From February to April 2016, Dr. Heather Shirey, the visiting Fulbright-Terra Lecturer, invited by the Dept.of Art History, Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, taught a graduate course on the Methods and Theories of Art History and Visual Culture in the Academy.
According to the course materials, the teaching goal is to teach students how to research, analyze, and interpret art from the Western perspective. Dr. Shirey’s goal was to seek the balance between theory and practice through a series of short papers and class presentations in the discipline of art history. In this way, the course could help students to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to write case study statement.
Each class period was comprised of several components, including five aspects:
I. Introduction of the topic through lecture by Dr. Heather Shirey.
II. Student-led discussions of readings.
III. Peer review and discussion of written work.
IV. Discussion activities.
V. In-class writing activities.
The content of the course was focused on traditional research approaches in the field, such as visual analysis and iconography, moving on to additional theories and perspectives including semiotics, structural analysis, post-structuralism, socio-economic and political analysis, ritual theory and anthropology, psychoanalysis, feminism, and post-colonialism. In particular, case studies focused on American art and many topics of them were entirely new to students.
Each class period started with a brief introduction explaining the range of theories presented, then separate sections were given to discuss each of them in turn. The explanation of each approach started with a broad overview. Then, the professor would take a work of art, or two, and ask questions based that particular theoretical model. This helped students understand how to generate research questions and how the ideas of particular scholars and theorists might be employed in art-historical analysis.
With a strong emphasis on class participation and attendance, this course was constructed in a manner to promote students’ active engagement in the learning process. Students were responsible for presenting and facilitating discussion of a special reading. Last but not least, this course also helped students to improve their writing ability through research papers. The final paper for the course allowed students to present their understanding of the ethical issues involved in collecting and display of art objects in the post-colonial context.
Dr. Heather Shirey and some of the students contributed through reflections on the course:
Dr. Heather Shirey: I am committed to teaching my students to engage with visual culture in a sophisticated manner, both in the classroom and when they encounter images in their everyday lives. My teaching is based on critical thinking, writing, and discussion as part of the learning process. Although I construct the syllabus carefully and choose the readings that are most appropriate for our topic, I expect the students to guide many of the discussions, bringing to the course their own experiences and knowledge. Together we craft the direction for the course, based on interests of the students. Student presentation is an important way to introduce new content. I often assign short presentations, which call upon students to conduct research on an unfamiliar topic and condense a great deal of information into a short presentation coupled with discussion.
Haoyu Wei: I think this course is very helpful for our professional research and development in the future. Dr. Heather Shirey is very knowledgeable in the performance of her duties, and we’ve learnt a lot from her. The course acts as a signpost for us, it gives orientations towards the field of art history, by presenting the theoretical perspectives most widely used in the academia today. Dr. Heather Shirey did her best to present individual arguments, controversies, and divergent perspectives whenever possible. As a Chinese student, I am very grateful to her for introducing the most significant theories from the western art history, as well as providing the opportunity for us to practice our English writing and speaking through class presentations.
Li An Yang: The thing I enjoy most from this course is probably the chances to develop, organize and express my thoughts in English by writing and speaking. Since I study in Beijing, China, it is hard to have enough opportunities to do that. Therefore, I really appreciate the professor’s encouragement toward all the students! Besides, the whole structure of this lecture is absolutely well organized and conveyed in an explicit way, and such an approach is especially suitable for us to gain fundamental knowledge of research methods and to discover more from each presentation. The most challenging aspect of this course is the writing assignments. When I read the materials provided, it was initially quite difficult for me to handle due to the many academic terms, theories or examples in the articles. Nevertheless, it is also because we were asked to write reflection summaries on the papers, that my reading and writing skills have significantly improved.
Yuping Zhang: Professor Shirey pays attention to developing students' skills of asking the right questions, and encourages everyone to present whatever they doubt or understand. This heuristic teaching method does help us a lot. Besides, there are many interactive sessions during the course, which are beneficial to the improvement of our English speaking. I enjoy this class and appreciate all the help that Professor Shirey as well as my classmates have offered to me. I hope that more optional classes taught in English could be set in the training program of our academy.
Kaiqiang Liu: I’m very grateful for Professor Shirey’s wonderful lectures. I have learned art history for 4 years, but Professor Shirey’s course gave me a different perspective about art history theories. Meanwhile I have made a great process in my spoken English. In a word, I have benefited a lot from her brilliant ideas and method of thinking.
Xiaohan Xu: It’s my pleasure to attend this course. In the class, my English listening and speaking have improved a lot. For me, listening and specialized vocabulary are the most challenging aspects of this course. Even though my English is poor, Heather encouraged me a lot, I’m very grateful to her. The most important thing I have learned in this course is learning to write reflection summaries, which is a good study habit. I wish I could learn more about some interesting contemporary artists
Xinyu Zheng: Heather is a passionate teacher and always makes the abstract theories approachable. It is really challenging to read so many academic materials and to speak on the advanced level in English. However, with her patient and helpful guidance, we have been able to read with questions in mind, which can help build a structure for better understanding the whole article. I do think that question-oriented learning method is what I should keep and develop in the future studying. In terms of the content of her class, the ethnic issues in art history or museum study impressed me a lot, which was a brand new topic for me. It is so important in the context of the global art world as people tend to solve problems together.
Yujian Chen: I do enjoy the atmosphere in class where Heather encourages us to express ourselves and think like native speakers. She is the most enthusiastic and kindest teacher I have ever met. I am grateful to get to know her and have attended her course. Frankly speaking, language is the main barrier that keeps me from enjoying the class. However, I was lucky to be encouraged to practice and improve my English as much as possible. It turns out that I do make a progress in my oral English as well as writing skills. The weekly summary is really helpful to clarify my understanding art history methodologies. It’s my pleasure to have registered for the class again and I am looking forward to participating in class discussions.
Yongsheng An: For me, the most challenging aspect of this course is English. It was difficult for me to understand the content of this class. But on the other hand, it is a good opportunity to practice listening and speaking ability.
Jun Cao: The introduction of the great and meaningful art works is very useful to me. I’m also very happy to share ideas and make friends here. But reading and writing is the most challenging to me. I was quite very slow and missed some key points. I do hope that I could have more time to understand the articles. But Professor Shirey has the power to make us feel more confident, to get us interested in writing, and to think deeply. I hope that I will have more opportunities to study with the teacher, and to see more meaningful artworks with different artistic expressions. It would be good if videos could be used more often in the course, as they can get my attention easily. I also hope that we could learn more about famous museums of different countries.
Ziqi Yin: I’m grateful for the professional guidance by Professor Shirey during these days, I have enjoyed most of discussions. It’s very helpful for us to communicate with classmates and share opinions in the class. The most difficult part for me is the language. I can’t fully understand all the content and get the point. Professor Shirey is very considerate, warm, patient and earnest in the class. I can imagine her children must love her very much. We have learnt a lot from the rich form of her class including teaching, discussion, video teaching.
Junliang Liu: I really appreciate the course. I think the most enjoyable thing of this course is that we have learned more about art history. We always exchanged our opinions in English, which were very helpful to improving our English. But due to my poor English, I usually found that I couldn’t get Dr. Shirey’s messages very clearly. Maybe she could try speak more slowly. Another suggestion is that we should improve the efficiency of group discussion. In all, I have learned a lot from this course, for example, I have learned more about art history, and I have become braver to express my opinion in English.
During the last session, Dr. Shirey commented that she has observed enormous improvement in English speaking, reading, and writing among all the students as a result of continuous practice. Dr. Shirey noted that although the students often apologized for their language skills, all the students are quite capable of carrying out academic assignments in English at a very high level. Tsinghua students, she said, should feel more confident about their capability to discuss complicated academic theories in another language. A course like this is a wonderful way to learn new academic approaches, discover inspiring new works of art, and also to achieve a higher level of fluency in English.
