Undergraduate
Art history explores the world’s art and architecture from antiquity to the present, considering the transformation of artistic styles, techniques, and movements while tracing their influences and impact on societies over time and across geographies. This involves studying objects and practices from various perspectives, including their material form, sensory experience, and historical, ideological, and social contexts. Art history is alert to the ways in which artworks and other artifacts are tied to near and distant cultures and locations by performance, religion, and ritual, in addition to relations of exchange, encounter, coalition, competition, domination and resistance.
At Northwestern, we emphasize object-based study, critical analysis, and advanced written and oral expression. Through coursework, undergraduates are introduced to methods of interpretation and expression that support a wide range of career paths, including museums and art galleries, academia and law, science and technology, journalism and critical writing, as well as medicine and political organizing. Students pursuing art history are part of a vibrant community in which undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and guest visitors regularly interact to present ideas, exchange insights, and engage in spirited dialogue. Undergraduates routinely pursue their interests in art history beyond coursework by participating in the student-led Northwestern Art Review and the Block Museum of Art Student Associates program. The curriculum is also enhanced by the Warnock Lecture Series, which brings a preeminent art historian, artist, and/or critic to campus each quarter to deliver a lecture for an undergraduate audience.
Image: Professor Thadeus Dowad with students in ART_HIST 340-1 and 350-2 at the Art Institute of Chicago, February 1, 2024.