Courses

Fall 2020 Courses

Atelier

Fantasia! Fantasia!: Dance-Theatre-Media

ATL 499 / VIS 499 / DAN 499 / THR 499 · Fall 2020

C01 — Raja Feather Kelly + Laura Snow · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Laura Snow · Raja Feather Kelly

With Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly and Video Artist Laura Snow students will create a devised dance-theatre production using the approach developed by Kelly's dance-theatre and media company the feath3r theory.

Creative Writing

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

How People change: Short Stories and Life’s Transitions (LA)

FRS 147 · Fall 2020

FRS 147 · Mondays + Wednesdays, 1:30-2:50 PM

Instructors: Sheila Kohler

In this seminar we will study moments of change at seven crucial stages in the life cycle (childhood, adolescence, courtship and marriage, work, maturity, and death) in order to discover the conflicts and contradictions, the emotional truth, and the possibilities that such moments hold for us. Our medium will be the short story. Great short stories show us convincingly how change comes about, each one unique and yet ultimately universal. How do moments of revelation occur? What are these changes each of us must discover in a unique way? What pushes us? What shows us the way? Or, does it result from within?

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Wisdom of Crowds (LA)

FRS 169 · Fall 2020

FRS 169 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 3:00-4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Moore

This seminar will study the history and nature of fairy tales, superstitions, conspiracy theories, and urban myths, particularly in regard to the way that they reflect the concerns and fears of society. We will examine the ways in which these differ from one another, and the means by which entire communities create, preserve, disseminate and fortify them.

Introductory Fiction

CWR 203 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Aleksandar Hemon · Daphne Kalotay · A.M. Homes · Idra Novey · Joyce Carol Oates · Jhumpa Lahiri

The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers a perspective on the place of literature among the liberal arts. Criticism by practicing writers and talented peers encourages the student's growth as both creator and reader of literature.

Literary Translation

CWR 205 / TRA 204 · Fall 2020

C01 - Larissa Kyzer · Mondays, 2:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Larissa Kyzer

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings and will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and pratice of literary translation.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Fall 2020

U01 — David Reinfurt · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies.

Writing and Performance

CWR 218 · Fall 2020

C01 — Danez Smith · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Danez Smith

In this course we will write and interrogate poetry across many avenues. From written work to spoken word to Instagram, traditional lineated verse to poems that see the blank page as more canvas than paper, we ask ourselves how this ancient holder for prayer, confession, and our wild strangeness performs across different manifestations of text and body.

Advanced Poetry

CWR 301 · Fall 2020

C01 - Michael Dickman · Wednesdays, 9:00 - 10:50 AM

Instructors: Michael Dickman

Advanced practice in the original composition of poetry for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings. The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers perspective on the places of literature among the liberal arts.

Advanced Fiction

CWR 303 · Fall 2020

C01 · Thursdays, 1:30 - 3:20 PM

Instructors: Daphne Kalotay

Advanced practice in the original composition of fiction for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings. The curriculum allows the student to develop writing skills, provides an introduction to the possibilities of contemporary literature and offers perspective on the place of literature among the liberal arts. Criticism by practicing writers and talented peers encourages the student's growth as both creator and reader of literature.

Advanced Literary Translation

CWR 305 / TRA 305 / COM 355 · Fall 2020

C01 - Larissa Kyzer · Mondays, 2:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Larissa Kyzer

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama, with the goal of arriving at a 20-25 page sample of the author's work. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format. Weekly readings and will focus on the comparison of pre-existing translations as well as commentaries on the art and practice of literary translation.

Embodied Storytelling: Voice, Mediation and Address

CWR 311 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Nyssa Chow

In this writing workshop, students will be invited to write literary nonfiction essays that address their chosen imagined audience. We will engage writing by authors who have done the same in their work. From the fields of Oral History and Memory Studies we will borrow ideas of listening as a dialogic and intersubjective encounter, and the embodied self. We will reframe conversations about voicelessness + facelessness, and consider instead concepts of un-hearing + un-seeing — inviting new agencies and accountabilities into our creative practice.

Special Topics in Poetry: Race, Identity and Innovation

CWR 316 / ASA 316 / AAS 336 / LAO 316 · Fall 2020

C01 - Monica Youn · Wednesdays, 9:00 - 10:50 AM

Instructors: Monica Youn

This course explores works in which poets of color have treated racial identity as a means to destabilize literary ideals of beauty, mastery and the autonomy of the poetic text while at the same time engaging in groundbreaking poetic practices that subvert externally or internally constructed conceptions of identity or authenticity.

Introduction to Screenwriting: Writing the Short Film

CWR 348 / VIS 348 · Fall 2020

C01 - Aleksandar Hemon · Mondays, 1:30 - 3:50 PM

Instructors: Aleksandar Hemon

This course will introduce students to core screenwriting principles and techniques. Questions of thematic cohesiveness, plot construction, logical cause and effect, character behavior, dialogue, genre consistency and pace will be explored as students gain confidence in the form by completing a number of short screenplays.

Advanced Screenwriting: Writing for Television

CWR 405 / VIS 405 · Fall 2020

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Styron

This advanced screenwriting workshop will introduce students to the fundamental elements of developing and writing a TV series in the current “golden age of television.” Students will watch television pilots, read pilot episodes, and engage in in-depth discussion about story, series engine, character, structure, tone and season arcs. Each student will formulate and pitch an original series idea, and complete the first draft of the pilot episode and season arcs by end of semester.

Introduction to Screenwriting: Adaptation

CWR 448 / VIS 448 · Fall 2020

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 PM

Instructors: Christina Lazaridi

This course will introduce students to Screenwriting Adaptation techniques, focusing primarily on the challenges of adapting “true stories” pulled from various non-fiction sources. The class will address the ethics of adaptation, questions and techniques surrounding the need to fictionalize truth for dramatic purposes, as well as touching on the differences between fictional and nonfictional original materials.

Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities: Ancient Plots, Modern Twists

HUM 470 / CWR 470 / CLA 471 · Fall 2020

S01 · Mondays, 4:30 - 5:50 PM Wednesdays, 1:30 - 2:50 PM

Instructors: Jhumpa Lahiri · Yelena Baraz

This team-taught seminar will examine ancient plots as generative forces for new creative work. We will ask how ancient Greek and Roman plots are appropriated, reused, and reimagined by modern and contemporary writers. We will read the ancient texts in their own historical and cultural context and then ask why later authors turn to these plots and how they transform them in conversation with their own time and in relation to their own artistic goals.

Dance

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Practice

DAN 206 / MTD 206 / THR 206 · Fall 2020

U01 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:50 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

The writer Annie Dillard says that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. With school as we know it upended, we have a unique opportunity to develop daily habits that contribute to lifelong independent learning and creating. We will look at practice as both verb and noun, paying special attention to the ways we embody the work (and change) we want to see in the world. Through somatic activities, talks with invited guests, projects, and readings (across the arts, sciences, philosophy, religion, and activism), we'll revel in the interplay between process and product, solitude and community, structure and freedom, life and art.

The American Experience and Dance Practices of the African Diaspora

DAN 211 / AAS 211 · Fall 2020

U01 · Mondays + Wednesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Dyane Harvey-Salaam

A studio course introducing students to American dance aesthetics and practices, with a focus on how its evolution has been influenced by African American and European-American choreographers and dancers. An ongoing study of movement practices from traditional African dances and those of the African diaspora, touching on American jazz dance, modern dance, and American ballet.

Introduction to Contemporary Dance

DAN 213 · Fall 2020

U01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 12:30 - 2:20 PM

Instructors: Alexandra Beller

This course offers a broad, embodied introduction to the breadth of contemporary dance. We will be moving, reading, watching, and writing about dance. Contemporary issues, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, immigration, and American exceptionalism will be viewed through the lens of contemporary dance. We will try on the styles of essential creators in the field in an effort to understand their POV. We will create work ourselves (no experience necessary) to learn about the expressive and communicative potential of dance. We will be moving and meditating to release tension, increase personal awareness, and boost authenticity.

Stillness

DAN 221 / THR 222 · Fall 2020

U01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

In a universe filled with movement, how and why and where might we find relative stillness? What are the unique aesthetic, political, and daily life possibilities while school as we know it is on pause? We’ll dance, sit, question, and create practices and projects. We’ll play with movement within stillness, stillness within movement, stillness in performance and in performers' minds. We’ll look at stillness as protest and power. We’ll wonder when stillness might be an abdication of responsibility. We'll read widely within religions, philosophy, performance, disability studies, social justice, visual art, sound (and silence).

Performance in Extraordinary Times: Documenting and Analyzing the Present

DAN 314 / AMS 335 / ANT 356 / THR 314 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Judith Hamera

Performance and crisis have always been partners: entangled in epidemics, state violence and resistance, and austerity regimes, as well as the crisis ordinariness of settler colonialism and structural racism. This seminar examines performance in our extraordinary present using autoethnography, ethnography, and interviews.

Dance in Education: Dance/Theater Pedagogy

DAN 316 / THR 328 / HUM 317 / TPP 316 · Fall 2020

S01 · Fridays, 10:00 AM - 12:50 PM

Instructors: Rebecca Stenn

‘Dance in Education: Dance/Theater Pedagogy Seminar’ explores the connection between engaged dance and elementary school literacy, mathematics and social studies while allowing students the opportunity to be civically engaged and contribute to the community. The course combines teaching dance and movement classes to public school students from underserved communities in both East Harlem in New York City and the Princeton region (remotely, through zoom), while collectively engaging in an in-depth exploration of Dance and Theater in Elementary Education with an emphasis on recent developments in the field.

How can we create new methods of dance and choreography for the online environment that reimagine frontiers of physical practice and the choreographic space? Each section of this course will be a unique venture into dance and choreographic creation culminating in a live, virtual Performance Festival. Students will explore the intersections of dance and multimedia performance, digital animation, filmmaking, site-specific theater and art, or music. Movement practice and creative work will be supplemented by selected readings and viewings to expose students to broad historical precedents and provide cultural, social, and political context.

The Reverence and Violence of Modern Dance

DAN 348 / AMS 349 / GSS 418 / MTD 349 · Fall 2020

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Netta Yerushalmy

This hybrid studio/seminar course progresses in two tracks: one of embodied movement practices and the other of theoretico-historical critique. The canon of modern dance — arguably an American trajectory — is the source material for our interdisciplinary work. We will mimic and examine landmark choreographies in order to explore foundational tenets of modern art and modernity at large. Ableism and nihilism, sovereignty and sexuality, race and gender, are some of the themes that we will face along the path of analyzing the work of Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, Bob Fosse, Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine, and Vaclav Nijinsky.

FAT: The F-Word and the Public Body

AMS 398 / DAN 312 / GSS 346 · Fall 2020

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Judith Hamera

The fat body operates at the conjuncture of political economy, beauty standards, and health. This seminar asks, How does this "f-word" discipline and regulate bodies in /as public? What is the "ideal" American public body and who gets to occupy that position? How are complex personhood, expressivity, health, and citizenship contested cultural and political economic projects? We will examine the changing history, aesthetics, politics, and meanings of fatness using dance, performance, memoirs, and media texts as case studies

Fantasia! Fantasia!: Dance-Theatre-Media

ATL 499 / VIS 499 / DAN 499 / THR 499 · Fall 2020

C01 — Raja Feather Kelly + Laura Snow · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Laura Snow · Raja Feather Kelly

With Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly and Video Artist Laura Snow students will create a devised dance-theatre production using the approach developed by Kelly's dance-theatre and media company the feath3r theory.

Lewis Center

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

West African Drumming (LA)

FRS 129 · Fall 2020

FRS 129 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:30-2:50 PM

Instructors: Olivier Tarpaga

A performance course in West African drumming with a focus on music from the Mandé Empire (Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Senegal.) Taught by master drummer Olivier Tarpaga, exponent of the Mogo Kele Foli drumming technique, the course provides hands-on experience on the Djembe drum. Students will acquire performance experience, skills and techniques on the Djansa (Diansa), and develop an appreciation for the integrity of drumming in the daily life of West Africa.

Is Politics a Performance? (SA)

FRS 143 · Fall 2020

FRS 143 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Aaron Landsman

In this transformative time, when national politics seems frayed at best, local government meetings remain sites of direct democracy and creative protest. Is Politics a Performance? looks at how we perform in these meetings, and who gets to play which roles. Drawing on the tools of sociology, philosophy, civics and theater, we will analyze meetings in Princeton and Trenton, as well as other US cities. With many government functions now taking place online, the course also reckons with our emerging, digital commons. Through a layered, practical and fun approach to decision-making, citizenship and dramaturgy, this class is ideal for students considering work in public policy, education, social sciences and performing arts.

How People change: Short Stories and Life’s Transitions (LA)

FRS 147 · Fall 2020

FRS 147 · Mondays + Wednesdays, 1:30-2:50 PM

Instructors: Sheila Kohler

In this seminar we will study moments of change at seven crucial stages in the life cycle (childhood, adolescence, courtship and marriage, work, maturity, and death) in order to discover the conflicts and contradictions, the emotional truth, and the possibilities that such moments hold for us. Our medium will be the short story. Great short stories show us convincingly how change comes about, each one unique and yet ultimately universal. How do moments of revelation occur? What are these changes each of us must discover in a unique way? What pushes us? What shows us the way? Or, does it result from within?

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Wisdom of Crowds (LA)

FRS 169 · Fall 2020

FRS 169 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 3:00-4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Moore

This seminar will study the history and nature of fairy tales, superstitions, conspiracy theories, and urban myths, particularly in regard to the way that they reflect the concerns and fears of society. We will examine the ways in which these differ from one another, and the means by which entire communities create, preserve, disseminate and fortify them.

First Year Painting Studio Seminar (LA)

FRS 173 · Fall 2020

FRS 173 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Pam Lins

This studio class is about painting and practice. Painting has such a long and complicated history that is now transforming and including adjacent events, perspectives, and artists—that there is no real place to start. It has become professional and is an academic area of study. That said—anyone can use a paintbrush somehow and make a painting.

Music Theater

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Practice

DAN 206 / MTD 206 / THR 206 · Fall 2020

U01 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:50 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

The writer Annie Dillard says that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. With school as we know it upended, we have a unique opportunity to develop daily habits that contribute to lifelong independent learning and creating. We will look at practice as both verb and noun, paying special attention to the ways we embody the work (and change) we want to see in the world. Through somatic activities, talks with invited guests, projects, and readings (across the arts, sciences, philosophy, religion, and activism), we'll revel in the interplay between process and product, solitude and community, structure and freedom, life and art.

Opera Performance

MPP 219 / MTD 219 · Fall 2020

C01 · TBA

Instructors: Michael Pratt

Vocal and instrumental students will rehearse and perform Francesco Cavalli's opera Calisto in Richardson Auditorium with full orchestra. Students are admitted by audition only.

Sondheim’s Musicals and the Making of America

AMS 317 / MTD 321 / ENG 249 / THR 322 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Stacy Wolf

In this course, we'll examine the musicals of Stephen Sondheim from COMPANY (1970) to ROAD SHOW (2009) as a lens onto America. We'll explore how Sondheim and his collaborators used the mainstream, popular, and commercial form of musical theatre to challenge, critique, deconstruct, and possibly reinforce some of America's most enduring myths.

Latinx Musicals on Stage and Screen

MTD 333 / GSS 228 / LAO 321 / THR 333 · Fall 2020

L01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Brian Herrera

This course offers an intensive survey of how Latina/o/x performers, characters, cultures, narratives and musical styles have always been a constitutive feature of the "American musical" — as performance genre, practice and tradition — on both stage and screen.

Theater Making Studio

THR 402 / MTD 402 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jane Cox · John Doyle · Shariffa Ali

This junior methods seminar will prepare you to research, create and co-produce theatrical projects for your senior year independent work and beyond. We will address the development of theatrical literacy, individual creative process, and collaborative and leadership skills. We will incorporate practical exercises, virtual theater going, visitors and discussion. The seminar will offer a space for reflecting on art-making, individually and as a member of a collaborative cohort of advanced theater students, and will support you in developing an anti-racist theater practice. The class will culminate in a draft of an exciting theater season.

Theater Rehearsal and Performance

THR 451 / MTD 451 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Sam Pinkleton · Tess James

This course will be an investigative performance-driven process that will attempt to joyously uplift lives that have ended, using theater, song and dance. Led by a visiting professional theater director and working with professional collaborators, students will create theatrical work in large groups, small groups and alone. During an ongoing global pandemic, this living archive of the dead will offer up space for proposals, reflections, indictments, celebrations and imagined alternatives to a world numbed by an ambush of death. The class will culminate in student micro-projects that can be viewed in any order, at any time, from anywhere.

Theater & Music Theater

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

Introduction to Theater Making

THR 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Aaron Landsman · Elena Araoz

A working laboratory that gives students hands-on experience with theatre’s fundamental building blocks — writing, design, acting, directing, and producing. Over the semester, students read, watch and discuss several approaches to theater, including plays, devising, autobiography and site-specific work. Addressing both the live art, and the emerging realm of virtual performance, we analyze how theater is created now, as well as the social and political implications of different ways of working. Students spend class time collaborating on virtual artistic responses to each approach, and a culminating project that integrates theater’s essential elements.

Is Politics a Performance? (SA)

FRS 143 · Fall 2020

FRS 143 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Aaron Landsman

In this transformative time, when national politics seems frayed at best, local government meetings remain sites of direct democracy and creative protest. Is Politics a Performance? looks at how we perform in these meetings, and who gets to play which roles. Drawing on the tools of sociology, philosophy, civics and theater, we will analyze meetings in Princeton and Trenton, as well as other US cities. With many government functions now taking place online, the course also reckons with our emerging, digital commons. Through a layered, practical and fun approach to decision-making, citizenship and dramaturgy, this class is ideal for students considering work in public policy, education, social sciences and performing arts.

Beginning Studies in Acting

THR 201 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Nehassaiu deGannes · Vivia Font

An introduction to the craft of acting through character work, monologue work and script analysis. By engaging in both collaborative efforts and independent explorations, we will experiment with various acting traditions and techniques to develop methods of approaching performance. Emphasis will be placed on honesty, spontaneity, and establishing a personal/empathetic connection with assigned as well as devised material.

Introductory Playwriting

THR 205 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 - 3:20 PM

Instructors: Nathan Davis

This is a workshop in the fundamentals of writing plays. Through writing prompts, exercises, study and reflection, students will be guided in the creation of original dramatic material. Attention will be given to character, structure, dramatic action, monologue, dialogue, language and behavior.

Practice

DAN 206 / MTD 206 / THR 206 · Fall 2020

U01 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:50 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

The writer Annie Dillard says that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. With school as we know it upended, we have a unique opportunity to develop daily habits that contribute to lifelong independent learning and creating. We will look at practice as both verb and noun, paying special attention to the ways we embody the work (and change) we want to see in the world. Through somatic activities, talks with invited guests, projects, and readings (across the arts, sciences, philosophy, religion, and activism), we'll revel in the interplay between process and product, solitude and community, structure and freedom, life and art.

Storytelling with Technology for Performance (LA)

THR 210A / STC 210A · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Andrea Lauer · David Bengali

Telling stories through performance is human nature, but how can we use technology to enhance, frame, or reveal new perspectives on stories told? Students will learn about tools and techniques from design professionals, and will engage directly and collaboratively with technology to design experiences focused around live performance. Areas covered may include projections and multimedia, lighting, sound, interactivity/wearable tech, and programming for creative applications, as well as other digital+analog techniques. This class aims to bring together students with arts and STEM backgrounds, and does not require prior experience.

Storytelling with Technology for Performance (QCR)

THR 210B / STC 210B · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Andrea Lauer · David Bengali

Telling stories through performance is human nature, but how can we use technology to enhance, frame, or reveal new perspectives on stories told? Students will learn about tools and techniques from design professionals, and will engage directly and collaboratively with technology to design experiences focused around live performance. Areas covered may include projections and multimedia, lighting, sound, interactivity/wearable tech, and programming for creative applications, as well as other digital+analog techniques. This class aims to bring together students with arts and STEM backgrounds, and does not require prior experience.

French Theater Workshop

FRE 211 / THR 211 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Florent Masse

FRE/THR 211 will offer students the opportunity to put their language skills in motion by exploring French theater and acting in French. The course will introduce students to acting techniques while allowing them to discover the richness of the French dramatic canon.

Stillness

DAN 221 / THR 222 · Fall 2020

U01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

In a universe filled with movement, how and why and where might we find relative stillness? What are the unique aesthetic, political, and daily life possibilities while school as we know it is on pause? We’ll dance, sit, question, and create practices and projects. We’ll play with movement within stillness, stillness within movement, stillness in performance and in performers' minds. We’ll look at stillness as protest and power. We’ll wonder when stillness might be an abdication of responsibility. We'll read widely within religions, philosophy, performance, disability studies, social justice, visual art, sound (and silence).

Sondheim’s Musicals and the Making of America

AMS 317 / MTD 321 / ENG 249 / THR 322 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Stacy Wolf

In this course, we'll examine the musicals of Stephen Sondheim from COMPANY (1970) to ROAD SHOW (2009) as a lens onto America. We'll explore how Sondheim and his collaborators used the mainstream, popular, and commercial form of musical theatre to challenge, critique, deconstruct, and possibly reinforce some of America's most enduring myths.

Shakespeare I

ENG 320 / THR 310 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Bradin Cormack

The first half of Shakespeare's career, with a focus on the great comedies and histories of the 1590s, culminating in a study of Hamlet.

Latinx Musicals on Stage and Screen

MTD 333 / GSS 228 / LAO 321 / THR 333 · Fall 2020

L01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Brian Herrera

This course offers an intensive survey of how Latina/o/x performers, characters, cultures, narratives and musical styles have always been a constitutive feature of the "American musical" — as performance genre, practice and tradition — on both stage and screen.

Black Dramatists in the English-Speaking World

ENG 354 / THR 351 / AAS 354 · Fall 2020

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Nathan Davis

This course will survey plays written by Black playwrights in the 20th and 21st centuries. We will explore dramatic works of writers from Africa, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Theater and Society Now

THR 385 / AMS 385 / GSS 385 / LAO 385 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Brian Herrera

As an art form, theater operates in the shared space and time of the present moment while also manifesting imagined worlds untethered by the limits of "real" life. In this course, we undertake a critical, creative, and historical survey of the ways contemporary theater-making in the United States — as both industry and creative practice — does (and does not) engage the most urgent concerns of contemporary American society.

Producing Theater: French Festivals Today

FRE 389 / THR 389 · Fall 2020

S01 · Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:50 PM

Instructors: Florent Masse

The course will explore the creation, production, management and future of pioneering international festivals from France's main historic festivals, such as Festival d'Avignon and Festival d'Automne, to more recent and emerging ones worldwide.

Theatrical Design Studio

THR 400 / VIS 400 · Fall 2020

C01 · Fridays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jane Cox · Lawrence Moten · Sarita Fellows · Tess James

This course offers an exploration of visual storytelling, combined with a grounding in the practical, communicative, collaborative and anti-racist skills necessary to create physical environments for live theater making, whether in person or virtually. Students are mentored as designers, directors or creators (often in teams) on realized projects for the theater program season. Individualized class plans allow students to explore supporting online productions, to imagine physical environments for un-realized productions, or to explore exciting contemporary visualization techniques, depending on their area of interest and skill level.

Theater Making Studio

THR 402 / MTD 402 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jane Cox · John Doyle · Shariffa Ali

This junior methods seminar will prepare you to research, create and co-produce theatrical projects for your senior year independent work and beyond. We will address the development of theatrical literacy, individual creative process, and collaborative and leadership skills. We will incorporate practical exercises, virtual theater going, visitors and discussion. The seminar will offer a space for reflecting on art-making, individually and as a member of a collaborative cohort of advanced theater students, and will support you in developing an anti-racist theater practice. The class will culminate in a draft of an exciting theater season.

Topics in Drama: The Antigone Project

ENG 409 / THR 410 / HUM 409 · Fall 2020

S01 - Lisa Dwan · Mondays, 4:30-7:20 PM

Instructors: Lisa Dwan

Beginning with Sophocles' Antigone, this course will examine different versions of this seminal Greek tragedy — from different countries and across the centuries.

Theater Rehearsal and Performance

THR 451 / MTD 451 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Sam Pinkleton · Tess James

This course will be an investigative performance-driven process that will attempt to joyously uplift lives that have ended, using theater, song and dance. Led by a visiting professional theater director and working with professional collaborators, students will create theatrical work in large groups, small groups and alone. During an ongoing global pandemic, this living archive of the dead will offer up space for proposals, reflections, indictments, celebrations and imagined alternatives to a world numbed by an ambush of death. The class will culminate in student micro-projects that can be viewed in any order, at any time, from anywhere.

Fantasia! Fantasia!: Dance-Theatre-Media

ATL 499 / VIS 499 / DAN 499 / THR 499 · Fall 2020

C01 — Raja Feather Kelly + Laura Snow · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Laura Snow · Raja Feather Kelly

With Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly and Video Artist Laura Snow students will create a devised dance-theatre production using the approach developed by Kelly's dance-theatre and media company the feath3r theory.

Visual Arts

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Fall 2020

C01 · Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00 AM - 12:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper · Mark Doten · Ruth Ochs · Shariffa Ali · Stacy Wolf · Olivier Tarpaga · Tess James

How do artists make art? How do we evaluate it? In this course, students of all levels get to experience firsthand the particular challenges and rewards of art making through practical engagement with five fields — creative writing, visual art, theater, dance, and music — under the guidance of professionals.

First Year Painting Studio Seminar (LA)

FRS 173 · Fall 2020

FRS 173 · Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20 PM

Instructors: Pam Lins

This studio class is about painting and practice. Painting has such a long and complicated history that is now transforming and including adjacent events, perspectives, and artists—that there is no real place to start. It has become professional and is an academic area of study. That said—anyone can use a paintbrush somehow and make a painting.

Drawing I

VIS 201 / ARC 201 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Kenneth Tam

The great thing about drawing is you can do it anywhere! This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. We’ll introduce basic techniques while also encouraging experimentation, with a focus on both drawing from life and drawing as an expressive act.

Painting I

VIS 203 / ARC 327 · Fall 2020

U01 — Eve Aschheim · Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Eve Aschheim

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting, addressing form and light, color and its interaction, composition, scale, texture and gesture. Students will experiment with subject matter including still life, landscape, architecture, self-portraiture and abstraction, while painting from a variety of sources: life, sketches, maquettes, collages, photographs and imagination. Students will progressively develop personal imagery that will inform an individual final project.

Futures for All: Reimagining Social Equality through Art and Technology

VIS 205 · Fall 2020

U01 - Ani Liu · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Ani Liu

How can art become a form of activism? This course investigates how technological media shape culture and society, and how we can actively reshape these dynamics through art and design. We will engage in the practice of "speculative", and "tactical" design using various digital tools to envision different futures, reflecting on social, political, and ethical implications of various technologies. Traversing digital and physical realities, students will develop skills in the Adobe suite, 3d modeling, rendering, AR/VR. The final project will be a technology-based artwork that actively engages with critical social discourse and activism.

Analog Photography

VIS 211 · Fall 2020

C01 — Jeff Whetstone · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jeff Whetstone

An introduction to the processes of photography through a series of problems directed toward lens projection, the handling of light-sensitive material, and camera operation. Students will receive a kit that will contain the equipment and materials for analog image making at home, beginning with cyanotype printing and culminating with large format film exposure and processing. These processes trace the origins of photography. Final projects will examine new potentials in photographic expression including images that hybridize analog and digital interfaces.

Digital Photography

VIS 213 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Jennifer Calivas · Jeff Whetstone

This online studio course introduces students to the aesthetic and theoretical implications of digital photography. Emphasis will be on gaining competency with digital equipment and techniques so that students can learn to express themselves and their ideas through the medium.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Fall 2020

U01 — David Reinfurt · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

This studio course introduces students to graphic design with a particular emphasis on typography. Students learn typographic history through lectures that highlight major shifts in print technologies.

Graphic Design: Circulation

VIS 217 · Fall 2020

U01 - David Reinfurt · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: David Reinfurt

The practice of graphic design relies on the existence of networks for distributing multiple copies of identical things. Students in this course will consider the ways in which a graphic design object’s characteristics are affected by its ability to be copied and shared, and by the environment in which it is intended to circulate. Through hands-on design projects, readings, and discussions, students will delve into different material forms of distribution — the printed newspaper, social network software, the community radio station, the PDF. Given the online context this semester, assignments will address and employ electronic networks.

Graphic Design: Image

VIS 218 · Fall 2020

U01 - Laura Coombs · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Laura Coombs

This studio course engages students in the decoding of and formal experimentation with the image as a two-dimensional surface. Through projects, readings, and discussions, students take a hands-on approach to making with an array of technologies (the camera, video camera, computer, solar printing, web publishing) and forms (billboard, symbol, screensaver, book) to address the most basic principles of design, such as visual metaphor, composition, sequence, hierarchy, and scale.

Digital Animation

VIS 220 · Fall 2020

S01 — Tim Szetela · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Tim Szetela

This studio production class will engage in a variety of timed-based composition, visualization, and storytelling techniques. Students will learn foundational methods of 2D animation, acquire a working knowledge of digital animation software and technology, and explore the connective space between sound, image, and motion possible in animated film. Screenings, discussions, and critiques will relate student work to the history and practice of animation and to other media, art, and design forms.

Sculpture I

VIS 221 · Fall 2020

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Amy Yao · Joe Scanlan

This class will be a home studio introduction to sculpture, with particular emphasis on the study of how form, space, and a wide variety of materials and processes influence the visual properties of sculpture and the making of meaning. A balance of indoor, outdoor, and/or transient assignments will lead to the development of an understanding of contemporary sculpture, as well as basic technical facility with found objects, common materials, natural earthworks, ergonomics, and three-dimensional design.

Everyday Clay

VIS 227 · Fall 2020

U01 · Fridays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Adam Welch

This online course focuses on the technical, cultural, geological, and everyday characteristics of raw clay and fired ceramic objects. Students develop an understanding of and vocabulary for the physical properties of clay in all its states. Students will learn about clay harvesting, processing, making, drying, firing, and the local histories of ceramic production.

Fabric Logics: Textiles as Sculpture

VIS 229 · Fall 2020

U01 — MJ Daines · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: MJ Daines

This class experiments with 3D fabric construction, weaving, knitting, knotting and more as a means for making sculpture. In her essay, "The Materialists", curator Jenell Porter asks, "Why not consider fiber as painting and sculpture, drawing and sculpture, installation and painting, and most problematically, art and craft?" Through this 'both/and' condition, this course introduces a range of art in which textiles are used as the primary material while providing techniques and materials for developing textile-based sculpture.

Documentary Filmmaking I

VIS 263 · Fall 2020

C01 — Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt

In the real world, what relationships have the necessary friction to generate compelling films? Documentary Filmmaking I will introduce you to the craft, history and theory behind attempts to answer this question. Through remote production and editing assignments, as well as readings, screenings, and zoom discussions, you’ll take your first steps into the world of non-fiction filmmaking. You will analyze different documentary methods and approaches as aesthetic devices and as a means of social discourse.

Narrative Filmmaking I

VIS 265 · Fall 2020

L01 — Charlotte Glynn · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Charlotte Glynn

Narrative Filmmaking 1 is a hands-on production class designed for students from all academic backgrounds to learn about the art of video production and develop their creative voices using cellphones! The course will cover technical aspects of making films, including shot language, sound recording, and editing, and will explore what it means to make images at this critical moment of time.

Pathological Color

VIS 326 · Fall 2020

C01 — James Welling · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: James Welling

"Pathological Color" will examine photography's ongoing negotiation of color technologies. The class will model historic and recent photographic modalities, cyanotype, tricolor, autochrome, psychedelic processes, to examine color vision and photography as both a physiological phenomenon and as technology of image reproduction and cultural bias. The class will use basic Photoshop techniques for weekly assignments. Readings ranging from Aristotle, Goethe, Elaine Scarry, Michael Taussig and Maggie Nelson will guide discussions. This course will include independent work, weekly assignments with lectures, guests and visits to virtual exhibitions.

Introduction to Screenwriting: Writing the Short Film

CWR 348 / VIS 348 · Fall 2020

C01 - Aleksandar Hemon · Mondays, 1:30 - 3:50 PM

Instructors: Aleksandar Hemon

This course will introduce students to core screenwriting principles and techniques. Questions of thematic cohesiveness, plot construction, logical cause and effect, character behavior, dialogue, genre consistency and pace will be explored as students gain confidence in the form by completing a number of short screenplays.

Artist and Studio

VIS 392 / ART 392 · Fall 2020

C01 · Tuesdays, 7:30 - 10:20 PM

Instructors: Lex Brown · Martha Friedman

The course addresses current issues in painting, drawing, sculpture, film, video, photography, performance and installation. It includes readings and discussions of current contemporary art topics, a visiting artist lecture series, critiques of students' work, and an artist book project.

Theatrical Design Studio

THR 400 / VIS 400 · Fall 2020

C01 · Fridays, 12:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Jane Cox · Lawrence Moten · Sarita Fellows · Tess James

This course offers an exploration of visual storytelling, combined with a grounding in the practical, communicative, collaborative and anti-racist skills necessary to create physical environments for live theater making, whether in person or virtually. Students are mentored as designers, directors or creators (often in teams) on realized projects for the theater program season. Individualized class plans allow students to explore supporting online productions, to imagine physical environments for un-realized productions, or to explore exciting contemporary visualization techniques, depending on their area of interest and skill level.

Advanced Screenwriting: Writing for Television

CWR 405 / VIS 405 · Fall 2020

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Susanna Styron

This advanced screenwriting workshop will introduce students to the fundamental elements of developing and writing a TV series in the current “golden age of television.” Students will watch television pilots, read pilot episodes, and engage in in-depth discussion about story, series engine, character, structure, tone and season arcs. Each student will formulate and pitch an original series idea, and complete the first draft of the pilot episode and season arcs by end of semester.

Drawing II

VIS 407 · Fall 2020

U01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Colleen Asper

Record, index, propose, invent, and fantasize: drawing can point to a past event, create a primary experience in the present, and serve as a model for a possible or impossible future. This remote course will focus on drawing's relationship to time. Each student will be sent all the materials they need to work from home. Using pencil, charcoal, conté crayons, ink, and more, we will investigate multiple uses of drawing and their accompanying temporalities through synchronous and asynchronous explorations of a wide range of formal tactics that include mark-making, collage, value, color, space, scale, and gesture.

Exhibition Issues and Methods

VIS 416 · Fall 2020

S01 — Pam Lins · Tuesdays, 7:30 - 10:20 PM

Instructors: Pam Lins

The structure of Senior Issues and Exhibition Methods is to create a conversation and vision for, and in regards to and around your Senior Thesis. The nature of the class is somewhat informal and conversational, with the majority of class time being for student studio presentations and visiting artists lectures. There are two projects; a proposition presentation and a “handmade” poster project which will be virtual this year.

Extraordinary Processes

VIS 418 / CEE 418 · Fall 2020

U01 — Sigrid Adriaenssens, Joe Scanlan · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Joe Scanlan · Sigrid Adriaenssens

This year, students will design, build, and critically analyze three common objects—a Cushion, a Prosthetic, and a Light Fixture—each of which will be informed by the differing structural properties of the same material: ash wood. Each assignment will be three weeks long, will be executed round-robin, and will be capable of being done from home. The round-robin structure will allow students to lead the way on some assignments, while learning from the work of their classmates on others. One larger goal of this class is to compare and contrast methods of evaluation in visual art, engineering, ergonomics, and social policy.

Introduction to Screenwriting: Adaptation

CWR 448 / VIS 448 · Fall 2020

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 PM

Instructors: Christina Lazaridi

This course will introduce students to Screenwriting Adaptation techniques, focusing primarily on the challenges of adapting “true stories” pulled from various non-fiction sources. The class will address the ethics of adaptation, questions and techniques surrounding the need to fictionalize truth for dramatic purposes, as well as touching on the differences between fictional and nonfictional original materials.

Fantasia! Fantasia!: Dance-Theatre-Media

ATL 499 / VIS 499 / DAN 499 / THR 499 · Fall 2020

C01 — Raja Feather Kelly + Laura Snow · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 PM

Instructors: Laura Snow · Raja Feather Kelly

With Choreographer/Director Raja Feather Kelly and Video Artist Laura Snow students will create a devised dance-theatre production using the approach developed by Kelly's dance-theatre and media company the feath3r theory.

Music

West African Drumming (LA)

FRS 129 · Fall 2020

FRS 129 · Tuesdays + Thursdays, 1:30-2:50 PM

Instructors: Olivier Tarpaga

A performance course in West African drumming with a focus on music from the Mandé Empire (Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Senegal.) Taught by master drummer Olivier Tarpaga, exponent of the Mogo Kele Foli drumming technique, the course provides hands-on experience on the Djembe drum. Students will acquire performance experience, skills and techniques on the Djansa (Diansa), and develop an appreciation for the integrity of drumming in the daily life of West Africa.