Museum-Based Course Program
Course Descriptions, 1993-2006

The Technology of Reading and Writing (English 211b) Charles E. Reeves, English Department, in collaboration with the Museum's preparator/conservator, David Dempsey (Spring 1994; repeated Spring 1995, Spring 1997, Spring 1998, Spring 1999 without Mellon support).
This course explores the physical forms that knowledge and communication have taken, from oral cultures to modern print-literate cultures. Examples from the museum and Rare Book collection at Smith are used to illustrate the development of the materials and technology of literacy and the evolution of printing techniques and refinement of papermaking. Mellon funds were used for a field trip to the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, to view the Gutenberg exhibition.

Native American Art and Architecture (Art 201b) N. C. Christopher Couch, Art Department, in collaboration with Linda Muehlig, Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture. (Spring 1994)
Students study traditions in architecture, sculpture, paintings, masks, textiles and ceramics of tribal groups throughout North America, and assist with an exhibition “The Tradition Continues: Native American Art from New England Collections.” They are involved in the planning of the exhibition, doing research on the loan objects and writing informative labels. Supplemental funds from the Mellon grant helped toward the cost of the loans to the exhibition and related slides, and a lecture by Louise Lincoln, Curator of African, Oceanic and New World Cultures at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, on the Plains ledger books.

Originals, Copies and Fakes (Art 310b) Caroline Houser, Art Department, in collaboration with David Dempsey, Museum. (Spring 1994, Spring 1995 and Fall 1997)
Students explore the roles of connoisseurship and scientific methods in examining works of art. They begin by studying a group of Tanagra figures of dubious origin, then choose problematic objects in the collection to study in depth. Grant money is used to make study photographs of these pieces. Field trips are taken to the conservation laboratories at the Fogg Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and several visiting experts, including Prof. Carol Mattusch, George Mason University, a specialist in Greek bronzes, speak to the class.

Aesthetics (Philosophy 233b) Nalini Bhushan and Tom Tymoczko, Philosophy Department. (Spring 1995; repeated by Professor Bhushan in Spring 1996 and Spring 1997)
This course investigates theories of art by focussing on works of art and literature. Students undertake six exercises in the museum in which they assess and apply abstract theories of art to a wide range of objects, from netsuke to contemporary photographs. Mellon funds were used for slides and expenses for Prof. Bhushan to present a paper about the course at a Philosophy conference in Montreal. Anita Silvers, Department of Philosophy, San Francisco State University, gave a lecture “In Our Heroines’ Gardens: Historicism and Heritage in Art and Literature”. In its second year, the course utilized Mellon funds to organize an Aesthetics Symposium on The Future of Art in April 1996. Arthur Danto, Philosophy Professor at Columbia University and Art Critic for The Nation gave the keynote lecture, followed by further lectures the next day by Professor Crispin Sartwell, University of Alabama and Elizabeth Spelman, Smith College.

Mourning and Memorialization in Victorian Britain (English 342a) Cornelia Pearsall, English Department (Fall 1995)
By reading the literature of the period and studying works of art in the museum's collection, artifacts and other material, students gain an understanding of the representation and commemoration of the dead and the obsession with mourning that permeated Victorian culture. Mourning jewelry, clothing and related objects were borrowed from Historic Northampton, and the class took a field trip to Mount Auburn cemetery in Cambridge. Mellon funds also paid for a talk by Patricia Warner on mourning dress, and for Prof. Pearsall’s attendance at a workshop on gravestones at Old Deerfield.

Introduction to the History of Art (Art 100) Barbara Kellum, Craig Felton, Caroline Houser, Marylin Rhie, Brigitte Buettner, Art Department (Fall 1994, 1995, 1996)
Mellon funds were used to pay for loans from other museums to enhance the museum's holdings. Six objects—two Greek vases, two ancient Asian objects and two early Renaissance Italian paintings--were borrowed from the Harvard University Museums in 1994. Three objects were borrowed in 1995—a Mayan vase from the Duke University Museum of Art, a fourteenth-century ivory mirror case from the Springfield Museum of Art, and a medieval ivory casket lid from the Williams College Museum of Art. In 1996, several medieval objects were borrowed from the Walters Art Gallery.

Chemistry of Artists' Materials and Techniques (Chemistry 102b) George Fleck, Martha Armstrong, Lee Burns, David Dempsey (Spring 1995; repeated in Spring 1996, Spring 1998, and Spring 1999 with George Fleck and David Dempsey).
This course is a theoretical and practical examination of the working methods of artists. Technical studies in the museum provide insights into artistic uses of materials in different time periods, and studio demonstrations by members of the art department and guest artists provide first-hand knowledge of various media and how the artist can manipulate the materials to produce different effects. In laboratory exercises students prepare materials and study their properties. The class visited a foundry to observe casting and patination.

Symposium in American Studies: Telling Life Stories in Words and Pictures (American Studies 340b) Helen Horowitz (Spring 1995; repeated in Spring 1996 as Presentations of the Self: Male and Female).
This course explores American portraits and self-portraits in relation to works of biography and autobiography, with an emphasis on work by or representing women. In the first part of the semester each student selects a work in the museum’s collection and prepares a short talk from materials in the curatorial files. In the second half of the course, each student researches a specific topic based on materials from the Sophia Smith Collection and the College Archives as well as museum objects. Students present their work in class; over half the students chose to present small exhibitions related to their research. Mellon funds were used for a field trip to look at the collections of portraits at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Worcester Museum of Art, and for a lecture by Ellen Miles, Curator at the National Portrait Gallery.

Vision and the Visual in Dance Composition (Dance 252a) Rodger Blum, (Fall 1995)
Students focus on sculpture and paintings in the museum’s collections as a source of inspiration for developing their own movement compositions and increasing their understanding of basic forms of composition. During several early sessions of the course, Boston-based artist Sheila Pepe instructs the students on sketching various works of art in the museum both to heighten their experiences with art outside of traditional scholarly research and to tie their understanding of movement improvisation to drawing improvisation. Students develop original dance choreography by assessing four different genres of art in terms of their compositions, as well as by researching each work, artist, and period style. Mellon funds paid for a field trip to the Worcester Museum of Art, including a lecture on African masks by curator of education Honee Hess.

Masters and Movements - Contemporary Performance Art (Theatre 313a) Carla Kirkwood, (Fall 1995; repeated in Fall 1996 as a partial course).
Students are encouraged to learn how to use the visual narrative found in works of art as a basis to create performances in the non-traditional theatrical setting of the museum and to break away from dependence on literary texts alone. As part of their creative process, each student selects a work from the museum’s collection, researching the artist and the work’s historical and stylistic context. Each student’s final project, an original performance based on the work investigated, was performed in the museum. The Mellon grant funded workshops for the students with guest performance artists as well as performances by the guest artists which were open to the public.

Art Historical Studies, "Dis-playing the Primitive" (Art History 293b) Dana Leibsohn, (Spring 1996)
The course focuses on recent debates in the exhibition and reception of "primitive art" in the United States. During the first half of the semester students review critical literature and learn how to “read” museum exhibits for both their successes and flaws. In the second half of the course, the students developed and prepared, with the help of the museum staff, an exhibition of nearly 30 objects from the museum’s collection of African, Native American, and Oceanic materials. The students examined the museum’s collections of nonwestern materials, selected objects for the exhibition, researched these works, wrote all exhibition wall texts and handouts, and designed the exhibition space. The exhibition was open to the public in May. Field trips were taken to museums displaying nonwestern art in Springfield and New York. Mellon funds paid for several lectures, discussion sessions, and critiques of the exhibition by specialists in the field.

Self and Society in the Roman World (Art History 293a) Barbara Kellum (Fall 1996)
The course focusses on the Miller Collection of Roman sculptures (on loan to the Smith College Museum of Art). Students explore various issues and aspects of ancient Roman art, including patronage, materials, historical context, and collection practices of antiquities from the Renaissance to the present. Each student researches a single sculpture throughout the semester. Guest speakers included marble expert Peter Rockwell, marble carver Fred Brownstein, antiquities dealer Ariel Hermann, numismatics specialist Lee Ann Riccardi, and the museum’s conservator David Dempsey, who demonstrated methods of technical examination. A joint session was held with a Smith mineralogy class to examine stone material. A field trip to the I Claudia exhibition at Yale was also taken.

Directing II (Theatre 345a) Carla Kirkwood (Fall 1996, partial Mellon course)
Students focus on areas of composition, visual imagery, text analysis, and spatial relationships by examining paintings and theatrical texts from four historical periods. Several of the museum’s paintings and prints serve as inspiration for the students’ exercises in spatial design and staging; museum staff lecture on several works, and students use the museum's files for research. Course funds also supported two trips to the Hartford Stage for preview and performance of A Servant of Two Masters and honoraria for Hartford Stage director Bart Sher and assistant Laura Schutzel.

Introduction to College Writing (English 101a) Ann E. Boutelle (Fall 1996, partial course)
Students are encouraged to discover multiple ways of seeing and to learn how to uncover meaning in art while developing their writing and research skills. The course focusses on several portraits in the museum’s collections; students write on their initial reactions to a portrait, listen to a lecture on it by museum staff, and research its historical background. A field trip was also taken to the Wadsworth Athenaeum as a comparison with the Smith College Museum of Art.

Art of the Roman World (Art History 216a) Barbara Kellum (Fall 1997).
This course focuses on the multicultural visual universe of the Roman world. Students research and writing papers on female portraits in the Miller Collection of Roman sculpture, Roman coins, and paintings and works on paper from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries which reflect changing interpretations of Roman themes and monuments. Supplemental course funds were used for field trips to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art, and for two speakers.

Japanese Aesthetics, Landscapes and Gardens (Religion 277a) Taitetsu Unno (Fall 1997, partial course).
This course began in the summer with a two-week study tour of landscapes and gardens in Japan. In the fall semester the course provides a study of Japanese aesthetics (shaped by Buddhist, Taoist, and Shinto views of reality) in relation to landscapes and gardens. Speakers included Marylin Rhie (Art Department) on Asian landscape paintings, John Moore (Art Department) on 16th-century Italian gardens, John Davis (Art Department) on 19th-century American landscape paintings, and Elizabeth Swinton (Worcester Art Museum) on Ukiyoe prints. The class viewed the museum’s Ukiyoe prints and visited the Worcester Art Museum’s collection. Course funds also helped support public talks by author David Slawson on “Authenticity and Japanese Landscape Gardens” and Bruce Altshuler, Director of Noguchi Garden Museum, on Noguchi’s work.

Classical and Popular Art and Music of the Twentieth Century (Music 102b) William Wittig (Spring 1998; repeated Fall 1998 and Fall 1999).
This longstanding course on “Classical and Popular Music in the Twentieth Century” has been expanded through the Mellon grant to include twentieth-century art, analyzing the contributions of both Western Europe and Africa to the synthesis of these traditions. Students research and analyze visual examples in the museum’s collection which can be related in a specific way to musical style, emotion, and cultural expression. Course funds have supported visits by artists Sheila Pepe and Liz Chalfin to teach basic visual awareness through drawing; a visit by watercolor artist Richard Yarde; and a performance/demonstration by several Five College jazz performers.

Image and Word (Art History 110b) Caroline Houser (Spring 1998, Fall 1999).
This writing-intensive course for first-year students explores variations in the meanings of Greek and Roman myths as conveyed in art from different times and different cultures. Consideration is given to divergent interpretations found in art and literature. Students view and write about selected paintings, sculptures, and works on paper in the museum’s collection. Mary B. Moore, Professor of Art, Hunter College, spoke on “How to Look at a Greek Vase,” and students took a field trip to Boston museums.

Jerusalem in History, Literature and Art (First Year Seminar 111a) Patricia Skarda and Karl Donfried (Fall 1998, Fall 1999).
This first year seminar provides an introduction to the city of Jerusalem as a sacred city in fact, in concept, and in image. The history of Jerusalem is used to enhance an understanding of the symbolic values of Jerusalem in literature and art from the past to the present. Students tell the story of one or more works of art in the Museum in an oral presentation that results finally in a term paper. Students are introduced to a variety of media that depict and illuminate the history of Jerusalem and the many stories and concepts that emerged from this city and the land of Israel. Museum holdings are supplemented by a visit to the Mortimer Rare Book Room and presentations by outside speakers, including a contemporary photographer.

Studies in Roman Art: Popular Culture in the Roman World (Art History 315a) Barbara Kellum (Fall 1998).
This seminar provides a multi-dimensional cultural analysis of objects made for women and men from all walks of life, throughout the Roman world. By considering the visual encodings in scenes on mass-produced terra cotta lamps and graffiti, in jewelry and luxury tableware, in literary texts, costly funerary monuments, fine statuary and wall paintings, students assess what these objects can reveal about modes of representation and life in another era--its spectacles, its passions, and its visual pleasures. Students prepare research papers on museum objects, and reconstruction drawings and ideas for an installation of the objects that might emphasize their roles in people’s lives in the ancient Roman world. The final project involves generating hypothetical models for such a reinstallation. Students visit the Worcester Art Museum and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to enhance their understanding of and familiarity with these objects, and participate in a Roman banquet at the end of the semester.

Vision/Re-Vision: Process and Analogue (English 180b) Robert Hosmer (Spring 1999).
This advanced essay writing course concerns itself with a vigorous and rigorous investigation of vision and revision. The first half of the course focuses on vision and includes guest speakers from a variety of disciplines who lectures on their particular concepts of “vision.” The second half examines process as revision/revision as process by looking at preliminary sketches and a finished painting; viewing a series of studies of one subject by one artist; and by studying a series of prints preparatory to the finished image. Students keep journals, prepare weekly writing exercises, two major essays and a research/presentation project on a particular work of art.

Fiction Colloquium (English 120a) Cornelia Pearsall (Fall 1999).
This course explores the ways that narrative can construct images and vice versa. Students work both with stories told about images (in novels, plays, poetry), and stories told by images. Class meetings at the museum are supplemented by frequent writing exercises and short student presentations in the gallery. Museum staff lead discussion of selected portraits to develop students’ looking skills.

Exhibiting Africa (Art History 260) Dana Leibsohn (Fall 2004).
This class focuses upon recent debates in the exhibition of African art. Discussions exlore the construction of “primitive art,” the cultural politics of museum exhibitions, and the history of collecting and displaying African objects in the West. Working with museum staff, the students curate their own exhibition utilizing objects from the museum’s collection as well as objects borrowed with the support of the Museum Loan Network.

Representations of Self and Society, 1750-1850 (French 370) Mary Ellen Birkett (Fall 2005).
Through visual arts and literature, this course examines issues of the self in society in France from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Issues brought to the fore by the visual arts include the portrayal of social types and their morality in works such as Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune’s Monument du costume (1789); the political consequences of satirical caricatures from the last years of the French monarchy; and economics, politics and aesthetics in paintings, sculptures and miniatures in the exhibition The French Portrait: Revolution to Restoration. Literary evocations of the self in society are examined concurrently. Students write short papers, make oral presentations about specific works of art and how they depict individual and social values, and do a “creative” project.

Chemistry in Art (Chemistry 100) Lâle Aka Burk (Spring 2006).
This chemistry course for non-majors deals with the chemistry of the materials used by artists to create their works, and the chemistry behind the methods used by conservators to analyze and preserve these objects. Works in the museum collection serve as examples and case studies. Artists’ demonstrations (e.g. printmaking), a visit to a conservation laboratory, and outside speakers supplement classroom work.

The Teaching of Visual Arts (Education and Child Study 305) Cathy Topal (Fall 2005).
This course is designed for education majors, most of whom are student teaching and have not taken studio art or art history courses. The course provides an opportunity to gain knowledge, skills, experience and strategies for effectively incorporating visual arts into teaching. Students design a curriculum connection to a work of art in the museum as part of their final practicum unit, and with guidance from museum education staff, practice facilitating a looking experience at the museum. Sketching assignments give the students a chance to see how other artists have worked.

Topics in Modern Mathematics (Mathematics 227) Pau Atela (Spring 2006).
This course engages students with mathematical concepts through life-sized objects. Art works from the permanent collection as well as a special loan are selected to illustrate concepts such as perspective, singularities of surfaces, viewpoints and projections, and the general problems of rendering three-dimensional objects in two-dimensional media. Talks by a guest artist and museum staff supplement class discussions. Students write a short paper on the art works, and make a reproduction in the machine shop of some of the three-dimensional effects that are studied in class.

2006-2007
This represented a transitional year for the program, so although we had a number of Museum-based courses, they were developed outside the new cycle of course proposals.

Topics in Contemporary Literature and Culture, French 230, Spring 2007
Fabienne Bullot, Lecturer in French Studies
An introduction to works by contemporary women writers from francophone Africa and the Caribbean. Topics to be studied include colonialism, exile, motherhood, and intersections between class and gender. Our study of these works and of the French language will be informed by attention to the historical, political, and cultural circumstances of writing as a woman in a former French colony. Texts will include works by Mariama Bâ, Maryse Condé, Gisèle Pineau, and Myriam Warner-Vieyra.

The Art of India, Art 226, Spring 2007
Ajay Sinha, Chair of Art History, Mount Holyoke College Art Department
The art of India and bordering regions to the north from the Indus Valley civilization through the ancient and classical Gupta age, the medieval period, and the Mughal-Rajput period, as expressed in the architecture, sculpture, and painting of the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Muslim religions. Recommended background: ARH 101 or 120.

The Tea Ceremony and Japanese Culture, East Asian Languages and Literature 247,
Spring 2007
Thomas Rohlich, Director of East Asian Languages and Literature
This course examines the history of chanoyu, the tea ceremony, from its origins in the fifteenth century to the practice of tea today. The class will explore the various elements that comprise the tea environment – the garden setting; the architecture of the tea room; the forms of tea utensils; and the elements of the kaiseki meal. Through a study of the careers of influential tea masters and texts that examine the historical, religious, and cultural background to tea culture, the class will also trace how the tea ceremony has become a metaphor for Japanese culture and Japanese aesthetics both in Japan and in the West. There will be field trips to visit tea ware collections, potters and tea masters. Enrollment limited to 20 Amherst and Smith College students. (E)

2007-2008

Spanish 241: Cultures of Spain, Instructor: Ibtissam Bouachrine, Fall 2007
A study of the Spain of today through a look at its past in history, art, film, and popular culture. The course focuses on Spain's complex multiculturalism, from the past relations among Jews, and Christians and Muslims to its present ethnic and linguistic diversity. Students will create labels for a display of works by Spanish artists in the Winslow Teaching Gallery

Art 220: Relics and Reliquaries, Instructor: Brigitte Buettner, Fall 2007
An interdisciplinary study of the cult of relics - one of the most distinctive and complex phenomena in the social, religious are artistic life of the Middle Ages. Using both primary texts and the rich body of scholarly literature, we will examine a broad range of reliquaries – whether abstract or shaped into a body part; purely ornamental or enhanced with narrative scenes; made of humble or of luxury materials. Issues will include: the evolving understanding of relics' nature and powers; the development of Christian pilgrimages to holy shrines; the dynamic relationship between the visible and the invisible; relic-collections as forerunners of museums, and pilgrims as the predecessors of tourists. Class will include a required trip to the MET, and will mount a small exhibit in the Smith College Museum of Art showcasing a newly acquired reliquary.

Art 101: Approaches to Visual Representation: Writing Art / Art Writing, Instructor: Frazer Ward, Spring 2008
Emphasizing discussion and short written assignments, these colloquia have as their goal the development of art historical skills of description, analysis, and interpretation. Unless otherwise indicated, each section is limited to 18 with priority given to first and second year students. In this museum-based, writing-intensive class, students will encounter at first hand a range of art objects from different periods and cultures, primarily in the Smith College Museum of Art. Students will be introduced to a variety of ways of writing about these objects-descriptive, contextual, interpretive-considering especially their setting in the museum. You will work closely with objects in the museum and will learn how they circulate through different institutional contexts. We will assess what is at stake in different ways of writing about art, in relation to the contexts in which both the art and the writing appear.

EDU 325: Teaching the Imaginative: Writing and Art in the Classroom, Instructor: Sam Intrator, Spring 2008
For some, the purpose of education is the creation of artists. Children should become skilled at securing meaning from multiple forms of expression such as text, poetry, visual art, and other forms of representation. This course explores the relationship between writing process, imagination, and aesthetic process by engaging students in a full-semester service learning experience with children from local schools and youth organizations. The seminar will explore theories explaining imagination and aesthetic thought and how these capacities can be cultivated in educational settings. Seminar participants will teach a weekly workshop to local youth at the Smith College Art Museum.