The course explores cross-cultural encounters in art between 1200 and 1900. We examine a variety of objects to consider how diverse forms of cultural exchange impacted artistic production and reception in this period. Students learn how art mediated new and unfamiliar peoples, places and things, and reflect on the extent to which local understandings would have shaped how such novelties were interpreted. We also study the complex motivations for increased global movement, including trade, war, disease, diplomacy, exploration, colonialism, religion, and industry. Beginning with Western Africa’s trade in gold, and the migration of motifs along the Silk Road, the course moves through a series of topics, including connections between and beyond the Safavid, Ottoman and Mughal courts and the invention of new art forms and practices in the colonized Americas. We also explore the multiple ways Europeans represented worlds beyond their own (and its lasting effects) during an era of rapid European expansionism.