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External Links
Peer-Reviewed Articles
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02. Teaching
ARH 301: Introduction to Visual Arts and Cultural Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Art and Art History
Department of Art and Art History
Spring 2026MWF 10-11 am
Anyone who has walked through the Impressionist galleries at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris or attempted to get a closer look at Manet’s iconic painting Olympia (1863) has likely struggled to push their way through the throngs of visitors, many pausing to take multiple selfies in front of famous artworks from Western art history. Similarly, one would consider themselves lucky to get within ten feet of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. The question “How do I look?” has several working parts, from your outward appearance and self-presentation to how you make sense of what you see and your relationship with the very act of looking. This question now appears to be something of a necessity for navigating our social and cultural identity positions in our image-saturated times. In this course, we will learn the art of analyzing and decoding images and connecting them to broader social and cultural phenomena. The course, while essentially functioning as an introduction to visual arts throughout modern history, will do much more by expanding its remit into a more discursive and theoretical territory, combining art history and cultural studies.
Additionally, this course propounds that looking is more than just seeing; it is a discipline of sorts, one that necessitates considerable engagement with representations, symbols, icons, and images. Whether in the setting of protest movements, propaganda, art practices, or regular media consumption, we will learn how the politics of looking have influenced historical and present-day practices of image-making. We will examine the valency between images, power, and politics and the ways in which visual culture shapes our world while being shaped by it in return. Through discussions on various theoretical frameworks and case studies, we will unpack the polyvalent character of visual representation and its impact on our understanding of the world. We will explore influential theories from the past century and a half, not least from Semiotics to Institutional Critique, Modernism, Postmodernism, and Simulation.
Additionally, this course propounds that looking is more than just seeing; it is a discipline of sorts, one that necessitates considerable engagement with representations, symbols, icons, and images. Whether in the setting of protest movements, propaganda, art practices, or regular media consumption, we will learn how the politics of looking have influenced historical and present-day practices of image-making. We will examine the valency between images, power, and politics and the ways in which visual culture shapes our world while being shaped by it in return. Through discussions on various theoretical frameworks and case studies, we will unpack the polyvalent character of visual representation and its impact on our understanding of the world. We will explore influential theories from the past century and a half, not least from Semiotics to Institutional Critique, Modernism, Postmodernism, and Simulation.
Syllabus available upon request.
ARH 303: Survey of Renaissance Through Modern Art (A Feminist History)
The University of Texas at Austin
Department of Art and Art History
Department of Art and Art History
Fall 2025
TTH 8-9:30 am
TTH 8-9:30 am
Art history is far from a discipline without gender bias. In 1950, when E. H. Gombrich’s “bible” for introductory art history, The Story of Art, was published, it did not include any women artists (Hessel, 2023). In fact, the sixteenth edition, released in 1995, had only one. More than half a century has passed since the publication of Linda Nochlin’s landmark essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in which Nochlin questioned the prevailing narrative. In 2011, the Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous artists based in the United States, issued a poster that indicated a significant gender gap at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Only 4% of the artists shown in the Modern Art sections were women, while 76% of the works featured female nudes. According to a 2019 study brought to light by The Guardian, which examined the collections of the eighteen most prominent U.S. art museums, there still remains a notable disparity: 87% of the artworks are credited to male artists and 85% to white artists. This startling inequality reflects not a dearth of “great” women artists but their systematic erasure from the documents of art history.
This course moves beyond simply “discovering” overlooked women artists and addresses the fundamental questions raised by feminist art historians like Nochlin and Griselda Pollock. Rather than merely inserting women into the existing canon dating back to Giorgio Vasari’s monographic model, we will critically examine works by women artists from the Medieval period onward while questioning the value systems that determine artistic importance. We will discuss the ways in which women artists’ works have been cast as marginal, often because of societal norms that looked unkindly upon their gender. By surveying a wide range of artistic practices, styles, and approaches and developing analytical skills through feminist theoretical frameworks, students will discover that a history of art centered on women’s contributions constitutes a body of knowledge that is as unabridged and intellectually rigorous as the tacitly male-centric art history as we know it today.
Syllabus available upon request.
This course moves beyond simply “discovering” overlooked women artists and addresses the fundamental questions raised by feminist art historians like Nochlin and Griselda Pollock. Rather than merely inserting women into the existing canon dating back to Giorgio Vasari’s monographic model, we will critically examine works by women artists from the Medieval period onward while questioning the value systems that determine artistic importance. We will discuss the ways in which women artists’ works have been cast as marginal, often because of societal norms that looked unkindly upon their gender. By surveying a wide range of artistic practices, styles, and approaches and developing analytical skills through feminist theoretical frameworks, students will discover that a history of art centered on women’s contributions constitutes a body of knowledge that is as unabridged and intellectually rigorous as the tacitly male-centric art history as we know it today.
Syllabus available upon request.