All upcoming Seminars

From forbidding fortresses to charming châteaux and castles, the splendid structures of the Loire Valley reflect lives of opulence and intrigue. Ornamented with paintings and sculptures and surrounded by reflecting pools and perfectly manicured gardens, they make the mansions of today’s rich and famous seem austere by comparison. Art historian Janetta Rebold Benton showcases these sumptuous and elegant historic residences and sets them in the context of French history. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

Many consider Leo Tolstoy’s epic 19th-century War and Peace, the story of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia, to be the greatest novel ever written. Joseph Luzzi, a professor of literature at Bard College, leads participants through an in-depth consideration of the themes, historical issues, literary elements, and cultural conditions that give Tolstoy’s work its legendary aura.

Explore the art and architecture of the Middle Ages through dazzling early Christian mosaics, sumptuous Carolingian illuminated manuscripts, sculpted Romanesque church facades, and soaring Gothic cathedrals. Art historian Judy Scott Feldman examines the art of the thousand-year period between classical antiquity and the Renaissance and its relationship to a diverse society infused with faith and spirituality. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)

The Arts and Crafts Movement was a dominant influence in visual and decorative arts and architecture in the decades leading up to and after the turn of the 20th century, offering an artistic and philosophical reaction to the florid, overdecorated, and industrialized designs of the high-Victorian era. Art historian Bonita Billman explores the rich flowering of the movement in Britian and America, as well as its enduring legacy. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)

Frederic Church, America’s preeminent landscape artist of the 19th century, spent 40 years creating Olana in Hudson, New York, a 250-acre designed landscape in which his family residence and farm were sited and whose panoramic views of the Hudson River Valley and Catskills are integral elements. Carolyn Keogh, director of education and public programs at the Olana Partnership, leads a detailed exploration of the life, career, and inspirations that motivated Church to create this masterwork. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude consistently makes the lists of the “best novels of the 20th century.” With Joseph Luzzi, professor of literature at Bard College, explore the novel’s depiction of the colonial experience, its use of magical realism, the role of the supernatural in the narrative, and the qualities that give the book’s language its beauty and inventiveness.