Learning Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
• Think critically about the ways in which early modern Spanish and Portuguese architects and visual artists craft and present built spaces in the service of specific political objectives
• Analyze the spatial and visual strategies used in buildings, maps, engravings, and other media to delineate the relationship between space, knowledge, and power in Spain, Portugal, the Americas, and Asia
• Understand how architecture and visual media serve to reinforce or contest political, social, and gender hierarchies in the early modern Spanish and Portuguese empires
• Consider how indigenous artists assert and preserve their own cosmovisions and aesthetic practices through their depiction of both pre-colonial architectures and colonial cities in codices and maps
• Conduct effective research in cultural and image studies and refine writing and presentational skills
Indicative Module Content:
Topics to be explored in this module include (but are not limited to):
* Mudéjar architecture and narratives of medieval “convivencia”
* Monarchical power and the architecture of Habsburg Madrid
* Cultural exchange and hybrid architectures in Renaissance Lisbon
* Portuguese colonial architectures in the Americas, Asia, and Africa
* Urban planning, architecture, and the imposition of Spanish rule in the Americas
* Indigenous architectures and urban ideologies in New Spain
* The Andean Baroque
* Women's spaces and authority (cloisters, convents, domestic spaces)
* Ruins and ephemeral architectures
* Early modern and (pre-)colonial architectures and cultural heritage
* Theory and practice of Renaissance architecture
* Theories of space and spatiality