SCHOOL OF ART Carnegie Mellon COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS
Elaine A. King
HomepageArt HistorianCriticCurator
 
 
     
 
 
 
  Elaine A. King
School of Art
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
 
 

Phone: (412) 268-1970, 2409
Fax: (412) 268-7817

 
     
  ek06@andrew.cmu.edu  
     
  Summer Study in the Southwest
May 2005
 
     

 

The discipline of Art History over the past 15 years has been undergoing serious evaluation and transformation. I feel the study of art history is founded on the premise that artifacts embody and reflect the beliefs and values of a particular society as well as the individuals who make, commission, and use them. Unlike text-based historical disciplines, the history of art documents and interprets changes in human society by taking works of art and other objects of material/visual culture as its primary sources. The history of art requires critical analysis and interpretation of written texts to help document and illuminate the context (these include social, economic, political, and religious) in which artifacts are produced and used. Art History is inherently an interdisciplinary field that requires an open attitude.

Pedagogy must be student-centered. To implement this principle, I have always maintained a commitment to accessing that who constitutes the members of a particular course in a given term. The changing mix of students, experiences and skills must always be taken into account when an instructor begins teaching a course. Even though a professor teaches a class previously taught, the repeat course cannot be followed like a recipe. One should not begin a class with preexisting expectations of what constitutes acceptable aesthetic or cultural issues for exploration. A teacher must remain open and avoid at all times trying to force their particular philosophical or ideological position onto a class or an individual.

Homepage of Dr. Elaine A. King, Art Historian, Curator, and Critic, Carnegie Mellon School of Art
Earthworks and Sacred Landscapes: Summer Study in the Southwest