will be the emergence of cosmopolitan avant-garde artists and their relationship to state and market. Mixing native and international influences, these artists, writers, and intellectuals contributed to notions of national identity that still resonate today.

Art History Majors
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

Moyosore Okediji
MW 1:30–3
Fulfills →  VAPA / Global Cultures flag
Instruction Mode →  Online

This course is a comprehensive study of the visual arts of Africa, in the social and cultural contexts within which people make and use these images. Students will explore historical, contemporary, and diasporic aspects of African art, as part of a larger expressive complex that includes music, dance, literature, and cinematography.  The course will present the works of major artists, art groups, ethnicities, and communities, as a lively dialog between the creative imaginations of those who make the objects, and the philosophical responses of those to whom the artists address the objects.

Art History Majors
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.

Moyosore Okediji
MW 9:30–11
Fulfills →  VAPA
Instruction Mode →  Online

Can we adopt the criteria used for the analysis and presentation of western art and artists for the analysis and presentation of works by Africana women artists? How do we define Africana women’s art and artists? Who are the most influential Africana women artists, and in which mediums do they work? What tasks do they tackle and what challenges face them? What are the stylistic diversities that define and distinguish their contributions? What are the technological tools available to them, and how have they manipulated and fashioned these tools? How have they shaped the past and present trends in art history, and what are their aspirations and hopes for the future? These are some of the questions that this course will investigate with the use of art historical and critical theories that draw on oral and written literatures, music, films, and other formal and informal documents.

Art History Majors
Download this guide to view the qualifying Time Periods and Geographical Locations for this course.