Seminar in American Art: Languages of Art and Science

This seminar explores the intersection of the subjects, methods, concepts, and terminologies of art and science in Europe and the United States circa 1750-1915. Each meeting focuses on a key concept, such as description, order, morphology, difference, diagnosis, observation, experiment, and speculation. We consider the manifestations of these concepts in a range of intriguing images, texts, and material practices from the realms of art making and scientific inquiry, focusing especially on ways of knowing in emerging and transforming disciplines, among them natural history, geology, ethnography, biology, astronomy, and psychology.