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Blog Tag: Case study

Shushtar: A Town to Tame Water
June 17, 2013

Shushtar: A Town to Tame Water

Peyvand Firouzeh, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge Aridity in the Islamic world stands in contrast to the well-known landscape architecture of Islamic gardens, where water is used generously and luxuriously. The contrast hints at creative methods of dealing with water scarcity: from man-made canals and reservoirs to cisterns and qanats (subterranean tunnel-wells), examples of which can […]

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Silkworms in the Library
June 18, 2012

Silkworms in the Library

Amelia Nelson Cataloging and Digital Services Librarian Kansas City Art Institute In the spring semester the library collaborated with the Fibers Department by hosting 500 growing silkworms in one of the display cases at the library entrance. The worms were grown as part of the course “Fiber History and Properties.” The silkworms’ development was tracked […]

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REPRESENT: Women Artists in the Western Tradition
June 18, 2012

REPRESENT: Women Artists in the Western Tradition

Katherine Murrell Instructor of Art History Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design In my class on women artists from the medieval period onward, one of the first activities students were asked to do was to work in small groups and write a list of ten female painters or sculptors active before 1950, but without looking […]

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Vermeer’s Robe: The Dutch and Japan, 1600-1800
June 18, 2012

Vermeer’s Robe: The Dutch and Japan, 1600-1800

Dr. Martha Hollander Professor Hofstra University My research and teaching in art history has always focused on the ways in which a single work of art can open up an entire world of knowledge, making vivid and real the otherwise rather bland term “historical context.” For the past few years I have been working on […]

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Grammar in art
February 16, 2012

Grammar in art

By Lera Boroditsky, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford University How do artists decide whether time, death, or liberty should be personified as male or female? One suggestion comes from linguistics.  For example, Roman Jakobson (1959) reports: “The Russian painter Repin was baffled as to why Sin had been depicted as a woman by German artists: […]

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Case study: Picturing Animals
May 16, 2011

Case study: Picturing Animals

Keri Cronin Department of Visual Arts faculty, Brock University In January 2011 I launched a new senior-level undergraduate course called “Picturing Animals.” This is a research-intensive course that explores the history of visual culture through a thematic focus on representations of nonhuman animals. From Albrecht Dürer to Damien Hirst, we take a critical look at […]

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Artstor: Making the Case for ‘Real’ Paintings in the Classroom
May 16, 2011

Artstor: Making the Case for ‘Real’ Paintings in the Classroom

Elizabeth Perkins Columbia University graduate student While reading through conservation records at the National Gallery in Washington, I found many references to Giovanni Bellini’s fingerprints all over the faces in his portraits. I squinted and stared in the gallery, but despite my best efforts and the indulgence of a lenient security guard, I could not […]

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A Shakespeare Gallery
May 16, 2011

A Shakespeare Gallery

Julia Reinhard Lupton Professor of English and Comparative Literature, The University of California, Irvine With its extraordinary image collection and sensitive search functions, Artstor has changed the way I teach Shakespeare. Images of the Globe Theater and panoramic maps of Elizabethan London set the stage for our engagement with the plays. When teaching The Merchant […]

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Online teaching and architectural solutions to climate problems in the Islamic world
May 16, 2011

Online teaching and architectural solutions to climate problems in the Islamic world

Colette Apelian Fine Art faculty, Berkeley City College As the Islamic art historian in the Art Department of Berkeley City College (BCC), I explain how North African to South Asian art and architecture are relevant to design students less familiar with pre-modern and non-western material cultures. Course logistics add to the challenge. Art 48VR, Introduction […]

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