Art History

This course examines the history of modern and contemporary art across the world, as it is shaped by and shapes society, politics and environment. It shows current concerns in art , with materials, landscape, self-image, politics, and the body are grounded in a century of global experiment

From the 1790s to the 1840s, a Berlin-based network of artists and intellectuals developed novel ways of writing, thinking, feeling, and living under the conceptual banner of the ‘romantic.’ Drawing on key texts by Ludwig Tieck, Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Novalis, Henriette Herz, Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Bettina and Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and the brothers Grimm, the class explores the central areas and practices of their romantic discourse of radical aesthetic, philosophical, political, and sociocultural modernity. Students critically examine how the romantics manifested and confronted the defining conflicts of their political and cultural present as these crystallized in Berlin, the capital of Prussia, 19th century Germany’s emerging hegemonic power. The course also surveys influential contemporary critiques of the romantic movement (Goethe, Hegel, Heine) and follow its legacies in the 20th century. Art history is another focus of the class, which includes a museum visit.

This seminar examines the museum as a global institution that emerged through its entanglements with empire, colonial collecting practices, and systems of knowledge production. Divided into two parts, the course first traces the birth and colonial origins of the museum in Europe. It analyzes how collecting, classification, and display became intertwined with imperial ideologies and modes of governance. Finally, the seminar turns to museums in the colony, investigating how these institutions developed distinct trajectories as sites of both imperial control and local agency, as well as their roles in nationalist and postcolonial imaginaries. Through key readings in critical museology, postcolonial theory, and heritage studies, students engage with case studies from Asia and Africa. The seminar concludes by reflecting on what decolonial futures for museums might entail and how curatorial and collaborative practices can challenge established museological frameworks.

The lecture series brings together thirteen fellows from Humboldt University’s Käte Hamburger Kolleg for Advanced Study ­ – inherit. Heritage in Transformation, whose research spans disciplines to explore what it means to inherit. From colonial legacies and ancestral remains to genetic memory, religious ritual, and postcolonial art, the lectures probe how inheritance shapes belonging, identity, and knowledge itself. Through these diverse projects, the lecture series asks what can be passed on and how, and in what ways does inheritance invite us to rethink the ethics and possibilities of living with the past in the present. The contributors to the lecture series include artists of various media as well as researchers from a wide range of humanities and social sciences, such as anthropology, art history, history, literature, philosophy, political science and sociology. The lecture series introduces trans- and multi-disciplinary humanities approaches with a particular focus on the following three strands of ongoing transformation: decentering of the West (Europe/Global North); decentering of the human; and transformation of value.

This yearlong course introduces students to the material and visual culture of the ancient world from the second millennium BC to late antiquity. The fall term focuses on the Greek world, and the spring term on the Roman. It studies the built environment - from the great urban monuments to everyday domestic units (including temples, ‘homes’ for the gods). It explores the art and iconography of the ancient world alongside the material residues of daily life and ritual. Students are introduced to the different perspectives and methods of both archaeologists and art historians in interpreting material remains and visual images. The course combines close study of individual pieces of evidence with an evaluation of how they illuminate the societies, cultures, institutions and economies of classical antiquity.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor. Students acquire knowledge of medieval art history and develop the skills necessary to familiarize themselves with the artistic production of the period. In particular, they analyze how medieval art is perceived and how it is valued in contemporary culture and in museum and exhibition systems. By the end of the course, students are able to analyze historically the main works of medieval art history and are able to implement specific choices for the knowledge and dissemination of medieval heritage. The first part of the course focuses on the study of artistic phenomena and their development in the medieval age (XII-XV century) and their revival in the contemporary age. The second part focuses on the study of heritage and museum and archive studies and digital heritage, media, and communication. This course addresses state-of-the-art initiatives, as well as challenges and strategic issues, in developing a digital medieval heritage ecosystem within the broader context of an emerging digital culture. Case studies are drawn from Italy and showcase the breadth of innovative ideas in delivering, communicating, interpreting, and transforming cultural heritage content and experiences through multi-modal, multimedia interfaces. Aiming to offer a balanced overview of digital heritage and culture issues and technologies.

This course moves thematically and chronologically from the Pax Romana established by Augustus to the rise of imperial cities in Africa under Septimius Severus. Themes of peace, triumph and conflict will be viewed through a series of core-and-periphery test cases. Themes will include Augustan Peace, The Wars in Judaea, The Spoils of Territorial Expansion under Trajan (looking at Dacia and Parthia), Territorial Consolidation under Hadrian (exploring Rome and Britain) and the Art of Ruling in Absentia (as exemplified by Marcus Aurelius’ reign on the Danube). Students will analyze the Roman conceptualization of events taking place on the fringe of empire and the nature of their portrayal at the administrative core in terms of Roman imperial expansion and later contraction and collapse. Imperial propaganda will be investigated through a reading of the most famous imperial architectural designs in Rome and tested against archaeological evidence for daily life in the related provinces. 

The course explores contemporary Spanish art through the lenses of gender, identity, public space, and social change. Students examine how artists address historical memory, feminism, masculinity, and cultural representation through visual and public art, supported by museum visits, discussions, and critical analysis.  

This course offers a study of the nuclear concepts of the history of art and the main characteristics of artistic movements. It analyzes the activity and management of tourist spaces, for students who will be working in the tourism field in the future. Topics include: art history and tourism; ancient art from Egypt to Rome; medieval art from across Europe; art and culture in the modern age; contemporary art and architecture.

The seminar investigates the connections between the concepts of memory, the monument, film, and the archive through studying contemporary films and artistic interventions from Germany and the United States. Engaging approaches from art history, film and media studies, and memory studies, the seminar’s investigations are two-pronged: First, the course takes advantage of its location in Berlin’s historic center to explore how artists and activists have negotiated Germany’s histories of colonialism and Afro-German histories in urban spaces and on the HU campus. Second, students investigate how artists and filmmakers have translated the complexities of such memory work onto the screen. The seminar thus covers topics including monuments and memorialization, American and European legacies of slavery, the essay film as archive, film representations of the restitution of looted artworks, and the “restitution” of colonial images. The course studies recent films by filmmakers including Mati Diop, Jürgen Ellinghaus, Martina Priessner, and Marcin Wierzchowski.