B.A. in Art History, Museum Studies Specialization, degree requirements

The Museum Studies Specialization within the Art History major provides students with pre-professional training to begin their careers in museums, art galleries, archives, historical sites, and other institutions that collect, preserve, display, and interpret objects of visual culture. Through a wide selection of site visits and dialogues with museum professionals, students develop a robust understanding of the operating practices of museums as holistic institutions. Required internships and practicum training courses provide résumé-ready work experiences and networking opportunities in local museums and galleries. Students take coursework in Art History, as well as two required courses in other disciplines, to develop the rigorous research skills required to properly protect artworks, stage exhibitions, and communicate with the public. Several course options delve deeply into the current challenges and opportunities faced by museums – such as reckoning with calls for object repatriation, decolonization, protests within museums, and technological advances – preparing students to grapple with those issues on the job in the contemporary museum world.

The Museum Studies track in the Art History major is particularly ideal for these career paths:

  • Museum careers or careers in related institutions, such as archives, historical sites, or other collecting institutions.
  • Art gallery, auction house, or the art advisory field.
  • Art conservation (note: Chemistry courses are also required for admission to graduate degree programs in Art Conservation. Please talk with the Art History Director of Undergraduate Studies for more advice).

Foundation Courses. Foundations courses include the three-part introductory survey sequence (ARHS 1300, ARHS 1301, and ARHS 1302), which provide an overview of major art historical developments from prehistory to the present. Students are required to take one of the survey courses (ARHS 1300, ARHS 1301, or ARHS 1302) to fulfill 3 credit hours of the Foundations requirement. This requirement can also be fulfilled with ARHS 1303 or ARHS 1304 (which are primarily used for AP or transfer credit).

In addition to 3 credit hours of Foundations fulfilled by the survey, students must take one additional 1000 level ARHS course.

Temporalities/Challenging the Canon Courses. Temporalities courses are upper-level (3000, 4000, or 5000 level) art history courses that offer frameworks for a broad understanding of temporal dimensions: a duration of time, the power of some areas over others, the telescoping of past into present and vice versa, or questions of recurrence across time. The objects and narratives that constitute the history of art are in constant flux. Historically, our discipline has focused on artworks, artists, and ways of seeing that emerged from the European tradition and has privileged the viewpoints of individuals who were (among other things) white, male, heterosexual, and wealthy. Courses with the Challenging the Canon designation explore artistic objects and traditions that challenge the validity of such an exclusionary canon and narrow perspective.

Museum Studies Courses. Museum Studies courses are art history courses that focus primarily or exclusively on museums as institutions and spaces where artworks are displayed, interpreted, and studied. Technologies and techniques particularly relevant to museums, such as how artworks are made as well as curatorial, conservation, and interpretive technologies, are also the focus of these courses. Of the 12 credit hours required, only 3 credit hours can be taken at the 1000 level. Only courses with the ARHS prefix are accepted.

Research and Methods. All Art History majors are required to take ARHS 4399 - Research and Methods in Art History. Students are encouraged to take this course before enrolling in another advanced (4000 level) Art History course.

Required Seminar. These small, advanced (4000 level) art history classes are reading and writing intensive and offer the occasion to think critically and carefully about the dynamics of historical change and to engage with issues and debates in art history.

Professional Internships or Practicums in an Art/Archaeology Museum, Art Gallery, or Archive. Internships receive course credit under ARHS 4311, which requires that students apply for and receive an internship offer, work a minimum of 150 hours in that internship, and submit a 10 page paper detailing the training received and the professional growth achieved by the student through the internship. In order for an internship to receive credit under ARHS 4311, documentation must be submitted to the Art History Department prior to the first week of the semester; review and approval is at the department’s discretion.

Practicum courses are offered directly by the Art History Department: ARHS 4303 Art Museum Teaching Practicum or ARHS 4305 Art Gallery Practicum. Each of these practicum courses provides students with training in a specific art history career and culminates in a real-world work product.

Studio Art. Students are required to take 3 credit hours of studio art.

Interdisciplinary Electives: Students are required to take 6 credit hours (maximum of 3 credit hours from a single department) from a list of approved Interdisciplinary electives, which are courses offered in the following departments: Arts Management & Arts Entrepreneurship, Anthropology, Film, Environmental Science, History, Religious Studies, and Sociology. These electives will give students in the Museum Studies specialization the skills and knowledge about a wide range of museum types (such as natural history museums, ethnic museums, etc.) and the diverse scholarly approaches to materials and objects exhibited in museums.

Alternate courses can be substituted for those on the pre-approved list, subject to the approval of the Art History Department. Contact the Art History Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies with inquiries.

Minimum required grade: Only courses passed with a grade of C- or better will count toward the major in art history. Courses passed with a grade below C- may count toward other, elective requirements in a student's degree plan.

SMU Degree Requirements

An SMU undergraduate degree requires a minimum of 120 credit hours and must include completion of the University's Common Curriculum, one major and a combination of electives and/or other majors or minors. Completion of certain majors requires more than 120 hours to finish the degree. The credit hours within this curriculum are distributed as follows:

Requirements for the Major

Foundations (6 Credit Hours)

One course from the following survey courses:

Temporalities (6 Credit Hours)

3000 or 4000 level courses in Art History. 3 credit hours must cover a period pre-1700 C.E. and 3 must cover a period post-1700 C.E.

3 of these 6 credit hours must have a Challenging the Canon designation.

ARHS courses on Museum Studies (9 Credit Hours)

Required: ARHS 3398: Introduction to Museum Studies

2 additional courses from the following list:

  • ARHS 3309: Museum Ethics
  • ARHS 3310: War, Looting, and Collecting of Ancient Art
  • ARHS 3326: How It’s Made: Art Historical Approaches to the Art Object
  • ARHS 3335: Meadows Museum Spotlight: Art History One Object at a Time
  • ARHS 3339: El Greco to Goya: Spanish Painting of the Golden Age
  • ARHS 3342: The Art Market
  • ARHS 3344: Paintings at the Prado
  • ARHS 3355: Exhibiting Cultures: Curating and Interpreting the Arts of the Global South
  • ARHS 3362: Decolonizing the Art Museum
  • ARHS 3379: The Art of Curatorship: The Role of the Curator and Curatorial Practice
  • ARHS 3382: Culture Shock: Museums as Sites of Protest
  • ARHS 3391: Museum Futures and New Technologies
  • ARHS 4322: Museum Theory

Research and Methods (3 Credit Hours)

Seminar (3 Credit Hours)

  • One seminar course at the 4000 or 5000 level

Professional Internships or Practicums in Art/Archaeology Museum, Art Gallery, or Archive (6 Credit Hours)

  • ARHS 4303: Art Museum Teaching Practicum
  • ARHS 4305: Art Gallery Practicum
  • ARHS 4311: Museum Internship

Studio Art (3 Credit Hours)

  • 1 studio art course (any discipline/medium)

Interdisciplinary Electives (6 Credit Hours; maximum 3 credit hours from a single department)

  • AMAE 3301: Nonprofit and Arts Leadership
  • AMAE 3305: Budgeting and Financial Literacy in the Arts
  • ANTH 2463: The Science of Our Past
  • ANTH 2380: Cultures at Risk
  • ANTH 3304: North American Archaeology
  • ANTH 3351: Forensic Anthropology
  • ANTH 3353: Indians of North America
  • ANTH 3390: The Plundered Past
  • ANTH 6342: Archaeological Sciences (undergrads can take with ANTH Department permission)
  • FILM 2351: International Film History
  • FILM 2362: Diversity and American Film and Media
  • FILM 2364: History of Cinema and TV Comedy
  • FILM 3352: American Film History
  • FILM 3353: American Broadcasting History
  • FILM 3355: History of Documentary Film and Television
  • GEOL 1315: Introduction to Environmental Science
  • HIST 1325: Doing Digital History
  • HIST 1326: Doing Oral History
  • RELI 1301: Religious Literacy
  • SOCI 3321: Nonprofit Organizations
  • SOCI 3322: Nonprofits at Work in the Community

Total for the Major (BA in Art History, Museum Studies Specialization) Only: 42 Credit Hours