As a stimulus to the imagination, method of investigation, or as a basic means of communication, drawing is a fundamental process of human thought. This class will examine various kinds of drawings from the history of art and visual culture moving chronologically from the medieval to the post-modern. Our studies will have a hands-on approach, meeting behind the scenes in the collections of the RISD Museum. Working from objects directly will be supplemented by readings and writing assignments as well as active classroom discussion. This seminar is recommended for THAD concentrators and students especially interested in drawing.

Elective

As a stimulus to the imagination, method of investigation, or as a basic means of communication, drawing is a fundamental process of human thought. This class will examine various kinds of drawings from the history of art and visual culture moving chronologically from the medieval to the post-modern. Our studies will have a hands-on approach, meeting behind the scenes in the collections of the RISD Museum. Working from objects directly will be supplemented by readings and writing assignments as well as active classroom discussion. This seminar is recommended for THAD concentrators and students especially interested in drawing.

Elective

This seminar focuses on the history, discourses and transformations of the black female body as contested site of sexuality, resistance, representation, agency and identity in American visual culture. Organized thematically, with examples drawn from painting, sculpture, photography, film, popular culture and mixed media installations, we examine how the deployment, manipulations and construction of the signification of the asexualized mammy complex is juxtaposed against the jezebel vixen in a shifting terrain from the antebellum era through the post-racial decade of the 21st century.

Elective

This seminar focuses on the history, discourses and transformations of the black female body as contested site of sexuality, resistance, representation, agency and identity in American visual culture. Organized thematically, with examples drawn from painting, sculpture, photography, film, popular culture and mixed media installations, we examine how the deployment, manipulations and construction of the signification of the asexualized mammy complex is juxtaposed against the jezebel vixen in a shifting terrain from the antebellum era through the post-racial decade of the 21st century.

Elective

This course focuses on contemporary art in and out of Africa, with specific reference to Nigeria. Our objective is to situate Contemporary Nigerian Art within the dialectics of modernism and postmodernism beginning first with the colonial implantation of the modernist trend in Africa. We examine the impact on the artistic vision and direction of the major artists in Africa, while highlighting the careers of their counterparts operating outside the continent within the postmodernist currents of Paris, New York, London, Berlin, etc.

Elective

This course will focus on the cultural and artistic activities which came into being as a result of contacts between the civilizations of Europe and Asia (China in particular). Among the topics explored will be: the ancient world, the Silk Route and Buddhism, the nomads of Eurasia as agents of cultural exchange, early European travelers to China (Marco Polo), the Jesuits at the court of the Chinese emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and finally the Western colonial experience.

Elective

Architectural historians have scrutinized architecture in relation to its cultural, social, political, and aesthetic contexts. What about the environment? The present course proposes to explore environmental perspectives in the history and theory of architecture. It will be divided into three 4- week modules:

1. “Architecture, Nature, and Culture” will examine architecture as the cultural expression of nature’s transformation; 2. “Architecture, A Material Process” will explore architecture’s relation to processes of production and consumption; 3. “Architecture and the Environmental Question” will look into how the idea of environment permeated and still permeates architectural discourses and practices as a political question.

During the semester, we will discuss various topics such as matters pertaining to the idea of nature, the definition of environment, cultural landscapes, materiality, gender, labor, extraction, energy, obsolescence, environmental scarcity, colonial environments, environmental justice, and the Anthropocene, among others.

Elective

This course explores the diversity of form, style, and narrative content of works created by African American artists from the antebellum period to the present. Specific attention will be devoted to several underlining issues including but not limited to identity, race, class, ethnicity, representation, sexuality and aesthetic sensibilities.

Elective

This course will introduce the arts of China through the lens of native and imported religious and philosophical traditions, exploring different approaches to representation and belief. After an introduction to the anthropological study of religion, we will cover four main periods: the pre-historic (Paleolithic - Neolithic), the early dynastic (ca. 2000 - 221 BCE), the imperial (221 BCE - 1911), and the modern-contemporary (post 1911). We will focus on elite and folk approaches to representation and belief with an emphasis on mythology and symbolism. Topics to be explored include: the dragon and the phoenix as symbols, the Han search for immortality, Buddhist cave temples, Taoist landscape painting, the Confucian scholar tradition, ritual garments, the influence of European culture and Christianity, and Communist personality cult.

Elective

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in the Theory & History of Art & Design. A call for applications will be sent to all THAD concentrators.

Please contact the instructor for permission to register. 

Elective

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in the Theory & History of Art & Design. A call for applications will be sent to all THAD concentrators.

Please contact the instructor for permission to register. 

Elective

This course examines the artistic images of black women artists in the African Diaspora. We will investigate how race, gender, sexuality and ethnicity have shaped and continues to shape black female identity and artistic productions particularly in the USA, Europe, Britain, Brazil and the Caribbean.

Elective

This course will explore the architectural traditions of the Indigenous cultures of North America, Mesoamerica, and South America in historic perspective. Examinations will focus on the critical cultural and environmental circumstances which led to the development of distinctive architectural styles throughout the Americas. Approached from an anthropological/archaeological perspective, specific topics of discussion will include the following: construction methods and material choices, spatial arrangements and use areas, the relationship between physical and social community structure, and architectural manifestation of cultural belief systems. Emphasis will also be placed on manipulations of the landscape in response to social and climatic needs. Architectural culture discussed in this course will range widely in scale, dispersal and geography - from the igloo of a small Inuit hunting party to the entire Mayan city of Chichen Itza, to the terrace and irrigation systems of the Inca.

Elective

Sustainability is an important consideration for artists on many levels. We shall explore the many ways sustainability affects us as artists including choosing and sourcing art materials to work with and their physical or conceptual longevity. Sustainability is also a growing concern for art conservators and museums in general. What are both domestic and international museums discussing regarding sustainability? This course will delve into the materiality of art, and its component source materials. We will discuss how art and art materials break down and why. We will also discuss the sustainability of art materials used by art conservators in the preservation of art displayed in the museum context. This course will hopefully empower you, the art student, to make more informed decisions while creating and preserving their artwork. Restricted to THAD concentrators or MA candidates in Museum Education.

Open to Sophomore, Junior, Senior or Graduate Students.

Elective

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus.

This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

Elective

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus.

This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

Elective

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus.

This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

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

This course is designed to provide students the space to engage with art and design education as a means of community growing, supporting liberation efforts and curating a holistic future. In addition to engaging with a variety of historical and contemporary organizations as a way to understand how community art systems work within a holistic framework, students will also have the opportunity to develop their own community based art education workshops with young people. This course is a balance of theory and practice, braiding global, western, and indigenous educational pedagogies together along with hands on community based work. Students will be oscillating between seminars and onsite workshops to explore how art and design education can be embraced to dream, heal, liberate, and imagine new futures.

Elective

This course invites creative practitioners from all disciplines to play and experiment with the notion of teaching as creative practice. What might happen if we consider the classroom our studio, instructional materials as form, and students as peers and collaborators? How do we push the boundaries of what a lecture, a workshop, a syllabus, a lesson plan, an instructional video, a how-to guide, can be? Whether in the context of higher education, community-based education, early childhood, alternative schools, artist residencies, or the inbetweens, we will take up pedagogy as our discipline and devise multidisciplinary, speculative experiments that redefine the space of pedagogy as one of endless creative potential. Studio work will be scaffolded with readings by thinkers such as Paulo Freire, Fred Moten, bell hooks, and la paperson, and we will consider the works of artists like Nina Katchadourian, Slavs and Tatars, Valie Export, and Walid Raad.

Elective