Spotlight Detail
Fall 2019 Course: Art and Archaeology of Ancient Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia
ART HISTORY 42E (Approved Course for Persian Studies Minor)
Instructor: Canepa, M.
TuTh 5:00-6:20PM
HIB 110
Course Code: 21020
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This course will provide students with foundational knowledge in the art, architecture and archaeology of the ancient Near East, including the Iranian Plateau, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt and Central Asia from the Neolithic through Late Antiquity (ca. 12,000 B.C.E. - 650 C.E.). Students will gain an understanding of the relationship between the visual material and the social, intellectual, political and religious contexts in which it developed and functioned. In this regard, students will also gain an understanding of the evolution of, and exchanges and differences among, the visual cultures of these time periods and regions. It will also expose them to the preconditions for contemporary geopolitics in the region. No background in the time period or discipline is expected and therefore this class will also serve as an introduction to the disciplines of art history and archaeology. In this way, the course instructs students how to think and work like historians of art, not simply absorb the discipline’s accepted wisdom. A number of art historical and archaeological methodologies will be introduced in order to give the student a background into how the fields developed and to begin to equip them with the tools to engage the material and scholarly literature of the field.
