Course Catalog

Foundational Courses (Required)
Students are introduced to art historical movements

SAVC 141 Art History I: Pyramids to Cathedrals
This course examines the art and architecture of the ancient world, focusing on Egypt, the Near East, and the Classical Greek and Roman world and Europe from about 2000 BCE to CE 1400. It also studies African and Asian art traditions that emerged during that period.

SAVC 142 Art History  II:  Renaissance to Contemporary
This foundational course explores the history of the visual arts from the fourteenth century to the twentieth century (from the Medieval period to the Modern era). Students are taught about works of art in the social, political, religious, and philosophical realms as well as in the very personal contexts that gave these objects meaning for their original audiences.

SAVC 230 Global Foundations of Modern Art
This course begins with the premise that the history of European and American modern art, which arose out of seventeenth century Enlightenment ideals, is incomplete without an examination of the African, Oceanic, Indigenous and other global influences that prompted the Impressionists to emulate Japanese woodblock prints and catalyzed Picasso and Braque’s exploration of Cubism in the early twentieth century.

SAVC 243 African American Art
This survey examines multiple forms of visual art production by African Americans from 1619 to the present. It begins with an overview of the Middle Passage and slavery in relation to African American traditions in the decorative arts, architecture and archaeology through the end of the eighteenth century. Nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century topics demonstrate how printmaking, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and time-based media engage both art historical movements and historical trajectories of freedom, civil rights and social change.

SAVC 387 The Art Market
This course examines the history of the art market from the 16th century to the present. Students examine the production, sale and exchange of works of art as well as the patrons, artists and collectors who participate in this economic, social and political form of taste-making and aesthetic valuation.

Theory and Writing Courses (Required)
Students deepen their writing and research skills

SAVC 255 Writing and Criticism in Art History
This course focuses on writing for declared or potential art history majors. Students develop strong writing skills through close analysis of key art historical texts. They are taught to strengthen essential skills required in the discipline of art history, including archival research techniques and critical analysis based on visual and written evidence.

SAVC 238 Art as Social Justice

This course examines the central role that art and artists have played in the history of African American and African Diaspora social justice movements. Juxtaposing foundational theoretical texts by Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Angela Davis, Kwame Toure and Bryan Stevenson with archival sources and works of material culture, art, spoken word and film, students learn how art has been a catalyst for social justice.

SAVC 320 Art History Methods, Theory and Practice
This foundational theory and methods course explores the practices and methods of the discipline of art history. Students investigate key questions, interpretative approaches, institutional structures and modes of dissemination that define the study of art history.

Elective Courses (18 Credits)
Students expand their knowledge of art and art history

SAVC 229 Contemporary African Diaspora Art
This seminar considers the work of artists who trace a visual genealogy of the African Diaspora through archival practices and memory work. It examines traditional art forms including painting, sculpture and printmaking as well as the contemporary art practices of photography, installation, film, video and performance.

SAVC 234 Contemporary Senegalese Society and Culture
An overview of Senegalese society and culture, through its artistic and literary heritage within a global context. Using interdisciplinary perspectives, it explores aspects of Senegalese society that reflect the transmission of socio-cultural values or loss thereof, despite stressed social rules and norms.

SAVC 249 The Black Female Body in the Visual Arts
This lecture focuses on the history and discourses of the black female body as a figure of representation, sexuality, resistance, agency and identity in American visual culture. Organized thematically, with examples drawn from painting, sculpture, photography, film, popular culture and mixed media installations from the antebellum era to present day.

SAVC 272  History of Photography
This course surveys the history of photography from its invention in the early nineteenth century to its present day application. Photography’s multiple histories: as artistic medium, as social text, as scientific technology, and as a cultural practice will be explored. Through lectures, discussions and field trips, students will be introduced to various technical processes, the camera’s evolution, and the vocabulary and issues of photographic theory and criticism.

SAVC 280 Innovation, Technology and Art I
This course teaches the basic skills of tools used in the Innovation Lab. Students research and discuss various tools and methods that artists have used to create their work. Students also create their own works by utilizing tools such as 3D scanning, 3D modeling, 3D Printing, and laser cutting in combination with various other digital and mechanical practices to pioneer new ways of creating objects.

SAVC 302 Satire in African and African Diaspora Arts
Explores manifestations of satires in the visual arts of Africa and its Diasporas. Topics to be examined include: satires that subvert gender, racial or sexuality bias; satires that challenge hierarchies of artistic representation; and satires that address local, national or global environmental concerns. This is a writing intensive course. 

SAVC 303 Installation Art
Installation Art is a studio course where students explore this expansive form of art making with a focus on mixed media sculpture, site specificity and content. Students will produce original works through an understanding of issues, methods and ideas through the lens of current practices in contemporary art.

SAVC 305 Seminar in Curatorial Practice
This course introduces curatorial methodologies and strategies for developing a broad range of exhibitions (monographic, thematic and permanent collection shows, media-based and interactive projects, etc.). It examines how museums produce knowledge, considering the ways in which art history and visual culture studies have been informed by museum collection and display policies. This course is designed for students who are curious about curatorial projects and curating practices.

SAVC 282 Acquisitions and Collections
This course explores collections of art and artifacts as dynamic and everchanging archives that should be respected as extraordinary cultural assets to be enjoyed as well as scrutinized. This course focuses on methods of acquisition and collection preservation as they inform current perceptions of museums. Students will work with faculty and museum staff through the processes of receiving artwork into a museum collection.

SAVC 312 Unmasked: African Art Past and Present
This introductory level course surveys the arts of Africa, from ancient times to today, highlighting the art of ancient African cities and kingdoms to the art of African liberation movement and urban centers. Students are introduced to the work of internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, who have emerged from colonial and postcolonial African contexts since the 1950s, to consider how colonialism, political independence, Pan-Africanism and other socio-political forces shape the artistic practices of artists of Africa and its Diaspora.

SAVC 315 Contemporary Art Making Strategies
This class explores contemporary art making strategies employed by visual artists. Through assignments, critical readings, class discussions and critiques, students will utilize past technical artistic skills, thoughtful experimentation and critical thinking skills to create and develop new working methods with art making. The topic of this course will rotate each semester. (Topics may include: Ecology, The Body, The Archive, and Materiality).

SAVC 317 The Black Arts Movement: Decolonization, Civil Rights and Black Power
Examines the art, music, literature and film of the Black Arts Movement (1965-1972), and explosive cultural flourishing that emerged in the United States in the wake of the African liberation and decolonization movements in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the same period.

SAVC 325  African American Cinema
Looks at the history of African American filmmaking from the perspective of directors, actors, studios and audiences. Students will study works of pioneering black filmmakers from Oscar Micheaux to Julie Dash.

SAVC 365 Black Pacific Art
Black Pacific connections in culture and literature can be found on both sides of the world’s largest ocean. Scholars have traced these linkages between African American culture and Oceania as well as Asia Pacific. This seminar explores Black Pacific art and its relationship to Black Atlantic art while teaching critical reading, thinking and writing skills. This is a writing intensive course. 

SAVC 383 Slavery and Visual Culture
Examines the visual culture of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade from the 16th century to the present. Lectures present artifacts, prints, paintings, photographs, sculpture, film and installation art that images the history of slavery and its profound contemporary resonance. Students will study art and artifacts in the AUC museums and libraries. Field trip to nearby anti-slavery sites of memory as well as contemporary memorials. This is a writing intensive course. 

SAVC 435 Theory and Criticism in Exhibition Practice
This advanced seminar explores the ways in which our contemporary understanding of art, history and culture is constructed and informed by public display in museums, galleries and the global landscape. Using a series of case studies, it considers issues of representation, display, reception and wider social contexts in which art and culture are experienced in museums and public spaces.

Personal Practice and Career Building Courses (Required)
Students prepare for a real world usage of skills

SAVC 375 Entering the Art World: Culture and Context
Entering the Art World: Culture and Context provides a basic introduction to the topics and individuals that shape and inform curatorial practice. Through roundtable discussions, structured classroom exercises, field trips, and workshops with a variety of arts professionals, students will discuss and analyze the challenges, limits, rules and opportunities that have historically informed curatorial practice.

SAVC 480 Art History Thesis
The Art History Thesis is required for all Spelman College graduating seniors and is intended to serve as a “capstone” experience. This course gives students an opportunity to conduct supervised research and adapt to the rigors of study in the field of art history. Students should complete all of their major core requirements before enrolling in this course. The student and professor devise a meeting and writing schedule culminating in a written presentation of an art history research thesis.

SAVC 493E Directed Studies in Art History
This course is open to majors and minors who wish to engage in independent study in areas that course offerings do not cover in depth. Under faculty guidance, the student engages in comprehensive reading, writing and discussion. Faculty permission is required.

SAVC (various) Division of the Arts Seminar
This required seminar-style course is designed to bring together all majors in the Division of the Arts (Art & Visual Culture, Dance, Music, and Theater & Performance) to engage in dialogue and critical thinking related to contemporary art practices, art and technical innovations, and the creative economy. The seminar is intended as a forum to support future collaborations for projects leading up to and including the final thesis project in the senior year.

Foundational Courses (Required)

SAVC 141 Art History I: Pyramids to Cathedrals
This course examines the art and architecture of the ancient world, focusing on Egypt, the Near East, and the Classical Greek and Roman world and Europe from about 2000 BCE to CE 1400. It also studies African and Asian art traditions that emerged during that period.

SAVC 142 Art History II:  Renaissance to Contemporary
This foundational course explores the history of the visual arts from the fourteenth century to the twentieth century (from the Medieval period to the Modern era). Students are taught about works of art in the social, political, religious, and philosophical realms as well as in the very personal contexts that gave these objects meaning for their original audiences.

SAVC 255 Writing and Criticism in Art History
This course focuses on writing for declared or potential art history majors. Students develop strong writing skills through close analysis of key art historical texts. They are taught to strengthen essential skills required in the discipline of art history, including archival research techniques and critical analysis based on visual and written evidence.

SAVC 320 Art History Methods, Theory and Practice
This foundational theory and methods course explores the practices and methods of the discipline of art history. Students investigate key questions, interpretative approaches, institutional structures and modes of dissemination that define the study of art history.

Elective Courses

Choose One:

SAVC 230 Global Foundations of Modern Art
This course begins with the premise that the history of European and American modern art, which arose out of seventeenth century Enlightenment ideals, is incomplete without an examination of the African, Oceanic, Indigenous and other global influences that prompted the Impressionists to emulate Japanese woodblock prints and catalyzed Picasso and Braque’s exploration of Cubism in the early twentieth century.

SAVC 305 Seminar in Curatorial Practice
This course introduces curatorial methodologies and strategies for developing a broad range of exhibitions (monographic, thematic and permanent collection shows, media-based and interactive projects, etc.). It examines how museums produce knowledge, considering the ways in which art history and visual culture studies have been informed by museum collection and display policies. This course is designed for students who are curious about curatorial projects and curating practices.

SAVC 282 Acquisitions and Collections

This course explores collections of art and artifacts as dynamic and everchanging archives that should be respected as extraordinary cultural assets to be enjoyed as well as scrutinized. This course focuses on methods of acquisition and collection preservation as they inform current perceptions of museums. Students will work with faculty and museum staff through the processes of receiving artwork into a museum collection.

Choose One:

SAVC 243 African American Art
This survey examines multiple forms of visual art production by African Americans from 1619 to the present. It begins with an overview of the Middle Passage and slavery in relation to African American traditions in the decorative arts, architecture and archaeology through the end of the eighteenth century. Nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century topics demonstrate how printmaking, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and time-based media engage both art historical movements and historical trajectories of freedom, civil rights and social change.

SAVC 312 Unmasked: African Art Past and Present
This introductory level course surveys the arts of Africa, from ancient times to today, highlighting the art of ancient African cities and kingdoms to the art of African liberation movement and urban centers. Students are introduced to the work of internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, who have emerged from colonial and postcolonial African contexts since the 1950s, to consider how colonialism, political independence, Pan-Africanism and other socio-political forces shape the artistic practices of artists of Africa and its Diaspora.

Foundational Courses (Required)

SAVC 235 Introduction to the Object
This foundational course for the curatorial studies minor introduces a common vocabulary and conceptualization for discussing works of art. It provides a shared frame of reference for all students who are interested in the field of curatorial studies. Using exhibitions and works from the permanent collections of AUC institutions as case studies, students examine the role of institutions, curators and other museum professionals.

SAVC 305 Seminar in Curatorial Practice
This course introduces curatorial methodologies and strategies for developing a broad range of exhibitions (monographic, thematic and permanent collection shows, media-based and interactive projects, etc.). It examines how museums produce knowledge, considering the ways in which art history and visual culture studies have been informed by museum collection and display policies. This course is designed for students who are curious about curatorial projects and curating practices.

SAVC 282 Acquisitions and Collections
This course explores collections of art and artifacts as dynamic and everchanging archives that should be respected as extraordinary cultural assets to be enjoyed as well as scrutinized. This course focuses on methods of acquisition and collection preservation as they inform current perceptions of museums. Students will work with faculty and museum staff through the processes of receiving artwork into a museum collection.

SAVC 375 Entering the Art World: Culture and Context
Entering the Art World: Culture and Context provides a basic introduction to the topics and individuals that shape and inform curatorial practice. Through roundtable discussions, structured classroom exercises, field trips, and workshops with a variety of arts professionals, students will discuss and analyze the challenges, limits, rules and opportunities that have historically informed curatorial practice.

SAVC 435 Theory and Criticism in Exhibition Practice
This advanced seminar explores the ways in which our contemporary understanding of art, history and culture is constructed and informed by public display in museums, galleries and the global landscape. Using a series of case studies, it considers issues of representation, display, reception and wider social contexts in which art and culture are experienced in museums and public spaces.

SAVC 475 Curatorial Practicum
In this advanced seminar, students research and write a proposal for an exhibition, which is the culminating, capstone project for the curatorial minor. This final project may be a physical or digital exhibition. Students are encouraged to explore opportunities to partner with arts, education and community organizations in the Atlanta area, as well as alternative exhibition designs and educational initiatives both within and outside of traditional venues.