Teaching

The teaching program consists of seminars, lecture courses, field study trips, and other teaching units, offered by the Faculty of the Art History Department and by specialized Visiting Faculty, and shares some of its courses with other art history Masters of the department. The program encourages critical reflection and engaged research, offers solid training in art history and opens professional perspectives towards curating, conservation, criticism, education, or the art market, fields that are increasingly entangled in global networks. All of the Chairs of the Department are involved in the teaching program, which thus covers transcultural aspects of Western art from the Middle Ages until today and includes, furthermore, classes given by the Chair for East Asian Art History, which is unique in Switzerland. Visiting Faculty complements the program with classes studying other regions, such as South America or Africa, and addressing cross-cultural methods and practices. Classes are taught in English.

Objectives:

The two-year Specialized Master of Arts “Art History in a Global Context” focuses on issues of global, international, and interregional exchange and transculturation and aims at

• addressing questions, developing methodologies, and studying objects as seen from a global perspective and related to transcultural phenomena

• extending the traditional European curriculum of western art history towards non-western art

• contributing to current international debates about the challenges and chances of art history in a globalized academe

Collaborations:

The program also seeks for scientific cooperation and exchange with specific Chairs, Departments, and research and teaching projects of other universities in Switzerland and abroad, such as the Universities of Bern, Lausanne, Geneva, and the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Vienna. Collaboration with local institutions, such as the Rietberg Museum or the Kunsthaus, extend the horizon of the program to include questions of conservation, curatorship, and display.