Elizabeth Hutchinson

Overall really dug this class! I had never taken an art history course before, and I think Hutchinson's teaching is pretty digestible, even if it can be boring at times. Material is really cool and readings are pretty optional, but would recommend them as she does expect you to reference them and will ask about them on the midterm/final. Overall, could be more engaging, but would definitely recommend for anybody trying to fulfill their technologically/digitally requirement at Barnard! You do a group podcast that's worth 40 percent of your grade, it's cool.

Let me tell you why I really liked this course. So many Art History courses cover huge topics-- Roman Art, The Arts of China, etc. While undergraduate seminars often deal with interesting smaller topics, they are, well, undergraduate seminars, which can be exhilarating, but too often feature a couple of people in love with the sound of their own voices, two people who really don’t have the background for the course and slow things down by asking naïve questions, and at least three people who weren’t quite able to do the reading that week and spend their time avoiding the professor’s eye. Tourism and the North American Landscape is a welcome chance to see a very intelligent professor interact with a controlled topic at a high level for a semester. She keeps the focus on Landscape representation and Tourism, and gives a reading list full of interesting approaches to the two. Unlike even some very good professors who have given their lectures so many times you feel they are going through a routine, Hutchinson’s lectures show she is consistently engaged with her material. (She even sometimes acts as her own Greek chorus, making sly asides as she hears something she herself has just said that amuses her or which wasn’t as airtight as she thought when she said it.) I came away with the same heady feeling I get when I’ve visited a professor in her office and watched her brainstorm a…

After taking Visual Culture of the Harlem Renaissance, I swore that I would never, ever take another class at Barnard again. It becomes evident early in the class that Professor Hutchinson favors the Barnard students and pretty much thinks that whatever they say needs to be nurtured and valued. There was one class when she showed a famous photograph from the 1920's of a well-dressed African American man and woman posing by an automobile. Hutchinson asked the students their opinion and what followed were negative statements about these two folks either being dangerous hoodlums or terrifying drug dealers, Really? I thought those were really racist statements given that the two people posing were well-dressed and standing by an expensive car. Hutchinson said nothing. However, I am also embarrassed because in retrospect I could have said something as well. I also don't understand how she has any expertise with African American art. The issue that truly amazed me was that she rarely mentioned female African American artists. I thought that was odd given that this class was at Barnard, one of the seven sister colleges.

This was the most boring class I have ever taken. I fell asleep every other class, and skipped just as many. The problem, however, is not Professor Hutchinson's. It is a very detailed topic, given at a bad time, in a large, dark, room. The readings are unnecessary and the sections a waste of time. The format of many different lecturing professors makes it hard to follow, you never really get a feel for a single professor. On the one hand you ocassionally get great lecturers, but more often than not you have no idea what they are saying, and they presume upon a base of knowledge (especially in the second semester) that you may not have. This class is NOT an easy A.

Professor Hutchinson seems to elicit a wide range of emotions from her students: love, hate, and indifference. Okay, so she's not the best art history professor at Columbia, but she's certainly not the worst--she's passionate about what she teaches, and manages to incorporate her love of Southwestern and Native American art into her lectures without lapsing into p.c. bullshit. She led a walking tour of Downtown Manhattan and a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a lot more effort than most professors put into undergrad classes. Her sense of humor and knowledge of her subject makes an otherwise typical art history class tolerable, and even enjoyable. This particular semester, however, know-it-all grad students and matrons plagued the class. One 50ish man loved to raise his hand and quote maxims in Latin or French, then spend 15 minutes discussing a tangent. Another old woman, despite the tape recorder squeaking noisily away on her desk, constantly asked the professor to repeat herself. The list goes on and on. Professor Hutchinson's problem was her unwillingness, or inability, to curb these pretentious bores.

Like 1-2 hours a week if you do the readings, some workshops you have to attend for the podcast.

Professor Hutchinson is generally a nice person, but her lectures are often dry, and she thinks that she is God. Go back to Barnard.

The usual in terms of weekly readings, papers, and discussion posts.

Two major papers, about 5 pages each, two museum reviews, a midterm and a final. The midterm and final do not test on subject matter learned in class, rather memorization of slides and terms. You can easily do the reading, go to section, and make good flashcards, and get a good grade in this class.

One of those rare courses that will actually change your mind about a lot of things. Most people in the class, myself included, came in with a vague sense of contempt for American art and for leftist (gender and racial) art historical readings. Over the course of the class, without even realizing a change was occurring, however, American art started seeming interesting and a lot of Native American, African American and female-produced art started seeming important. It was a great experience due almost entirely to Hutchinson's lively teaching style, full of light comments and jokes and energetic and original arguments. Her assignments were always interesting and included three short papers (she gave a total of five assignments and allowed students to choose which of the five to write on...a great help during midterms) and a final. Previous comments have addressed the role of "non-traditional" students, which, on the whole was very negative. Hutchinson let them get away with murder as they each eagerly offered their (often comically shallow or pretentious) five cents on every slide, apparently forgetting that the class was a lecture and that, surprise, they were not the professor. A plus, however, is that the rest of the class bonds as it engages in collective eye rolling. A great class not to be missed!