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Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture

This certificate is open to currently registered Dalhousie and King's students in all Faculties.

Contact/Coordinator:  Dr. Lisa Binkley, History Department (lbinkley@dal.ca)

The Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture is designed for students in the arts, social sciences, and sciences who are interested in advancing their visual literacy.  The ability to interpret meaning from images and objects is critical in our increasingly image-saturated culture.  This certificate program will provide students with solid training in visual analysis, art history methodologies, research, and communication.

A Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture would be most obviously beneficial to students considering graduate studies or careers in Art History, Museum Studies, Museum Education, Arts Administration, Conservation, Cultural Studies, etc. However, the importance of developing visual literacy is being recognized much more broadly in today’s digital, image-based world (for example, courses in art history are now required at several top medical schools). Indeed, in many fields visual thinking is considered as crucial as verbal thinking. A Certificate in Art History and Visual Culture would therefore provide a sound complement to any area of studies in the humanities, sciences, or social sciences.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Students will cultivate visual literacy - the ability to interpret works of arts & visual culture both as formal structures and in relation to social, political, and cultural contexts - and develop a working knowledge of the vocabulary of art history and criticism.
  • Students will learn to effectively use objects as primary sources and to articulate the relevance of art as both evidence of, and stimulus for, historical, social, political, and intellectual movements.
  • Students will develop the ability to communicate their knowledge of visual culture both orally and in writing by learning how to synthesize a wide range of primary and secondary sources.

Students will be able to count credit earned in these courses toward their undergaduate major, minor, or distribution requirements, unless otherwise specified in their program's regulations.

Requirements:

This certificate is a 12 credit hour certificate with one required 3 credit hour course (HIST 2900.03/GWST 2900.03). The remainder of the courses will be selected from a list of 3 credit hour electives. Students have the option to take one of their 3 credit hour electives at NSCAD University.

  • HIST 2900.03: Ways of Seeing: An Introduction to Art History and Visual Culture (Cross-listed GWST 2900.03)

And nine additional credit hours drawn from the following list of electives:

Department of Classics:

  • CLAS 2214.03: The Roots of Greek Civilization (held every two years)
  • CLAS 3021.03: Ancient Art and Architecture from the Pyramids to the Agora

Contemporary Studies Programme:

  • CTMP 2316.03: The “Pictorial Turn” in Recent Thought, Art and Theory
  • CTMP 2340.03: Theories of the Avant-Garde
  • CTMP 3305.03: Modern Film and Theory of the Gaze
  • CTMP 3330.03: Art and Atrocity: Contemporary Contexts, Genedered Perspectives

Early Modern Studies Programme:

  • EMSP 2215.03: Violence and Wonder: Baroque Art
  • EMSP 2230.03: Picture and Poetry in Early Modern Culture
  • EMSP 2415.03: The Art of Global Encounters in the Early Moderen Period
  • EMSP 2510.06: Early Modern Art, Literature, and Politics in Florence, Italy (Summer Study Abroad)
  • EMSP 3280.03: Love, lust, and desire in Italian Renaissance Art (Cross-listed GWST 3280.03)
  • EMSP 3270.03: Leonardo da Vinci: Between Art and Science (cross-listed HSTC 3270.03)
  • EMSP 3290.03: The Renaissance Print and Cross-Cultural Exchange
  • EMSP 3350.03: Art, Optics, and Technologies of Illusion (cross-listed HSTC 3350.03)
  • EMSP 3640,03: Studies in Early Modern Aesthetics
  • EMSP 4501.03: Honours Semnar in Early Modern Studies: The Development of Aesthetic Theory in the Early Modern Period I
  • EMSP 4502.03: Honours Seminar in Early Modern Studies: The Development of Aesthetic Theory in the Early Modern Period II
  • EMSP 4640.03: Special Topics in Early Modern Aesthetics

Department of English:

  • ENGL 2080.03: Cartoons and Comics
  • ENGL 2088.03: Images and Texts
  • ENGL 3301.03: Graphic Novels
  • ENGL 4890.03: Indigenous Graphic Novels

Fountain School of Performing Arts:

  • THEA 2401.03: Caves to Castles: Costume and Identity from Antiquity to the High Middle Ages
  • THEA 2402.03: Castle to Café: Costume and Identity from 1450 to 1700
  • THEA 2412.03: Language of Design
  • THEA 3402.03: Baroque to Bustles: Costume from 1700 to 1900
  • THEA 3403.03: Bustles to Boardrooms: Costume and Identity  from 1900- Present Day

Film

Department of History:

  • HIST 2042.03: Capital of Europe: Paris in the Nineteenth Century
  • HIST 2900.03: Introduction to Art History and Visual Culture
  • HiST 3212.03: A History of Indigenous Visual and Material Culture
  • HIST 3215.03: Indigenous Textiles: Tourism, Industry, Globalization
  • HIST 3303.03: De-Colonizing Modernism: Critiquing the Legacy of Modern Art (Cross-listed GWST 3303.03)
  • HIST 4162xy.06: Advanced Seminar in Baroque Culture (taught in the Czech Republic)
  • HIST 4175.03: Bella Figura: Display Behaviours in Baroque Europe
  • HIST 4210.03: Museums, Archives, and Material Culture (cross-listed INDG 4210)
  • HIST 4303.03: The Birth of Pop: How Victorian Visual Culture Makes Meaning (Cross-listed GWST 4303.03)

History of Science and Technology Programme:

  • HSTC 4120.03: Artefacts: The Material Culture of Science and Technology

Indigenous Studies:

Department of Philosophy: