The course examines the history of the art history discipline and the development of the various art historical strategies.  It commences with the examination of the theories on art inherited from Antiquity and their survival and development in the medieval, Renaissance, Mannerist, Baroque, modern and post-modern periods. It also examines in considerable detail the methodological strategies adopted by art historians over the past century.  These include iconographic and semiotic methodologies, structuralist and post-structuralist approaches, sociological and Marxist approaches, the feminist critique of art history; psychoanalytical methodologies; formalist methodologies; connoisseurship and biographical methodologies and uses of art criticism and aesthetics by art historians. 

This course is designed to introduce the student to a knowledge of the art history discipline as it developed from classical antiquity through to the present and to examine critically the methodologies devised by art historians. For candidates doing it as part of their graduate coursework, it provides the opportunity to arrive at an understanding of the development of art history and provide the opportunity to apply and critically examine art historical methodologies ranging from formalism, iconology and biographic methods through to semiotics, post-structuralism and engendered readings. The course equips the student to competently engage in the art historical discourse within an academic as well as curatorial museum context. It draws on the research expertise of its convenor.

Assessment is on the basis of two 5,000 word essays which are presented orally in class as well as in a fully documented written format.  They are due two weeks after their oral presentation depending on their position within the course with one in the first half of the course and the second in the second half.  They enable the student to demonstrate their mastery of their selected methodology and their ability to critically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of this methodology.  The final details for assessment are determined in consultation with the class in the first two weeks of the semester.

One weekly 3 hour seminar normally held on Monday afternoons.

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Anne D'Alleva, Methods and theories of art history, Laurence King Publishing, London 2005

Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art and Society, Thames and Hudson, London 1990

 Vernon Hyde Minor, Art History's History, Prentice Hall/Abrams, New York 1994

Moshe Barasch, Modern theories of art, vols 1 & 2, New York University Press, New York 1990 and 1998

 Charles Harrison et al., Art Theory: 1648-1990, 3 vols, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford 2000

 Nicholas Mirzoeff (ed.) The Visual Culture Reader, Routledge London 1998

 Donald Preziosi (ed.) The Art of Art History: A critical anthology, Oxford History of Art, Oxford 998

 Hilary Robinson (ed.), Feminism-Art-Theory, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford 2001