COURSE OFFERINGS  (Please see timetable for availability) SPRING 2010 Art History 457 History of American Vernacular Architecture and Landscapes. I; 3 cr (H-D). Survey of American vernacular buildings and landscapes from the colonial period to the present. Emphasis is on acquiring descriptive tools and developing interpretive frameworks to explore the significance that these vernacular environments have had for their makers and users. P: Jr st & at least one Art Hist crse, or cons inst. Andrzejewski. 475 Japanese Ceramics and Allied Arts.  Advanced lecture/discussion course on the history of ceramics in Japan from earliest times to the post-war period looking at the technological, cultural, political, and economic, as well as aesthetic, dimensions of ceramic development in Japan. Prereq: Undergrads: a prev crse in art hist or design and satisfaction of Com B requirement. Knowledge of Japan recommended. Phillips. 563 Proseminar in Material Culture. I; 3 cr (H-D). Interdisciplinary study of the way people use objects and environments to express identities and relationships in households, communities, and larger social/economic systems. P: So st. Andrzejewski. 600 Special Topics in Art History. "Crafting Museum Exhibit: 150 Years of Women's Craft." 3cr.  P: Jr st, or cons inst.  Martin. 600 Special Topics in Art History. "The Architecture of Cuba." 3 cr.  P: Jr st, or cons inst.  Menocal. Design Studies 355: History of Fashion, 1400-Present Changing form and meaning of costume in the West from Renaissance to present. Dress considered in relation to social/cultural milieu and as an art form. Includes treatment of the body; ethnic/class variations; couture; "antifashion". 3 cr. P: Jr st or cons inst.  Gordon. 420: Twentieth Century Design Design, including interior, furniture, graphic and textiles, is viewed through broader social and cultural issues including: an aesthetic to express a new age; processes, materials, and marketing techniques; roles for designers; consumer versus designer initiated production. Visits to local collections. 3 cr.  P: ETD 120, or Art Hist 202, or cons inst.  Boyd. 512: Material Culture Analysis: The Arts and the Consumer Society The meanings of objects--both art objects and consumer goods. Interactions between people and objects; "decoding" objects as primary sources of information about the people/cultures that make and use them. 3 cr.  P: Jr st.  Gordon. Folklore 530: Topics in Folklore "Cultural Landscape Preservation." 1-3cr.  P: Jr st or cons inst.  The course begins with discussions of what cultural landscapes are, includes a landscape history resources overview, and spends much of the semester reviewing varied landscape preservation types from local to international.  Issues of policy and history of preservation are embedded in the readings and can be deepened through reading, discussion, and project work.  Speakers representing various types of cultural landscape preservation come to class to present on the type of preservation work they do in varied work settings. *Cross-listed with Landscape Architecture 677.  Gilmore. SUMMER 2009 FIELD COURSE ART HISTORY 449/FOLKLORE 639/LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 675 June 15-July 12 (1st four weeks of 8 week session), 9-5, M-F Field School: Vernacular Architecture in Southwestern Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin-Madison, taught by Anna Andrzejewski (Art History), Janet Gilmore (Folklore/Landscape Architecture), and Tom Carter (University of Utah/Architecture). This course is designed to give students an “immersion experience” in cultural heritage research and an opportunity to learn how to write history literally "from the ground up" while documenting historic sites in the region. During the course, students will receive training in site documentation (with photographs and measured drawings), primary source research, and oral history.  Final team projects will generate a site report that will become part of the region's historical record.  This research will also be put towards a conference to be held in Madison of the Vernacular Architecture Forum in 2012. This summer, our focus will be on the cultural landscape of Wiota, Wisconsin, in rural Lafayette County, which has experienced a succession of historical periods and cultural groups.  Immigrants from the east began to displace indigenous inhabitants in the late 1820s, spreading over the region in the 1830s and ‘40s with the discovery of lead.  Second waves of European immigrants added to the mix by mid-century, and today Latino farm workers reside in some of the oldest buildings.  Although the older historical legacy of settlement is well known in places like Mineral Point, Wiota has received little, if any, attention—nor have later and contemporary settlements of new immigrants.  Documentary efforts will center on buildings that appear to date to the late 1820s or early 1830s, evidence that survives in the landscape itself, and residents' collective memory of the town's settlement, prehistory, and progression to current times.  Our class will work in partnership with the Lead Region Historic Trust and the Lafayette County Historical Society to produce documentation of these valuable resources that will be housed in the Society's collections and made available on the Trust's website. The hands-on workshop format will include a first week in Madison working on background research and introducing recording techniques.  Week 2 will be spent in Wiota and the region, gathering data in the field (with the assistance of Prof. Carter).  Weeks 3 and 4 will be based in Madison, and focused on consolidating the data gathered in the field.  Group travel, documentary equipment and supplies, will be provided, but students must be able to fund their own meals and modest lodging accommodations while in the field. Back to top Other Recent Course Offerings AMERICAN GENRE: TOPICS IN AMERICAN ART Art History 440 Instructor: Anna Andrzejewski Focuses on the American interest in representations of "everyday life" during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries, including everything from painting, sculpture, and popular images, to soap operas, television sitcoms, daytime soap operas, and reality shows, to historic house museums. Explores the reasons for such interest as well as examines what particular kinds of representations suggest about American culture. Considers issues such as the history of "genre painting" in the history of art; political agendas behind an interest in everyday life; didactic content in representations of everyday life; how "difference" (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference) is negotiated through such representations; and what ultimately motivates the American fascination with everyday life. MATERIAL CULTURE ANALYSIS: THE ARTS AND THE CONSUMER SOCIETY Environment, Textiles & Design 512 (Crosslisted with Folklore) Instructor: Beverly Gordon Examines the meanings of objects, including both art objects and consumer goods. Focuses on the interactions between people and the objects that they are surrounded by and use. Attempts to "decode" objects as primary sources of information about the people and cultures that make and use them. HISTORY OF TEXTILES Environment, Textiles & Design 430 Instructor: Beverly Gordon Designs and meanings and interrelationships of textiles in selected cultures and time periods. COMPARATIVE WORLD COSTUME Environments, Textiles & Design 655 Instructor: Beverly Gordon Explores the multiple meanings of costume (dress and body adornment) in cultures throughout the world. Takes a comparative approach to form, function and meanings; examines dress as a reflection of society, culture, and the environment, and as a form of aesthetic and spiritual expression. While non-Western dress is the primary concern, fashionable Western forms are included for comparative purposes, and folk dress and ethnic traditions within Western culture are examined in detail. The impact of cultural exchange is central to all discussion. HISTORY OF FASHION, 1400-PRESENT Environment, Textiles & Design 355 Instructor: Beverly Gordon Changing form and meaning of costume in the West from Renaissance to present. Dress considered in relation to social/cultural milieu and as an art form. Includes treatment of the body; ethnic/class variations; couture; "antifashion". HISTORY OF AMERICAN VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPES Art History 457 Instructor: Anna Andrzejewski Examines an array of American vernacular buildings and landscapes from the colonial period to the present and considers what they can tell us about the past and present. Vernacular refers to ordinary or "everyday" spaces and places encountered daily (houses, workspaces, institutional buildings) but rarely thought about critically. Looks at recent scholarship in the fields of anthropology, history, American studies, cultural geography, landscape architecture, folklore, and material culture to construct frameworks to describe America's common buildings and landscapes and understand the historical significance they have had for their makers and users. An all-day field trip studying historic buildings in southwestern Wisconsin, during which ideas learned in class are applied to a "real world" landscape, highlights the course.  HISTORY OF EUROPEAN INTERIORS: ANCIENT THROUGH 18TH CENTURY Environments, Textiles & Design 421 Instructor: Terry Boyd Survey of major historical periods and styles of European interior design. Furniture and interior treatment as they affect the architectural space. HISTORY OF AMERICAN INTERIORS: 1620-1950 Environments, Textiles & Design 422 Instructor: Terry Boyd Survey of major periods and styles of American interior design. Furniture, wall, window, and floor treatments. GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON DESIGN AND CULTURE: SPECIAL TOPICS Environments, Textiles & Design 501 Instructor: Beverly Gordon Intended to deepen cross- or inter-cultural understanding both of design, and of diverse cultural realities. Explored ways in which design reflects or encodes culture, and looks at the impacts of cultural interface on people's daily lives. Addressed globalization issues through a design perspective by exploring living environments (including conception and organization of interior, exterior and ritual space; and clothing as an extension of the environment), and considered items ranging from nomadic tent structures to seating devices to house wares. Also considers the global realities of the ways designed items are produced and distributed in the world today. A special feature of the class was its accompanying virtual visual database, consisting of about 1000 on-line images and searchable data. DESIGN & THEORY: SPECIAL TOPICS IN ART HISTORY Art History 600 Instructor: Glenn Adamson Introduced students to advanced readings in design from the 18th century through the present. Aimed to establish an understanding of the issues that should be considered when designing or analyzing an object. Readings divided into units on four topics: workmanship, utility, signification, and ornament. Object types studied include ceramics, furniture, paintings, sculpture, architecture, and industrial design. INTRODUCTION TO MUSEUM STUDIES: 18TH CENTURY SILVER, FURNITURE AND PAINTINGS Art History 601 & 602 Instructor: Ann Smart Martin Explored both the theories and the practices of representation in a museum setting. Began with broad discussions about different museum approaches and methods before focusing on putting such theoretical concerns into practice in researching, writing, and planning for an exhibition of eighteenth-century British silver at the Elvehjem museum in the summer of 2003. Ended with the work of researching, writing, and editing a catalogue, preparing wall texts, labels, and other exhibit materials, participating in the concept and design of the installation, planning and implementing the opening, publicity, and programming for the exhibition, etc.  OBJECTS SINCE 1945: SPECIAL TOPICS IN ART HISTORY Art History 600 Instructor: Glenn Adamson Covers fifty years and three distinct realms of object-making: sculpture created in the "fine art" context; handmade objects produced in the context of the studio craft movement; and mass-produced objects produced by industrial designers. Focuses on theoretical models that have been constructed around the concept of the object since 1945. Chiefly these involve the construction and subsequent destruction of modernist ideals of autonomy, quality, truth to materials, expressionism, transparency of process, and ideation. Yields insights into these conceptual staples of modern art history by considering three fields that are not normally discussed together. ART, DESIGN & SOCIETY: SEMINAR IN 20TH CENTURY ART HISTORY Art History 856 Instructor: Barbara Buenger Examines developments in design and the decorative arts that had a major impact on European avant-garde movements throughout the 20th-century. Considers individuals, movements, and manifestations of the decorative arts in several different centers, and follows groups that joined in art, architectural, or crafts leagues; in international art and trade exhibitions; in professional design work; in theater productions; and in performance and installation art up to the present day.  LIFE AND THE ARTS IN RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE ITALY (1300-1700): GRADUATE SEMINAR Art History 825 Instructor: Gail Geiger Focuses on the decorative arts and material culture beginning with theoretical constructs, then examining usage and media in a variety of contexts; religious liturgies required an array of objects at the altar; military campaigns and parades necessitated paraphernalia for soldier and horse; domestic interiors housed elaborate items for eating, sleeping, conversation, entertainment; exterior displays entailed elaborate ephemeral décor; and body adornment included hair styles, costume design, jewelry and show trim.  SLIPWARE TRADITIONS: SEMINAR Art History 800 Instructor: Glenn Adamson For centuries, potters all across the world have used liquid slip to decorate their wares. Though it is a simple medium, clay mixed with water‹slip can be used to create dramatic and diverse visual effects. It can be dripped, trailed, inlaid, marbled, scraped, and combed; potters have used it to create images of arresting immediacy, and also to fashion complex abstract patterns. This graduate level course was based on the preparation of an exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum on the topic of ceramics from different historical contexts, including China, Korea, Germany, and Italy. Students were asked to educate themselves about the material, participate in the exhibition curating process (selecting pieces, writing texts, and designing the installation), and attend programming surrounding the exhibition opening in March. Then, students concentrated on producing their own exhibition proposals using objects from the ceramics collection of the Chipstone Foundation in Milwaukee.  Back to top
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