MA/PhD
Number
Number
Course
Course
Professor
Professor
Location
Location
Day & Time
Day & Time
Consortium

Students may take courses at our consortium partner institutions which include Columbia University (COL), Cooper Hewitt, Parsons School of Design (CH), the City University of …

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IND
Independent Study

Independent study offers students the opportunity to pursue research in areas beyond the range of the standard curriculum. Through independent study, students further their knowledge …

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200
Orientation

This two-and-a-half week August session includes introductions to resources at Bard Graduate Center, as well as required digital and writing seminars, and language classes, if …

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440
Get in the Game
Jesse Merandy
Digital Media Lab
FRI 9:30am – 12:00pm

Get in the Game is an exploration of the material world of gaming. Throughout the semester we will trace the history of games and gameplay …

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441
African Arts and Design
Drew Thompson
2nd Floor Classroom
TUE 9:30am – 12:00pm

In fall 2023, Bard Graduate Center Gallery will host the exhibition "SIGHTLINES with Peace, Power, Prestige: The Metal Arts of Africa." The exhibition places historical metalwork …

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442
"Simplify, simplify"–Henry David Thoreau and Material Culture
Ivan Gaskell
2nd Floor Classroom
THU 9:30am – 12:00pm

Abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson declared Thoreau's Walden; Or Life in the Woods (1854) to be "the only book yet written in America, to my thinking, that …

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443
Design and Revolution in Twentieth-Century Europe
Elizabeth Koehn
5th Floor Classroom
MON 1:30pm – 4:00pm

Do objects have politics? This course will examine intersections of design and ideology in objects, buildings, and built space across the various political, cultural, and …

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444
Sèvres Extraodinaire! History and Production of the French Porcelain Manufactory of Sèvres from 1740 to the Present
Charlotte Vignon
5th Floor Classroom
THU 9:30am – 12:00pm

From its origins in the abandoned Château de Vincennes in 1740, the Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory has produced an extraordinary variety of objects, including tableware, …

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445
Towards a Global Art History: Encounters in the Long Eighteenth Century
Mei Mei Rado
2nd Floor Classroom
MON 9:30am – 12:00pm

As a major discipline studying material culture, art history has seen an important recent development, which can be called the “global turn.” A new wave …

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471
Americana Redux: Materializing Multiculturalism in the Postwar United States
Catherine Whalen
5th Floor Classroom
FRI 1:30pm – 4:00pm

This course investigates how individuals and groups have deployed material culture to challenge, redefine, and expand constructs of citizenship and belonging in the United States …

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474
Archaeology of African American Communities
Meredith B. Linn
5th Floor Classroom
THU 5:00pm – 7:30pm

This course engages with the challenge posed by Black feminist scholars to engage in a critical reanalysis of the history of the US, with an …

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482
Art of the Qin and Han Dynasties, ca. 300 BCE–200 CE
François Louis
2nd Floor Classroom
THU 1:30pm – 4:00pm

This seminar offers an introduction to the Qin and Han dynasties by examining major archaeological finds, including the tomb complex of the First Emperor and …

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494
Twelve Critical Heritage Conservation Topics for the Humanities Scholar
Jennifer L. Mass
2nd Floor Classroom
MON 1:30pm – 4:00pm

This course will examine key concepts in material culture that require us to examine objects through the scientist’s lens. Our topics will include patina …

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500
Objects in Context: A Survey of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture I
Andrew Morrall
Lecture Hall
MON 5:00pm – 7:30pm

This two-semester, team-taught course introduces incoming students to major historical developments in decorative arts, design, and material culture from antiquity to the present. Monday evening …

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502
Approaches to the Object
Catherine Whalen, Ivan Gaskell
Lecture Hall
WED 1:30pm – 4:00pm

This course is required for entering students who have not taken a course deemed comparable. Drawing on the expertise of BGC faculty, it introduces incoming …

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509
History of European Textiles, Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Mei Mei Rado
2nd Floor Classroom
FRI 1:30pm – 4:00pm

In the late Medieval and early modern periods, fine textiles were highly treasured commodities, esteemed art forms, and prominent indicators of power, status, and taste. …

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510
Writing Objects
Helen Polson
5th Floor Classroom
TUE 1:30pm – 4:00pm

This two-semester practicum on Tuesday afternoons develops techniques for effective graduate-level writing through practical exercises and workshop sessions. Drawing on the assignments and readings in 500…

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515
Seminar Series

All students are encouraged to attend the rich program of lectures, symposia, seminars, performances, lunches, and talks organized by Bard Graduate Center’s Public Humanities + …

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526
Decorative Arts of Later Imperial China, 1000-1900
François Louis
5th Floor Classroom
TUE 9:30am – 12:00pm

This course offers an introduction to the material environment of China’s political and intellectual elites during the last four imperial dynasties (Song, Yuan, Ming, …

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730
The Social Lives of Things: The Anthropology of Art and Material Culture
Aaron Glass
5th Floor Classroom
MON 9:30am – 12:00pm

This seminar surveys anthropological theories of art and material culture with a cross-cultural purview and a concentration on global Indigenous societies in colonial and contemporary …

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748
The Sea Inside: Art and Material Culture of the Mediterranean World
Ittai Weinryb
5th Floor Classroom
TUE 5:00pm – 7:30pm

In the past century scholarship on art and material culture has benefited greatly from the discussion of the materials and ideas relating to the Mediterranean …

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959
Curatorial Thinking: Exhibition as Medium
Deborah L. Krohn
5th Floor Classroom
THU 1:30pm – 4:00pm

The exhibition, where objects are grouped together for a limited time to elucidate a particular thesis or argument, has been a key curatorial practice since …

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964
Excavating the Empire City: An Introduction to the Historical Archaeology of New York City
Meredith B. Linn
5th Floor Classroom
WED 9:30am – 12:00pm

This course will introduce students to the historical archaeology of New York City and to the material traces of the past that lie beneath our …

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989
Metamorphosis in the Arts of Early Modernity and Beyond
Andrew Morrall
5th Floor Classroom
FRI 9:30am – 12:00pm

This course will pursue the theme of metamorphosis in Renaissance art and decoration, in terms of narrative illustration but also as a ruling metaphor and …

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