London Study Group in Art and Art History

Director Spring 2014: Professor Padma Kaimal, Department of Art and Art History

Purpose

Studying art and architecture first hand can be a transformative experience. Art and Art History teach students to see analytically; being in a new environment stimulates people to see in sharper focus and with new eyes. London is an ideal location for art study because it is particularly rich in visual resources. These include a wide range of museums, a vibrant contemporary art scene, and the ancient, multiform city itself. Course work in this program will take students frequently through the streets, buildings, parks, and art institutions of London, and on excursions outside of London to Cambridge, Stonehenge, Bath, and Salisbury.

Courses

The program is integrated with Colgate’s major in art history and studio: all three ARTS courses offered in London can count toward either the major or minor. ARTS XXX: The Art of India in English Museums (pending approval) – Padma Kaimal

The substantial holdings of Indic sculpture, architectural fragments, painting, and contemporary art in and outside London (at, for example, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, the Tate Modern, and Iniva – the Institute of International Visual Arts in East London) are encyclopedic enough to support the teaching of India’s art from 2500 BC to the present day. And yet doing that also raises substantial methodological issues. What is lost when objects are removed from the contexts they were made for? What is gained in their new environments? How did those objects get to their current homes? Why is that story seldom told in museum display? And what of the contemporary moment – what makes art “Indian” in this cosmopolitan city?

ARTS 372: The City: Urban Form and Meaning — Padma Kaimal
The physical forms of cities are filled with information about the pasts, politics, and cultures of that place. We can learn to interpret the stories cities tell by studying the city like architecture on a macro scale, as a series of forms, spaces, vistas, and pathways that direct people’s movements and states of mind. This course takes the city of London as its primary resource. Informed by theoretical studies of this city and other cities as art forms, we will move through London on walking tours of this megalopolis’ subcities guided by London-based urban, social, and art historians. We will also leave London for comparative studies of Bath (an ancient Roman town remade into a Baroque town) and Cambridge (a medieval university town).

ARTS XXX: Studio in a sketchbook (pending approval)– Local Adjunct Professor This is a sketching course that takes advantage of London’s history, art institutions, and urban fabric as well as the student’s experience of travel and newness. The theme of work will be mapping in its many forms – not maps of roads and topography but also maps of ideas and experience, personal space, emotions, expectations, sounds, memory.

ENGL 332: London Theater— Michael Punter
This course is built around a series of plays produced in London during the term of the study group. It is arranged to give students experience of all kinds of London theater, from West End to the nationally subsidized companies to neighborhood theater and the fringe. Students will also read several of the plays that they see performed. Actors, critics, set designers, and directors may be invited to the classroom discussions.

Classrooms and Libraries

Classrooms are located in Florida State University’s London Study Centre in Bloomsbury, just a block from the British Museum. The FSU Centre also has computer facilities and a modest library. Privileges can be arranged for use of the University of London Senate House Library, the British Library, and the National Arts Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Living Arrangements

Colgate University has made arrangements with ACORN Educational Services to provide housing in London. Students will live in townhouse apartment suites around the corner from the British Museum in Bloomsbury and will be responsible for their own meals.

Prerequisites and Selection Criteria

Application is open to all students who have completed or plan to complete by the end of fall semester 2013 at least one course in the Art and Art History department (preferably in art history). Students interested in the humanities, history, geography, Asian Studies, or anthropology are all welcome to apply. Special preference will be given to arts majors and to students who have taken three or more departmental courses. Students admitted to the study group will be required to attend orientation meetings during the fall semester of 2013.

Costs

For details of student expenses on this study group, please see Cost Estimate Sheet.

Calendar and Deadlines

The deadline to apply has already passed.

Passports and Visas

You must confirm that your passport is valid through December 2014. All students participating on the London Art and Art History Study Group will be required to obtain a U.K. student visa. With participation on this study group comes the responsibility of understanding and complying with U.K. government visa requirements. If you will not be traveling on a U.S. passport it is imperative that you contact an adviser in Off-Campus Study/International Programs, 101 Lathrop, and International Student Services, 103C Lathrop Hall, to learn as much as you can about the regulations. For some students there are significant visa requirements to be met that take time, advance planning, and incur extra costs.