Postgraduate Course: Late Antique Visual Culture (PGHC11180)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course deliberately takes a broad approach to consider the theme of 'Late Antique Visual Culture', drawing on the disciplines of art history, archaeology, history and literary criticism. Students in this way will move beyond traditional stylistic approaches to late antique art in order to consider issues of continuity and change in the visual culture of Late Antiquity. Students will consider a range of diverse phenomena: as well as studying late antique sculpture, painting and "minor arts" they will also examine how literary texts constructed visual culture as well as exploring broader material and topographical contexts. This course is designed to appeal to students with a range of interests, including those for whom the late antique period constitutes a new field of study. |
| Course description |
This interdisciplinary course looks at the subject of 'late antique visual culture' from a deliberately broad perspective. Through wider reading, seminar discussion and student presentations students encounter and develop their understanding of the subject through a range of topical sessions that seek both to place late antique visual culture in its social, cultural, religious and political contexts as well as equipping students with the skills to analyse and interpret this visual culture for themselves. Weekly seminar topics are likely to include: the idea of the 'decline of form'; state art in Late Antiquity; birth and development of Christian art; sacred space; the 'minor arts' in Late Antiquity; Ravenna; the Traprain treasure and late antique silver.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate in a written essay a detailed and critical command knowledge of major developments in late antique art and architecture, including the development of Christian art
- Demonstrate in a written essay an ability to analyse and reflect critically upon relevant scholarship concerning late antique visual culture, the major debates and theoretical and methodological issues involved
- Demonstrate in a written essay and seminar participation, an ability to interpret and analyse a range of late antique visual material as well as late antique literary texts which deal with visual culture
- Demonstrate the ability to develop and sustain original scholarly arguments in oral and written form (in seminar discussions, presentations, and essays) by independently formulating appropriate questions and utilising relevant evidence considered in the course
- Demonstrate in seminar discussions and presentations originality and independence of mind and initiative; intellectual integrity and maturity; an ability to evaluate the work of others, including peers; and a considerable degree of autonomy
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Reading List
Belting, H. (1994) Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. London
Berenson, B. (1975) The Arch of Constantine or the Decline of Form. London
Byzantium, 330-1453. London, 2008
Constantine the Great: York's Roman emperor. York, 2006
Elsner, J. (1995) Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity. Cambridge
Finney, P.C. (1994) The Invisible God: The Early Christians on Art. Oxford
The Road to Byzantium: Luxury Arts of Antiquity. London, 2006
MacCormack, S. (1981) Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley
Roberts, M. (1989) The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity. London
Trilling, J. (1987) 'Late Antique and Sub-Antique or the "Decline of Form" Reconsidered', DOP 41: 469-476
Weitzmann, K. (1979) Age of Spirituality: Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
Class time TBA in agreement with Dr. Grig (lucy.grig@ed.ac.uk) |
| Keywords | late antique visual culture |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Lucy Grig
Tel: (0131 6)50 3579
Email: Lucy.Grig@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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