Students may take courses at our consortium partner institutions which include Columbia University (COL), the City University of New York Graduate Center (CUNY), the Institute …

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 …

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 …

This course offers methods and vocabularies  for exploring the ephemera that are part of the  ecosystem of the moving image. It invites  …

This course offers an introduction to histories  that have traditionally been left out of the  fashion canon. Students will study a variety of&…

The term “Conquest Dynasties,” first coined by  Karl Wittfogel in the 1940s, refers to the  nomadic and semi-nomadic regimes of the  Kitan-Liao, …

This seminar explores the long history of the  “total artwork,” or Gesamtkunstwerk. Brought  to prominence by composer Richard Wagner  in the middle …

Emeralds. Chocolate. Sugar. Indigo. Precious. Sacred. Addictive. Invasive. Like human actors, commodities—and the decorative arts and material culture they can produce and sustain—have …

This seminar aims to revisit the role and function of sacred arts in the three Abrahamic faiths, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, in order to bring …

The material history of the ancient civilizations that belong to the Nile Valley, Egypt The material history of the ancient civilizations that belong to …

Early modern Europe has been dubbed the “Age of Exploration” or the “Age of Discovery,” but exploration and discovery included people from the Americas, Africa, …

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

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

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…

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 + …

This course surveys the evolution of furniture design and production from antiquity to the 1830s. Outstanding examples of furniture from Europe, America, and China are …

This course explores the development of the Kunstkammer and the cabinet of curiosities in Europe across the long sixteenth century, the great age of …

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 …

Although photography is usually approached as a visual medium of image production and reproduction, photographs are also objects with their own unique material properties. They …

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

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 …

The standard textbooks of ancient art tend to present its history either in narratives concentrating on great artists and their inventions or as a succession …