Required for doctoral students in HTC as a prerequisite for work on the doctoral dissertation. Prior to candidacy, doctoral students are required to write and orally defend a proposal laying out the scope of their thesis, its significance, a survey of existing research and literature, the methods of research to be adopted, a bibliography and plan of work. Work is done in consultation with HTC Faculty, in accordance with the HTC PhD Degree Program guidelines.

Required of doctoral students in HTC as a prerequisite for work on the doctoral dissertation. The Minor Exam focuses on a specific area of specialization through which the student might develop their particular zone of expertise. Work is done in consultation with HTC faculty, in accordance with the HTC PhD Degree Program Guidelines.

Required of doctoral students in HTC as a prerequisite for work on the doctoral dissertation. The Major Exam covers a historically broad area of interest and includes components of history, historiography, and theory. Preparation for the exam will focus on four or five themes agreed upon in advance by the student and the examiner, and are defined by their area of teaching interest. Work is done in consultation with HTC faculty, in accordance with the HTC PhD Degree Program Guidelines.

The European Enlightenment has been described as a “revolution of the mind,” a fundamental turning point in the way Europeans imagined the world and their place in it, and a crucible of western modernity—a wellspring both of its ideals and its moral failures.

Designed in conjunction with the exhibition Dare to Know: Prints and Drawings in the Age of Enlightenment on view at the Harvard Art Museums this fall, this hands-on seminar investigates the Enlightenment from the perspective of the visual media that were its agents and vividly exemplified its complexities and contradictions.

Through exhibition and collections visits and class discussion, we will investigate how the attempts to place knowledge on new foundations that characterized the so-called age of reason impacted art and architectural thinking and, at the same time, were mediated by them. How did new ideas about nature, human nature, and “civilization” shift thinking about the place of the arts and architecture in society, and how, conversely, did visual media, from paper architecture and imagined city plans to transparencies (early moving pictures), anatomical images, and salacious prints help to mediate such new ideas such as progress, empathy, public opinion, taste, and hygiene? And how were aesthetics and the arts shaped by, and imbricated in, scientific exploration, the expansion of trade, and their darker consequences: colonization and slavery?

Assigned readings balance recent scholarly interpretations with period texts ranging from the proto science fiction of Voltaire and Louis-Sébastien Mercier to works by Diderot, Kant, and others. Throughout, we will attend to the active role of images – whether painted, drawn, or printed – in constituting the new forms of knowledge and new practices we have come to associate with Enlightenment and whose mixed legacies we grapple with today.

Because this class includes several visits to the exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums and other local collections, class enrollment is limited to 15.

4.677 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

Introduces students to the world of French photography from its invention in the 1820s to the present. Provides exposure to major photographers and images of the French tradition and encourages students to explore the social and cultural roles and meanings of photographs. Designed to help students navigate their own photo-saturated worlds; provides opportunity to gain practical experience in photography.

Taught in English.

Studies theoretical and historiographical works pertaining to the fields of art and architectural history. Members of seminar pursue work designed to examine their own presuppositions and methods.

4.661 Syllabus (MIT Certificate required)

4.648, 21A.507 U / 4.649, 21A.519 G

Examines the sonic phenomena and experiences that motivate scientific, humanistic, and artistic practices. Explores the aesthetic and technical aspects of how we hear; measure or describe vibrations; record, compress, and distribute resonating materials; and how we ascertain what we know about the world through sound. Although the focus is on sound as an aesthetic, social, and scientific object, the subject also investigates how resonance is used in the analysis of acoustics, architecture, and music theory. Students make a sonic artifact or research project as a final requirement.

Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Course Syllabus (MIT Certificate required)

Examines the manner in which key theories of technology have influenced architectural and art production in terms of their "humanizing" claims. Students test theories of technology on the grounds of whether technology is good or bad for humans.

4.647 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Researches the history and culture of an MIT community to contribute to its documentation and preservation. Through the practice of doing original research, students learn about the history of an MIT community. Provides instruction in the methods historians use to document the past, as well as methods from related fields.

Critical review of literature on Islamic art and architecture in the last two centuries. Analyzes the cultural, disciplinary, and theoretical contours of the field and highlights the major figures that have influenced its evolution. Challenges the tacit assumptions and biases of standard studies of Islamic art and architecture and addresses historiographic and critical questions concerning how knowledge of a field is defined, produced, and reproduced.

4.619 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)