This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.  

Registration process:

First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.  

Major Requirement | BFA

This is a required course for all first year and transfer students to introduce them to global modern and contemporary art, architecture and design in the period between 1750 and the present. The course addresses modernism as a global project, presenting several case studies from across the world that unfold to show how multiple kinds of modernism developed in different times and distant places. By presenting alternate, sometimes contradictory stories about modern and contemporary art and design, along with a set of critical terms specific to these times and places, the class aims to foster a rich, complex understanding of the many narratives that works of art and design can tell. With this grounding, students will be well positioned to pursue their interests in specialized courses in subsequent semesters.  

Registration process:

First-year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming transfer students and sophomore, junior, and senior undergraduates should register into section 27.  

Major Requirement | BFA

‘Camouflage as Praxis: Now You See Me Now You’ is a course exploring the forms, uses, and potentials of camouflage (or invisibility) as a strategy deployed by marginalized communities in the face of dominant hegemonies that seek to detect and disempower us. Grappling with the nuanced politics of representation and carefully unpacking the potential pitfalls and advantages of visibility, this course asks students to confront their own relationships with being in/visible, and create work from this place of definition/obscurity. 

The course considers various figures such as the undercommons (Fred Moten & Stefano Harney), Ditto (the formless pokémon), Banksy (the anonymous artist), and cuttlefish (camouflaging cephalopods), among others, to uncover what it means to cover and make visible what it means to be invisible. Readings include excerpts from Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, For Opacity by Edouard Glissant, and Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs.

While course content will focus on film/video, animation, photography, and installation works, this course is interdisciplinary, and invites creative practitioners and scholars from all backgrounds and disciplines to consider how concepts of il/legibility apply to their chosen disciplines.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Using RISD as a site for the exploration of strategies for studio-based teaching and learning is the goal of the course. It is designed for students who have completed TLAD-044G Collegiate Teaching: Preparation & Reflection and are interested in models of practice for a future academic environment. The course examines teaching methodologies in graduates' respective fields through case studies, faculty interviews, and article reviews. Learning to teach in a generative and attentive manner can bring teaching closer to one's studio practice. The seminar is composed of guest faculty and graduates, readings, discussions, and project assignments. Graduates in this course will complete a full professional teaching portfolio in preparation for teaching position applications. Individual and group meetings will be equally balanced. The seminar fulfills a partial requirement for the Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design.

Elective

Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design. 
Required for graduation for all undergraduates. 

First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Transfer students should register into the evening section offered in the Spring semester. Pre-registration into this section is managed by Liberal Arts Division.

Major Requirement | BFA

Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design. 
Required for graduation for all undergraduates. 

First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Transfer students should register into the evening section offered in the Spring semester. Pre-registration into this section is managed by Liberal Arts Division.

Major Requirement | BFA

Continuing from critical frameworks established in H101: Global Modernisms, the second semester of the introduction to art history turns to designed, built, and crafted objects and environments. The course does not present a conventional history of the modern movement, but rather engages with a broad range of materials, makers, traditions, sites, and periods in the history of architecture and design. Global in scope, spanning from the ancient world to the present, and organized thematically, the lectures explicitly challenge Western-modernist hierarchies and question myths of race, gender, labor, technology, capitalism, and colonialism. The course is intended to provide students with critical tools for interrogating the past as well as imagining possible futures for architecture and design. 
Required for graduation for all undergraduates. 

First year students are registered into sections by the Liberal Arts Division.

Transfer students should register into the evening section offered in the Spring semester. Pre-registration into this section is managed by Liberal Arts Division.

Major Requirement | BFA