• About the Program
• First Year Focus
• Degree Requirements and Honors
• Advising
• Forms and Procedures
• Student Activities and Events
• Student Awards and Achievements
• Undergraduate Research Opportunities
• Campus and Area Resources

About the Program

Art history studies the arts and architecture of the world from antiquity to the present. It analyzes visual objects from multiple perspectives including but not limited to their aesthetic and historical contexts, their use of technology and their relationship to science, their ideological or social function, and their visual and spatial characteristics. It also studies individual artists or makers, cultural institutions, audiences, and intercultural exchanges. Because the field is inherently interdisciplinary, it often requires engagement with, for example, anthropology, philosophy, political science, history, literature, film, performance, theater, and theories of race, gender, class, and sexuality.

A major in art history is designed to provide knowledge of a geographically and historically diverse corpus of artworks and related cultural practices that are studied at varying levels of intensity and specialization. As a key component of a liberal arts education, the study of art history emphasizes informed and critical reading, writing, speaking, and looking. With its broad historical, cultural, geographic, and methodological range, it meets the needs of burgeoning specialists while it also offers an excellent formation for those who intend to specialize in other areas including law, medicine, business, international relations, politics, or education. Those interested in the "classic" art history careers will generally find that museum (curatorial) work normally requires at least a master's degree, while college and university teaching and research require a Ph.D. The major is an essential platform to those degrees.