Writing Art Histories

This reading group will take as point of departure central texts from the history of the discipline, students will discuss different approaches to Art History, such as historiography, the history of collections, the reception of antiquity and the Renaissance, the critique of institutions as well as other approaches or relevant themes. The goal of the course is then to foster a critical reading of canonized texts and recent contributions to the field of art historiography.

Each time a student will be responsible for presenting the chosen text and moderating the session. Students will be encouraged to choose texts that resonate with their project and the methodological and historiographical problems it entails. In this way, the course will also function as a source of peer feedback.

Target group

The course is aimed at PhD students (and other researchers with a special interest) in the field of Art History and its purpose is to provide a forum for critical reflection and discussion on the methodological problems concerning the writing of Art History today.

Programme

Date: 2.12 2024

Time: 15-17

Room: 16-3-09

Didi-Huberman and Aby Warburg (PhD Sofus Landbo)

Literature

Georges Didi-Huberman: “The Image as Phantom: Survival of Forms and Impurities of Time” The Surviving Image, p. 1-67

Georges Didi-Huberman: ”Question Posed” and “The History of Art Within the Limits of Its Simple Practice” in Confronting Images (2005), p. 1-52

Additional Literature:

Aby Warburg: “Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Spring” in The Renewal of Pagan Antiquity: Contributions to the Cultural History of the European Renaissance (Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), pp. 90–156.

https://www.getty.edu/publications/resources/virtuallibrary/9780892365371.pdf

Following sessions

February 2025 Art Criticism (PhD Signe Margrethe Havsteen)

March 2025 TBA

April 2025 TBA 

Course teacher

Rotating PhD Students

ECTS credits

1 ECTS (for attending two sessions)

2 ECTS (for attending four sessions)

Plus 1.5 ECTS for presentation and moderation of a session

Workload

Presence total 8 (4) hours + preparation total 42 (21) hours.

Registration

Please register via email to pass@hum.ku.dk no later than 28 November 2024