ARH @ Elon’s Mission Statement

Students in Elon Art History courses study visual and material culture, the built environment, and practices of patronage, collecting, and display from the world’s histories. Our innovative curriculum consists of courses in which students engage in critical reading, discussion, research, analysis and problem-solving to consider power, identity, and cultural exchange across time and in a global context. Students learn to critique existing systems of power that marginalize and oppress both directly and passively, and it is our mission to train students to recognize the workings and protest the value given such systems. Through critical analysis of visual and textual material, ARH@Elon challenges canonical art history and imagines a new way forward.

Goals and Student Learning Outcomes

Person leaning over in a doorway looking at a projection of a work of artGoal 1: Understanding Art History: An understanding of art history as both a discrete discipline and in relationship to museum studies, visual and material culture, and the study of built environments.

Outcome 1: Students can provide evidence that art historical categories are ideologically based rather than self-evident.
Outcome 2: Students can show competency in global art history.  Outcome 3: Students can synthesize materials from distinct courses or approaches in order to demonstrate a “big picture” view of art history as a discipline.

Goal 2: Critical Thinking, Reading, Writing & Looking: An ability to think, read, and look critically and analytically and be able to articulate those critical analyses both orally and in writing.

Outcome 1: Students can locate, distinguish among, and state the meaning of a wide variety of textual and visual sources.
Outcome 2: Students can interpret and analyze these materials in written form.
Outcome 3: Students can interpret and analyze these materials in oral form.

Goal 3: Decolonizing the Discipline: An understanding of power, identity, and cultural exchange across time and in a global context.

Outcome 1: Students can articulate their own engagement with and reflection upon that understanding.
Outcome 2: Students can recognize and identify the workings of power systems and critique them.
Outcome 3: Students can demonstrate the language, skills, and problem-solving abilities to protest those power systems.