ART 280 - Architectural History

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as URBS 280) Topic for 2016/17b: The Architectural Monument: Building Memory from Antiquity to Present. Debates over memorials to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and challenges to named buildings on campuses have raised questions about memorializing history in contemporary society. What events or people should be commemorated? What should monuments look like and how should they relate to the urban fabric? Debates over history, memory, and the construction of identity are not unique to our times, but have been a focus of intellectual discourse since antiquity (if not since the prehistoric period!). This course examines the monumental cultures of Greece and Rome and their reception in western civilization in order to consider the roles monuments played in different societies’ evolving conceptions of the past. We consider these questions from a variety of anthropological, philosophical, art historical, and archaeological perspectives. Our ultimate aim is to reflect critically on the ways in which perceptions and reconstructions of the past shape our current cultural values, laws, and institutions. Megan Goldman-Petri.

Prerequisites: ART 105 or 106 , ART 170 or permission of the instructor.

Two 75-minute periods.