Teaching

(Pedagogical Philosophy and Course List)

Emily L. Spratt's Pedagogical Philosophy

The opportunity to instill enthusiasm for a subject in a student and to encourage critical questioning of the world is, for me, the most satisfying and important component of teaching. I thus measure my effectiveness as a pedagogue against my ability to inspire students to use analytical skills in service of independent thought conveyed in speech and writing. As an art historian, I consider it my duty to demonstrate how meaning may be decoded from the visual world and how art and architecture accrue social signification in time and space. Trained in Byzantine and early modern art and architectural history, I attempt to make the past come alive in my courses by engaging students to look for historical patterns and by making art historical debates relevant to larger concepts, theories and methodologies, and present-day issues.

Through direct engagement with objects and primary textual sources relevant to the subject by means of guided readings and museum and site visits, my courses balance traditional learning methods with experiential education. Although I have led seminars, lectured, guided museum and monument tours, and mentored students' intellectual projects one-on-one and in groups, I have found that not relying solely on one teaching strategy, but incorporating different pedagogical methods into my classroom, depending on the group of students and the subject at hand, is the most effective way to create a constructive learning environment that caters to everyone. I lead very organized classes with clear expectations, yet remain open to student feedback and flexible to changing my methodology given the response of my audience. I have found that this approach nurtures the most positive learning experiences. Additionally, I welcome diversity and diverse perspectives in my classroom.

In all of my courses, it is my objective to cultivate analytical skills that are informed by historical understanding, local and global perspectives, ethical awareness, the responsible use of relevant theories and methodologies, and the contemporary debates of the given subject. My courses are rigorous because I have found that challenging students from the perspective of believing in their aptitude is almost always met with their reward of learning, and mine for teaching. Furthermore, the experience of having constructed my own interdisciplinary and cross-cultural intellectual projects affords me the ability to relate to students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. Overall, it is my belief that diversity and inclusion are fundamental components of the educational mission and that this is essential for our society.

Sample Course List

Sample Courses Taught (updated Spring 2022)

"Theories, Methods, and Experiments in Art and AI," Masaryk Univeristy, Brno, Czech Republic

Course Description: The use of artificial intelligence—propelled by deep learning techniques—to analyze, curate, and even generate digital images is having a profound influence on visual culture, one that well exceeds Jacques Derrida’s anticipations of the effects of technology on society as he described them in Archive Fever. While regulation around emerging technologies such as AI is being formulated across the globe and with much urgency, a concept of “tech ethics” is being espoused by the leading technology companies that is imposing a simplistic moralistic framework onto corporate policies—often under the naïve rubric of “AI for Good” programs. By contrast, the aim of this intensive seminar is to foster a nuanced and critical discourse—focused on AI applications in the visual arts—that takes consideration of the points of convergence around the current emerging technology debates in media studies, art history, experimental artistic practice, data science ethics, hermeneutics, and philosophy.

"Medieval Art and Architecture: Critical Approaches to Monuments, Masterpieces, and Materiality," The Cooper Union, Faculty of Art History, New York, NY

Course Description: This is an introductory course on European art and architecture from the medius aevum (middle age), or medieval period, which roughly begins with the demise of the Greco-Roman world and ends at the dawn of the Renaissance. Beginning in Late Antiquity, the course moves chronologically and thematically from West to East and North to South, exposing students to Byzantine, Hiberno-Saxon, Carolingian, Ottonian, Romanesque, Crusader, and Gothic art and architecture. Emphasis will be placed on the socio-historical context in which both medieval masterworks and minor arts were produced. The role of cultural continuity (particularly in regard to the re-use of representational strategies from antiquity) and medieval innovation will be explored through close observation of the objects and monuments investigated along with primary and secondary readings in the field. Although the course is designed to provide an overview of medieval art and architecture, it is intended to do so with a critical theoretical and methodological approach.

“Global Heritage and the History of the Museum,” Graduate/ Undergraduate Seminar, Dept. of Art History with sponsorship through the program in Cultural Heritage and Preservation Studies (CHAPS), Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Course Description: This seminar examines the historical development of the museum as a cultural institution and its role in the construction of local and global conceptions of heritage. The course will pay particular attention to the ways in which the museum reflects a perspective of the world that is shaped by the valuation and systematization of our knowledge of it. We will explore the origins of the museum in relation to Renaissance art and nature collections and its epistemological foundations in the culture of the Enlightenment to its evolution as an arbiter of cultural patrimony in an increasingly globalized world. The role of museums in the identity politics of the modern nation-state will be critically analyzed in the seminar through a series of case studies that will take us halfway around the globe. Through an investigation of museums from New York, Philadelphia, Salvador, Paris, Venice, Sofia, Corfu, Athens, to Moscow, the course will consider a broad range of themes including post-colonialism, nationalism, heritage and identity formation, memory, nostalgia, authenticity, and the representation of alterity in the museum. This course is interdisciplinary in focus and open to qualified upper-level undergraduates and graduate students from schools and departments across the university (or part of the inter-university consortium). The course includes two field trips, one to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the second to the Photoarchive at the Frick Collection.

“Preserving the Past in the Digital Age: Monuments, Museums, and Cultural Institutions,” Graduate/ Undergraduate Seminar, Dept. of Art History with sponsorship through CHAPS, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Course Description: This course examines the current use and future potential of computers to analyze, curate, and digitally preserve monuments and material artifacts in an increasingly technologically reliant world. From the use of computers to make digital art and architectural reconstructions with photogrammetry, such as what researchers from the Initial Training Network of Digital Cultural Heritage have done with the recently destroyed monuments in Iraq, Egypt, and Nepal, to the application of vision technology to virtually create, categorize, and aesthetically assess artifacts in museums, libraries, and research institutions, it is clear that the role of technology in today’s cultural management industry can no longer be sidelined. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the current and future potential of digital preservation and heritage management, and to bring awareness to the ethical implications of both computer-based analysis of art and computer-based production of art. To this end, the course will examine the role of vision technology in negotiating our relationship with the past and its entanglement with our understanding of human perception itself. Students are expected to participate in two class trips, one to New York City to visit the New Museum and one to the Index of Christian Art at Princeton. This course is open to qualified undergraduates and graduate students with an interest in cultural heritage and preservation management, art history, philosophy, ethics, history of science, anthropology, archaeology, psychology, sociology, computer science, business administration, library and information science, and the digital humanities.

“Byzantine Art and Architecture,” Undergraduate Lecture Course, Dept. of Art History, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Course Description: This course is an introduction to the art and architecture of the Byzantine Empire from its cultural and political origins in the Greco-Roman world of antiquity to its eventual collapse at the hands of the Ottomans in the mid-fifteenth century. Often interpreted as the mysterious “other” medieval world, Byzantium’s eastern allure, grand ecclesiastical and court ceremonies, anti-naturalistic artistic traditions, and sense of exoticism have led to both the empire’s cultural sensationalization and undervaluation in the history of art. This course aims to understand Byzantium on its own cultural and artistic terms and, in part, to elucidate why the empire has often been misrepresented. To this end, theoretical and methodological attention will also be paid to our construction of the art and architectural history of an empire that had a geographic range that stretched from the Near East to Italy and had a chronological span of more than a thousand years. This course has a lecture and discussion section format and is open to undergraduate and graduate students with an interest in art history, archaeology, history, medieval studies, religious studies, theology, Hellenic studies, and cultural and heritage management.

“Global Heritage and the Role of the Museum in the 21st Century,” Graduate/ Undergraduate Seminar, Dept. of Art History with sponsorship through CHAPS, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Course Description: This seminar examines the historical development of the museum as a cultural institution and its role in the construction of local and global conceptions of heritage in the 21st Century. The course will pay particular attention to the ways in which the museum reflects a perspective of the world that is shaped by the valuation and systematization of our knowledge of it. We will explore the origins of the museum in relation to Renaissance art and nature collections and its epistemological foundations, in the culture of the Enlightenment, to its evolution as an arbiter of cultural patrimony in today's globalized world. The role of museums in the identity politics of the modern nation-state will be critically analyzed in the seminar through a series of case studies that will take us halfway around the globe. Through an investigation of museums from New York, Philadelphia, Salvador, Paris, Venice, Sofia, Corfu, Athens, to Moscow, the course will consider a broad range of themes including post-colonialism, nationalism, heritage and identity formation, memory, nostalgia, authenticity, and the representation of alterity in the museum. This course is interdisciplinary in focus and open to qualified upper lever undergraduates and graduate students from schools and departments across the university (or part of the inter-university consortium).

Spring Independent Study, The Cooper Union, Faculty of Art History, New York, NY

Fall Independent Study, The Cooper Union, Faculty of Art History, New York, NY

Art and Technology, New York, NY

Courses Available

Ports, Pirates, and Pilgrims: The Art and Archaeology of Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean Cities

Course Description: Focus on the Mediterranean as a geographical mode of historical inquiry has had an enduring methodological impact on the humanities since the publication of Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Beginning with Braudel, this seminar focuses on critical readings in the historiography of the Mediterranean while exploring the visual culture of the sea through case studies of individual cities of great importance during the medieval period. In the seminar we will journey to Palma de Majorca, Barcelona, Corsica, Genoa, Rome, Sicily, Venice, Dalmatia, the Ionian Islands, the Aegean Islands, Crete, Constantinople, Cyprus, Acre, Alexandria, and Tripoli to investigate the art, architecture, and urban designs of these places and to interrogate their relationships with broader themes in the Mediterranean discourse. Through this approach we will address social, religious, and economic issues that addressed that will allow the class to consider larger questions on identity politics, hybridity, and post-colonialism in the Mediterranean. This is an upper-level seminar. Students with an interest in art history, architecture, archaeology, religious studies, urban planning, medieval studies, history, anthropology, environmental studies, geography, early modern studies, and sociology are encouraged to enroll.

Is it Beautiful? Art, Artifice, and Artificial Intelligence

Course Description: This seminar traces the development of aesthetic theory from the Renaissance to the contemporary period with a focus on the intersection of art and science in society. We will begin with a review of the classical foundations of aesthetic theory with readings by Plato, Aristotle, and Vitruvius and investigate their reinterpretations in Renaissance formulations of beauty such as those espoused by Filarete, Alberti, and Leonardo. Moving to the Enlightenment, we will read excerpts from Kant’s Critique of Judgment and examine the claim that aesthetic interpretation is grounded in subjectivity. We will challenge the use of this philosophical framework in the development of theories of art, leading to our consideration of aesthetics in the contemporary period. By looking to the visual culture of contemporary society, the current use of machines to interpret “beauty” (with computer vision technology), and the emerging role of neuroscience as an authority in this domain, this course also explores the ethical consequences of aesthetic judgments and questions the role of those that arbitrate such interpretations. The seminar will conclude with a consideration of the response by artists such as Hito Steyerl and Jonas Lund to the effects of the exciting and terrifying possibilities of artificial intelligence in its questionable humanizing capacity to judge and create beauty. This course is open to graduate students and upper level undergraduates. Students with an interest in art history, Italian studies, philosophy, anthropology, comparative literature, history of science, sociology, psychology, evolutionary biology, computer science, neuroscience, and media studies are encouraged to enroll.

Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture:

Course Description: This is an introductory course on Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture with an emphasis on trans-cultural exchanges inside and outside the borders of Europe. While the class will predominantly be concerned with canonical examples of European art, we will also consider non-traditional images related to the Renaissance produced in the Mediterranean and the Americas. In the first half of the course, we will focus on art and humanism in the Early Renaissance in Tuscany, Northern Renaissance painting in Flanders, “hybrid” painting and architectural styles in Spain, the High Renaissance in Florence and Rome, and the Venetian Renaissance. The second half of the course begins with the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent and examines the reaction to these socio-religious movements in Baroque art and architecture in Rome, Spain, and the Americas. We will also examine the seventeenth-century Dutch art market at home and abroad and conclude the course with a section on art in the Age of Absolutism in England, Flanders, and France.

The Art of the Table: Renaissance Gastronomy and Court Culture