Students may take courses at our consortium partner institutions which include Columbia University (COL), Cooper Hewitt, Parsons School of Design (CH), the City University of …

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 …

Internships are arranged through the BGC, the student, and the sponsoring institution. A wide variety of internships are available, including positions at museums, historic houses, …

This seminar offers an examination of a wide range of museums within universities, considering research, teaching, and public outreach, as well as their relationships with …

This course situates the culture of the European Renaissance (1400-1750) within a wider global context. It draws on the premise of recent scholarship positing that …

Due in part to curatorial efforts and public interest, African, African-American, and Black Diaspora visual and material culture have garnered renewed academic interest and currency. …

This course will take a deeper plunge into the theoretical literature surveyed at flying speed in both “Approaches to the Object” and “Unsettling Things.” From …

African art transcends many objects, materials, regions, and interpretations. From early antiquity, civilizations and societies on the continent were creating objects using ground fragments by …

This seminar takes its name from a 1945 publication explaining the United States government’s wartime program of conservation and rationing, emphasizing why dress and raw …

Eighteenth-century France has long been celebrated as a high point of domestic design, producing spaces and objects admired for their luxury, elegance, coordination, and craftsmanship. …

This course coincides with the installation and opening of Richard Tuttle: What is the Object? The exhibition is a tool aimed at providing …

This course investigates how individuals and groups have deployed material culture to challenge, redefine, and expand constructs of citizenship and belonging in the United States …

Academic thinking has always been in active dialogue with changing social, cultural, and political contexts. Many current modes of scholarly thought, which are employed broadly …

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

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 MA students are required, during the course of the two-year program, to attend in person at least 10 lectures, symposia, or talks given by leading …

"Ah, when a man constructs a house, embellishes it with fine furnishings, and dwells therein, he finds it difficult to avoid an attitude of proud …

In the early twentieth century Western collectors adopted from their Chinese counterparts a canon of collectable early Chinese antiquities. It includes the most refined material …

This seminar examines the shifting boundaries of craft and design in the United States from World War II to the present. In the postwar era’…

Over the past two centuries, the museum has emerged as one of the primary institutional venues for intercultural encounter mediated by objects. Practices of both …

Miracle, magic, apotropia, and efficacy are just a few of the terms that embedded the Middle Ages with supernatural activity. This seminar explores the place …

Second-year MA students who will graduate in May must register for this final paper in the spring semester. 3 credits.

Few human-made things last in their original form. Things change. Some are inherently unstable, whether physically or chemically. Some have been purposefully modified. Some have …