ARTH 428: Art, Memory, and Cognition in the Roman World

Course Description

This course examines Roman art associated with personal commemoration and cultural memory, including portraiture, funerary monuments, imperial monuments, and public architecture. We explore these objects’ relationship to Roman literary culture’s theories of mnemotechnics and in the social context of the Roman obsession with memory perpetuation. Additionally, we explore how art, architecture, and behavior acted as cognitive partners as Romans learned and retained information about their communities and notable citizens. We examine how art historians apply modern theories of collective and social memory and cognition in their scholarship on Roman art, creating new ways of understanding Roman sculpture, painting, and architecture. Students cannot earn credit for bothARTH 428andLIBS 528. (OC).