View BA in Art       View BA in Design

BA in Art History

The mission of the Art History program is to offer a broadly based, interdisciplinary program in the visual cultures of the world. To this end we have full and part-time specialists in American, Asian, and European art. Our goal is to serve the serious art history student by preparing undergraduate majors to be competitive in applying to master’s programs, at excellent graduate schools.

Courses address a range of media (painting, sculpture, architecture, graphic arts, performance, popular arts) as well as the staging of art at different sites (museums, public venues, and other exhibitionary spaces). The program thus focuses on creativity and culture at both the individual and community/civic levels. Faculty critically examine gender and sexuality, nationhood and national identity, colonialism, race and ethnicity, popular culture and its audiences, identity politics, pedagogy, the politics of cultural institutions, and global culture in a post-modern age. To these ends, the faculty employ semiotics, deconstruction, and ethnography.

Research Facilities

SDSU Library

School of Art and Design students have a wealth of resources for research. Students may use SDSU’s Love Library holdings, as well as tapping into other CSU and UC System library resources through inter-library loan. Love Library maintains important journal and database search subscriptions for its students and faculty to use in research as well.

Local and Regional Museums

SDSU’s students also enjoy access to the southern California museum and gallery scene. Many well-renowned local and regional museums and galleries offer additional library and/or exhibition resources. Some of these resources include the following institutions:

• Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (MCASD)
• San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA)
• Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA)
• Mingei International Museum
• San Diego Museum of Us
• Timken Museum of Art
• Los Angeles Museum of Art
• Museum of Comtemporary Art (Los Angeles)
• Norton Simon Museum
• The Getty Museum of Art (Los Angeles)