Undergraduate Program
B.A. in Art History
The Department of Art History offers undergraduate majors a valuable opportunity to pursue the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree at one of the country’s top art schools, the Tyler School of Art, where students have access to outstanding research resources, close proximity to studio artists, and travel opportunities that create an exceptionally rich, multi-dimensional experience. As Department Chair Dr. Gerald Silk points out, “We know our students well. They receive individual attention, and there's a strong community spirit.”
A minimum of 123 credits is required for the B.A. degree. A minimum of 45 semester hours in upper-level liberal arts courses (which include upper-level art history courses) must be completed. A minimum GPA of 2.0 is required at graduation. In addition to the required major courses, students must complete a set of university General Education (GenEd) requirements. For more details about requirements and recommended course work in Art History, click HERE or refer to the Temple University Undergraduate Bulletin.
At the undergraduate level, the Department currently serves a wide student population on two local campuses (Main/North Philadelphia, and Ambler) and one foreign campus (Rome). It instructs Art History majors (who receive a B.A. from Tyler School of Art, Temple University); minors; studio and art education majors; students from departments across the University; and auditors from the Temple Senior Scholars program. The Department draws large numbers of students from around the university to its courses in the General Education curriculum, its Honors courses, its B.F.A. Foundations courses, its upper-level courses that can also function as electives in the GenEd curriculum and in the Art and Art Education Department's “Visual Studies” concentration, and its several writing intensive classes. Studio majors at Tyler (who constitute many of the Art History minors) also take Art History classes to help them express ideas about their own artistic production and situate it within a wider cultural framework. Outcomes for undergraduates are impressive. Over 80% of our majors enter careers in arts and education or continue their education at the graduate level.
The Art History program aims to provide the student with a thorough knowledge of the visual tradition of art from its first manifestations to the present day. The faculty is committed to helping students understand works of art in their cultural and historical contexts while attending to issues of medium, craftsmanship, patronage, exhibition history, critical reception, and theoretical import, among others. Developing analytic, written, and oral skills to interpret works of art and their heritage remains paramount. Visits to museums, galleries, collections and other cultural sites are key experiential components of undergraduate education.
The Art History curriculum spans the global history of art from Ancient to Contemporary. Most of our undergraduate courses are taught by the same professors who teach in the masters and doctoral programs. The Department is strongest in the Western tradition with relatively equal distribution of focus on Ancient/ Medieval, Renaissance/Baroque, and Modern/Contemporary, including American art. There is particular strength in the Mediterranean region with faculty specialists in Bronze Age Aegean, Ancient Roman, Medieval Byzantine and Coptic, Italian and Spanish Renaissance and Baroque, and Modern Italy and France. In addition to these courses, students are encouraged to study abroad, spending a semester or year at Temple’s campus in Tokyo or Rome. Undergraduates can participate in a summer Roman excavation project in Javols, France, and at sites in Italy. In addition to these opportunities, internships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Fabric Workshop and Museum, the Print Center, and other local and regional cultural institutions provide hands-on learning experiences.
Students at the bachelor’s level also benefit from its state-of-the-art digital resources, including Gallery, a large and growing local database of digital images. Gallery is complemented by our membership in the image library ARTstor, which provides students and faculty access to more than one million additional images, encompassing every period, genre, and category of world art. Instructors prepare lectures digitally and students can access them via the Blackboard online course management system, allowing students to learn and review class material anywhere, anytime.
Several Art History majors have participated in the Diamond Peer Teaching and Scholars program, which comes with a stipend and partial tuition remission, affording undergraduates the exciting opportunity to assist in teaching classes or engage in ambitious, supervised research projects. There is a similar Peer teaching program exclusively for GenEd classes. Others have participated in the Temple Undergraduate Research Forum - Creative Works Symposium (TURF-CreWS), which provides ambitious, intellectually motivated undergraduate students the opportunity to present and defend their original research or creative work among colleagues, faculty, family, and friends. Art History majors have received support from Undergraduate Research Incentive Fund (URIF), which provides funding for undergraduate research projects and travel funds for students to present their research at local, regional, or national conferences. For more on these and similar opportunities click here:
http://www.temple.edu/vpus/opportunities/index.htm#funding
Students completing the Art History major at Tyler are well-prepared whether they wish to pursue graduate work in the field, write professionally, launch careers in museums or auction houses, or embark on any other path that requires broad liberal arts experience and a strong background interpreting the images that color the world around them.