Cranbrook Academy of Art Library Entrance

Critical Studies

For Mother Theresa, Mark Di Suvero, 1998. Photo by PD Rearick.

Critical Studies

Articulating a vision of art and design as practices of distinctive experience and knowledge of the world

In addition to studio practice, students’ educational experience is fortified by our Program in Critical Studies, the academic section of our MFA/MArch degree. The Academy values criticality, historical awareness, and the act of making as a form of embodied thinking. Participation in Critical Studies is required for first-year students and optional for second-year students..

Through Critical Studies, students will call upon history as they work in experimental and exploratory spaces supported by robust centralized resources, including media and materials labs.

A richly curated schedule of visiting writers, artists, critics, fellows, and scholars supports the independent study and seminar model. These visitors help to bridge the disciplines of the Academy while making connections that broaden how we think about art, architecture, and design within a shared space created for interdisciplinary conversations.

Learn more about the Educational Experience at the Academy

Critical Studies

Areas of Focus

1. Artistic Research
2. Critical Practice
3. Social Practice/Post-Studio Art
4. Art Writing (Theory, History, Criticism)
5. Philosophy + Critical Theory + Afro-Pessimism
6. Architecture Discourse
7. Detroit Colloquium
8. Art + Pedagogy

Critical Studies group discussion with Michael Stone Richards, 2024-25 Academic Year. Photo by Benita Nnachortam (MFA Photography 2025).

Visiting Artists, Speakers, Scholars

2025-2026 Academic Year

For the 2026-2026 Academic year, the Program in Critical Studies welcomes:

Sophia Larsen, Cranbrook alumna, as a Visiting Artist / Teaching Fellow supported by the Gilbert Family Foundation. In addition to her Teaching Fellowship, Sophia will develop a seminar on concepts of play in art practice following on from her recent work in the Cornell Summer School of Criticism and Theory.
Dr. Marc Arthur, who will be directing a Guided Research introductory seminar on queer studies.
Emerging thinker, scholar Suiyi Tang (doctoral candidate at University of Southern California) who will speak on Kay Sekimachi and the aesthetics of Japanese American abstraction drawing on metaphors of the loom and reproduction for Asian American women
Emerging thinker, Sharon Liu, the inaugural Asymmetry Curatorial Fellow at the Sculpture Center in New York, will discuss her curatorial practice involving an archeology of Afro-Japanese art practice.