Professor Nick Cahill will be offering AH 201 | History of Western Art I: From Pyramids to Cathedrals TR 1:00–2:15 PM | No Prereqs! | L&S Credit | Humanities Breadth | Register hereDescription: Examines the arts and cultures of Europe and the Mediterranean basin before the Renaissance. Explores canonical works such as the pyramids at Giza, the Parthenon in Athens, the Venus di Milo, Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the Book of Kells, the Great Mosque at Cordoba, Chartres cathedral, and Giotto’s Arena Chapel. Define art broadly, to encompass the material culture of everyday life, including jewelry, ceramics, and textiles. Considers the social and historical contexts of art and artistic production – art and imperialism, ethnicity, technology, religious ritual and belief, and myth and storytelling, and its relationships to basic human concerns: death and the afterlife, desire and the body, self-definition and portraiture, power and propaganda, monstrosity and the supernatural, the divine and the sacred. Develops crucial skill sets: critical visual analysis, contextual interpretation, research methods and resources, historiography, and oral, written and digital communication.