This course explores the art historical record from Paleolithic cave art through the Renaissance. Prehistoric Art, Early Neolithic (Old Europe, Gobekli Tepi, Jericho), Ancient Civilization, Classical, Early Christian, Islamic Art, Medieval and Renaissance art of the West will be explored, with comparative studies of Asian, African, Oceanic, Aboriginal North American art. A survey of Indigenous World Art will be compared to the Western, ‘academic’ art included in the Eurocentric art historical canon. The course concludes with an appraisal of the exclusions of Art History in light of dominant ideologies of race, gender, class and nationality.

Examine the life and works of  internationally recognized British Columbia artist and writer, Emily Carr. Discover the breadth and range of Emily Carr's career from her earliest sketches and still life paintings to the finished canvases of her mature years.  Explore the First Nations cultures of the Northwest Coast with a particular focus on the precise areas where Emily Carr sketched and painted. Some of the many themes we will explore include Carr's documenting First Nations' cultures, her contact and exchanges with First Nations people and the inspiration and profound effect Northwest Coast art had on Emily Carr throughout her life.  Emily Carr and First Nations will be considered within the context of the changes and development of historical and contemporary visual art in British Columbia.

This course examines the historic and contemporary artwork from various cultural groups of the Northwest Coast from the Coast Salish of southern coastal British Columbia to the Tlingit of Alaska. We will look at the art symbolism behind the meaning of the totem poles, masks and silkscreen prints. Further focus on how the Northwest Coast Art has changed through the centuries and how it reflects the societies from which it springs.

Ever wonder about the connection between classical Greek sculpture and virtual reality? Cyberspace now features the same kind of illusions once dreamt of in ancient times. The legend of Pygmalion tells the story of a famous sculptor whose Venus, fashioned in stone, became living flesh. Through history, the vision of automata has inspired artists and writers like Ovid, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mary Shelley, Fritz Lang, and William Gibson. There is a long lineage of ideas about robotics, re-animation, virtual realities and cyborg culture. This course continues the saga begun in AH107A, examining the rise of social critique, cyborg imagery, robotic mechanization, animation, and the evocations of alternative, "virtual" realities, such as cyberspace in art. Picking up the thread at the age of Romanticism, when the industrial revolution challenged notions of the "sublime" in art and nature, we look at how social realism exploited the "cinematic" vision of 17th-century artists like Caravaggio and Artemisia Gentileschi, and how war and social revolution brought about the dissolution and transformation of the "Ancien Regime" along with its aesthetic values and definitions of beauty. We trace the emerging visions of modernism and post-modernism, the internet, "smart houses", cinematic perceptions, robotic architecture, ecological design, and cyborg "avatars" in digital art, film, animation, and other (traditional and new) media.

Trickster and Social Evolution: Humor and Irony as Revolutionary Tools in Contemporary Native Art' In North American Indigenous culture, the emergence of the Trickster character has traditionally betokened a need for personal or collective transformation. By challenging the status quo, Trickster - whether manifesting as Blue Jay, Raven, Coyote, or Fox - brings evolutionary social change. In recent years, Contemporary and Post-modern Native artists have been consciously deploying Trickster in their art in the form of satire, humor and irony in order to initiate a gentle, but revolutionary, social metamorphosis. In this course, we discover the radical and transformative works of Contemporary and Post-Modern, First Nations, North American artists