Art History
Explore visual and material cultures from around the globe.
The Material and Visual, the Global and Regional
Curating Culture
Work side-by-side with faculty and curators to launch a new exhibition, building concrete skills for a career in the arts.
Art Rental
An Oberlin tradition since 1940, Art Rental invites students to live with an original work of art for a semester.
Featured Courses
Approaches to African Art
This course introduces students to the visual cultures of Africa and its diasporas. Through thematic case studies, students explore African performance, ritual, sexuality, and identity. Special attention is paid to cross-cultural influences, impacts of empires, slavery and colonialism, and the contemporary art market.
- Taught by
- Matthew Rarey
Sacred Art of the Medieval Mediterranean
Explore the art and architecture of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean from the first to the fifteenth century. What role did Synagogues, Churches and Mosques play in everyday life? We will study key sites (Jerusalem, Damascus, Rome, Istanbul) and media (metalwork, textiles, and manuscripts) to better understand the exchange and conflict between three important religions.
- Taught by
- Erik Inglis ’89
Gender and the Visual Arts in Europe 1450–1700
This course examines understandings of gender in early modern Europe and colonial Latin America through the lens of the visual arts and material culture. We will consider how cultural conventions of gender limited experiences, and how marginalized voices challenged conventions. Cross listed with Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies.
- Taught by
- Christina Neilson
Cultural Property? Art, Heritage, Ownership
How do modern viewers relate to objects from the past? Should antiquities be admired in museums and collected as possessions? Or should we seek to reconstruct an object’s original historical function? With a focus on China, this course examines what archaeologists, art historians, collectors and museum curators have to say in response to these questions. Students will research case studies to weigh positions on the many sides of these debates.
- Taught by
- Bonnie Cheng
Student Profiles
Art as Activism
An honors thesis on a South African visual activist led Michelle Fikrig ’18 to graduate work at the University of North Carolina.
Making Murals
From Oberlin’s art history classrooms to a Philadelphia NGO, Elka Lee-Shapiro ’18 follows her artistic and educational passions.
From Major to Curator
Having worked at the Allen Museum as a student, Emma Laube ’17 joins its staff as a curatorial assistant.
What does Art History at Oberlin look like?
Students have the opportunity to attend an exciting roster of public talks hosted by the Art department, the AMAM, and Art Library.
Professor Matthew Rarey leads a discussion in the AMAM about a new installation of African art curated with students in one of his courses.
Art History, Psychology and East Asian Studies triple major Leina Fieleke ’21 interned at the Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels in Saitama, Japan during the summer of 2019 with the support of an Oberlin Shansi grant.
Of the thirty-six undergraduates invited to speak at the 2020 College Arts Association conference in Chicago, five (pictured here with Professor Christina Neilson and museum curators) were from Oberlin.
