Beginner/Intermediate/Graduate Geographic Information System (GIS) course designed to help students learn how to investigate history spatially. Emphasizes perspectives, procedures, and tools that are relevant to applications of GIS in Art History and Humanistic disciplines. Designed as a hybrid lecture/lab format in which direct instruction is supplemented by hands on learning labs using ArcGIS software and real-world spatial data. The main skills students will gain are: integration of spatial and tabular data, geoprocessing, data visualization, creating features, editing features, vector and raster integration, spatial analysis, georeferencing.

Great cathedrals of Europe in England, Germany, and Italy, with a special focus on France, from roughly 1140 to 1270, and their construction, financing, and role in the fabric of medieval city life. The urban context of each city, the history of the site and its relics, and the artistic and technological developments that made the construction of these complex and large-scale structures possible. A consideration of Romanesque precedents and the origins of the various structural elements of Gothic architecture.

Provides knowledge for developing skills in visual analysis and historical interpretation of art from antiquity to present; examines major theoretical frameworks, key movements and concepts; explores how we look at and talk about works of art, investigating a variety of approaches to their study, including artists and their material practices; biography, patrons and the public; built environment and cultural institutions; how the social and political roles of art change through time. Taught in Nasher Museum. Classroom discussions complemented by visits to Nasher galleries and direct practice of visual analysis, critical theory, and role of changing histories in comprehension of art. Co-Taught with Prof. Susanna Caviglia.

This course will examine the transition of Western Europe into a fortified landscape from the mid-11th century until the advent of large-scale artillery in the mid-15th century. In addition to tracking technological and stylistic changes over time, this course will identify the discrete elements of fortification that were combined into a variety of castle plans. Natural resources and physical topography will emerge as central factors in the choice of site and design for medieval castles. As a way of investigating these topics, students will digitally reconstruct a historical or imagined castle in 3D graphics at a specific place and time covered in the course.

Basic concepts of 3D modeling and animation; fundamentals of computer geometry; knowledge of basic tools of 3D software (Maya); introduction to modeling, animation, texturing, lighting, and rendering; combination of these techniques in a final project.

This course introduces students to the history and design of cathedrals and monasteries in medieval Europe. Themes include the development of Gothic architecture from Romanesque foundations in France, the importance of fractions and Euclidean geometry for medieval architects, and the material and financial costs of monumental construction projects during the middle ages. In addition to lectures and discussion, students will design a counterfactual monastery or cathedral using 3D graphics software as part of a final project. In-class tutorials will teach students how to draw plans, elevations and sections of churches and monastic buildings and how to build 3D models from these drawings.

Capstone seminar focusing on advanced visual studies theories, as well as individual senior projects undertaken as a written research paper or visual production.

3D GIS & Viewshed Analysis

3D Data and Historical Visualization

Lecture/Discussion: Emergent Tools for Digital Art Historical research

Photogrammetry shooting techniques (2016)

Co-Instructor With Prof. Lisa Reilly
Course designed to increase the digital literacy of advanced undergraduate and graduate art & architectural history students. Class meetings combined discussion of readings and analysis of sites and tools with hands on instruction in a spectrum of digital tools relevant for art and architectural history.

Full Course Description

Intensive 4-week, 3 credit survey on the history of western architecture.