ARTH 300 Art Historical Methods

• Wednesdays, 2:45 -5:30 pm
• Instructor: Dr. Laurence Garneau

This course offers an overview of the main methodological approaches in art history from the 16th century. Students will be able to learn about biography, formalism, iconography, social history, psychoanalysis, feminist, semiotics, and postcolonialism approaches, critique them, and test them out. This course is a great opportunity to understand the foundations of the discipline, deconstruct dominant discourses, find ways to read art, and above all, discover relevant methods for one’s research interests.

Through lectures, discussions, workshops, readings and visual analyses from the Renaissance to the present day, students will activate different methodologies and understand how they impact interpretations of artworks. By the end of the semester, they will have mastered important concepts and become familiar with key figures in art history.