ARH 3063 Sex, Sexuality and Gender in Ancient Art
In the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, as in the modern world, art served as a powerful visual medium for the construction and communication of many aspects of cultural ideology, including notions about gender roles and sexuality. This course focuses on the varying ways in which these ancient societies used art as a means of presenting and representing the relationships amongst sex, sexuality, and the performance of gender. The course will examine various scholarly approaches to female and male sexuality in the ancient world, the range of interpretations of the lives and roles of men and women produced by these methods, and the role of ancient art in communicating ideas about sexuality and gender. This course includes a mandatory field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students enrolled in ARH 3063 will have an additional meeting each week in which they will explore critical theoretical and methodological texts relating to the study of gender in ancient art. They will also complete a research project with a substantial paper and oral report.
LA