Program Goals
The Art History course of study prepares students for a range of trajectories, both in the vast global economy of the art world and countless other fields: design, journalism, diplomacy, law, finance, and a business landscape in which creative facility is essential.
Our students connect with a wide human history by engaging with our visual expressions, built environments, and philosophical traditions. The program prepares students to thrive in a technologically and socially interconnected world by cultivating skills central to the discipline—critical discernment, sustained attention, deep reading, analytic writing, and cultural fluency.
The curriculum is organized around seven key learning outcomes
Knowledge
Students will become familiar in some depth with art, architecture, and sites from a range of regions and periods.
Analysis
Students will evaluate, develop, and apply a variety of approaches to analysis and interpretation.
Research
Students will develop fluency with research methods and primary sources specific to Art Historical study as a vital component of interdisciplinary, humanistic inquiry.
Site
Students will interact with the built environment and related institutions beyond Georgetown as a way to understand the complexity of places & publics.
Context
Students will recognize the ways in which art/architecture/visual culture operates in larger social systems.
Communication
Students will engage with the traditional lexicon of the discipline of Art History, and become conversant with the rhetorical tools of the many fields that inflect it.
Material
Students will understand materials and methods in art production and their significance in circulation, reception, and preservation.