Courses

Spring 2017 Courses

Atelier

Adaptation and Performance with Fiasco Theater

ATL 499 / THR 499 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Ben Steinfeld · Noah Brody

This course is centered around the development of Fiasco Theater’s upcoming production of "The Beggar's Opera." The course is for performers, musicians, directors, writers, historians, designers, and more! If “opera” throws you, you should know that the piece is about businessman gangsters (male and female), mercenary prostitutes, beggars (economic inequality,) and love (which is nothing compared to money and status) — and the music explored will be new and contemporary, not old and operatic.

Creative Writing

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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 to Write a Song

CWR 211 / MUS 212 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Paul Muldoon · Steve Mackey

An introduction to the art of writing words for music, an art at the core of almost every literary tradition from Homer through Beowulf to W.B Yeats and beyond.

Graphic Design

VIS 214 / ARC 214 / CWR 214 · Spring 2017

U01 - Alice Chung · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Alice Chung

This studio course will introduce students to the essential aspects and skills of graphic design, and will analyze and discuss the increasingly vital role that non-verbal, graphic information plays in all areas of professional life, from fine art and book design to social networking and the Internet.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Spring 2017

U01 - Francesca Grassi · Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: Francesca Grassi

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 and through their engagement in studio design projects.

Imitating Italians

CWR 216 / ITA 216 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 2:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jhumpa Lahiri

A beginning fiction workshop designed to introduce students to the craft of imitation as a point of creative departure.

Creative Non-Fiction

JRN 240 / CWR 240 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Staff

This is a course in factual writing and what has become known as literary nonfiction, emphasizing writing assignments and including several reading assignments from the work of John McPhee and others.

Advanced Poetry

CWR 302 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Paul Muldoon · Claudia Rankine

Advanced practice in the original composition of poetry for discussion in regularly scheduled workshop meetings.

Advanced Literary Translation

CWR 306 / COM 356 · Spring 2017

C01 · Thursdays, 2:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jhumpa Lahiri

Students will choose, early in the semester, one author to focus on in fiction, poetry, or drama. All work will be translated into English and discussed in a workshop format.

The Anthropology of Awe and Terror

ANT 313 / CWR 213 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesdays, 7:30 - 10:20 pm

Instructors: Nomi Stone

This course explores encounters with awe and terror via the "sublime" experience. How are these inner states generated and represented in a variety of cultural, political, emotive and artistic contexts?

Life is Short, Art is Really Short

CWR 315 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: James Richardson

All literature is short — compared to our lives, anyway — but we'll be concentrating on poetry and prose at their very shortest. The reading will include proverbs, aphorisms, greguerias, one-line poems, riddles, jokes, fragments, haiku, epigrams and microlyrics.

Women / Writing / Cinema

VIS 335 / CWR 335 / GSS 386 · Spring 2017

S01 · Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Rebekah Rutkoff

This course will be structured around female artists, both contemporary and historical, whose work exists at the crossroads of writing and moving images.

Special Topics in Creative Writing: Writing Autobiography

CWR 345 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:20 pm

Instructors: Edmund White

Students will explore their own lives through various devices and discover that the truth is never elemental but can be released through literary strategies. During the semester each student will write either one long autobiographical piece or three shorter ones.

Special Topics in Screenwriting: Intermediate Screenwriting: Writing the Feature Film

CWR 403 / VIS 406 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 pm

Instructors: Afia Serena Nathaniel

How does a screenwriter, organize and develop the ideas that will form a feature narrative script? In this class, students will become familiar with feature film structure, plot evolution, character development, scene shaping and dialogue, and effective techniques for achieving the complex visual and emotional rhythm required by compelling narrative scripts.

Dance

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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 Choreography

DAN 204 · Spring 2017

U01 · Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Susan Marshall

This studio course will introduce students to choreographic processes and questions of movement vocabulary, structure, pacing, orchestration and meaning.

Introduction to Movement and Dance

DAN 209 · Spring 2017

U01 · Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

Movement permeates every aspect of life, whether within our bodies, minds, or the world around us. In this studio course open to everyone, we use tools from Laban Movement Analysis to develop ways to dance, improvise, make performance, and fully inhabit our lives.

Power, Structure, and the Human Body

DAN 210 · Spring 2017

U01 · Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12:30 - 2:20 p.m.

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke

In this studio course open to anyone with a body, we will explore power, structure, and human bodies through personal, political, anatomical, kinesthetic, and aesthetic lenses. We will delve into these issues as artists do: by reading, thinking, talking, moving, and making performances, actions, sense, and change.

Introduction to Dance Across Cultures

DAN 215 / ANT 355 · Spring 2017

S01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Judith Hamera

Bharatanatyam, butoh, hip hop, and salsa are some of the dances that will have us travel from temples and courtyards to clubs, streets, and stages around the world.

Introduction to Hip-Hop Dance

DAN 222 / AAS 222 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Joseph Schloss · Raphael Xavier

This introductory survey course gives equal weight to scholarly study and embodied practice, using both approaches to explore a range of hip-hop dance techniques, as well as the cultural and historical contexts from which these dances emerged.

Dance Techniques of the 20th Century: Dunham, Graham, Horton, Limon

DAN 315 · Spring 2017

U01 · Mondays & Wednesdays 12:30 - 2:20 pm Fridays 11:00 am - 12:50 pm

Instructors: Tina Fehlandt

A studio course in modern dance technique for intermediate/advanced students. This course will consist of four units focusing on prominent movement innovators of the 20th century: Katherine Dunham, Martha Graham, Lester Horton, José Limón, taught by experts in their respective dance techniques.

Dance in Education: Dance/Theater Pedagogy

DAN 316 / THR 328 / HUM 317 / TPP 316 · Spring 2017

S01 · Fridays, 10:00 am - 12:50 pm

Instructors: Rebecca Stenn

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.

Ballet as an Evolving Form: Technique and Repertory

DAN 432 · Spring 2017

C01 (M/W) & U01 (F) · Mondays & Wednesdays, 4:30 - 6:20 pm Fridays 1:30 - 3:20 pm

Instructors: Tina Fehlandt

A studio course in Contemporary Ballet technique for advanced dancers. The course will consist of an advanced ballet class and explorations into contemporary choreography through readings, viewings, and the learning of and creation of repertory.

Lewis Center

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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.

Music Theater

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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.

The Opera

MUS 220 / MTD 220 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Wendy Heller

The course provides a survey of opera from its inception in the 17th-century to the present, considering such issues as opera's relationship to its cultural context, contemporary stagings, opera conventions and singers (including the castrato), opera and literature, exoticism, and opera's representation of gender and sexuality.

Acting and Directing in Musical Theater

MTD 341 / THR 341 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: John Rando

A practical hands-on introduction to acting and directing in musical theater. The course will require students to prepare songs and scenes from selected musicals with an eye to how best to approach the particular challenges the scene presents.

Theater Making Studio

THR 402 / MTD 402 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: John Doyle

This course explores theories and practices in contemporary theater making, and will be a workshop of ideas for committed theater students. We will examine questions such as: what are the differences between process and product, what is collaboration, where does the audience fit in to the creative journey.

Theater Rehearsal and Performance

THR 451 / MTD 451 · Spring 2017

S01 · Fridays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Ethan Heard

This course provides students with a rigorous and challenging experience of creating theater under near-professional circumstances.

Theater & Music Theater

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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.

Greek Tragedy from Ancient Athens to Ferguson

CLA 242 / HLS 242 / THR 242 / HUM 242 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:30 - 2:50 pm

Instructors: Joshua Billings

This course will consider Greek tragedy, its ancient context, and modern responses by focusing on the three canonical Greek tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Playwriting II: Intermediate Playwriting

THR 305 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Lauren Yee

A continuation of work begun in Introductory Playwriting. In this class, students will complete either one full-length play or two long one-acts (40-60 pages) to the end of gaining a firmer understanding of characterization, dialogue, structure, and the playwriting process.

Advanced French Theater Workshop

FRE 311 / THR 312 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Florent Masse

Advanced French Theater Workshop is a continuation of FRE 211/THR 211, French Theater Workshop. Students focus their work on three French playwrights: one classical, one modern, and one contemporary.

Dance in Education: Dance/Theater Pedagogy

DAN 316 / THR 328 / HUM 317 / TPP 316 · Spring 2017

S01 · Fridays, 10:00 am - 12:50 pm

Instructors: Rebecca Stenn

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.

Lighting Design

THR 318 / VIS 318 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jane Cox

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression.

The Artist-Citizen: Socially Engaged Art in the 21st Century

AMS 331 / THR 385 · Spring 2017

S01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Katie Pearl

Taking as our context the fractured state of our country, this course investigates artists whose work brings us closer together. We will engage with diverse artists from a range of disciplines who, through their work, assert the absolute necessity of creative exchange and personal encounter to maintain a humane world.

Comedies of Error

THR 338 / ENG 301 / COM 343 · Spring 2017

S01 · Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Michael Cadden

This course examines one of the most popular of all theatrical genres — the comedy of mistaken identity.

Acting and Directing in Musical Theater

MTD 341 / THR 341 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: John Rando

A practical hands-on introduction to acting and directing in musical theater. The course will require students to prepare songs and scenes from selected musicals with an eye to how best to approach the particular challenges the scene presents.

Theater Making Studio

THR 402 / MTD 402 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: John Doyle

This course explores theories and practices in contemporary theater making, and will be a workshop of ideas for committed theater students. We will examine questions such as: what are the differences between process and product, what is collaboration, where does the audience fit in to the creative journey.

Theater Rehearsal and Performance

THR 451 / MTD 451 · Spring 2017

S01 · Fridays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Ethan Heard

This course provides students with a rigorous and challenging experience of creating theater under near-professional circumstances.

Adaptation and Performance with Fiasco Theater

ATL 499 / THR 499 · Spring 2017

S01 · Mondays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Ben Steinfeld · Noah Brody

This course is centered around the development of Fiasco Theater’s upcoming production of "The Beggar's Opera." The course is for performers, musicians, directors, writers, historians, designers, and more! If “opera” throws you, you should know that the piece is about businessman gangsters (male and female), mercenary prostitutes, beggars (economic inequality,) and love (which is nothing compared to money and status) — and the music explored will be new and contemporary, not old and operatic.

Visual Arts

Introduction to Art Making

LCA 101 · Spring 2017

C01 · Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 am - 12:20 pm

Instructors: Aynsley Vandenbroucke · Boris Fishman · Daniel Heyman · Jane Cox · Ruth Ochs · Stacy Wolf · Susan Wheeler

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.

Drawing I

VIS 202 / ARC 202 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Kurt Kauper

This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. Students will be introduced to a range of drawing issues, as well as a variety of media, including charcoal, graphite, ink, oil stick, collage, string, wire and clay.

Painting I

VIS 204 / ARC 328 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Eve Aschheim · Pam Lins

An introduction to the materials and methods of painting. The areas to be covered are color and its interaction, the use of form and scale, painting from a model, painting objects with a concern for their mass and interaction with light.

Analog Photography

VIS 211 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Jeff Whetstone · James Welling

An introduction to the processes of analog photography through a series of problems directed toward the handling of film-based cameras, light-sensitive paper, darkroom chemistry, and printing.

Digital Photography

VIS 213 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Deana Lawson · Jeff Whetstone · Fia Backström

This studio course introduces students to aesthetic and theoretical implications of digital photography, with an emphasis on mastering digital equipment and techniques, managing print quality, and generally becoming familiar with all aspects of the digital workspace.

Graphic Design

VIS 214 / ARC 214 / CWR 214 · Spring 2017

U01 - Alice Chung · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Alice Chung

This studio course will introduce students to the essential aspects and skills of graphic design, and will analyze and discuss the increasingly vital role that non-verbal, graphic information plays in all areas of professional life, from fine art and book design to social networking and the Internet.

Graphic Design: Typography

VIS 215 / CWR 215 · Spring 2017

U01 - Francesca Grassi · Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: Francesca Grassi

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 and through their engagement in studio design projects.

Introductory Sculpture

VIS 222 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Martha Friedman · Nathan Carter

A studio introduction to sculpture, particularly the study of form, concept, fabrication and the influence of a wide variety of materials and processes on sculpture and its consequences.

How to Make a Film

VIS 262 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 10:20 pm

Instructors: Yaara Sumeruk

Through hands-on studio work, screenings, critical readings and group critiques, this course teaches the basic tools and approaches for film production with digital media including writing, camerawork, sound, editing, and postproduction.

Documentary Filmmaking

VIS 263 · Spring 2017

S01 - Su Friedrich · Wednesdays 7:30 - 9:40 pm and Thursdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Su Friedrich

This course introduces students to documentary film production using digital video, with an emphasis on the practical challenges of working in the real world.

Introductory Printmaking

VIS 309 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm and 7:30 - 9:40 pm

Instructors: Daniel Heyman

This course introduces techniques of copper plate etching, and relief printing. Assignments focus on applications of various printmaking techniques, while encouraging independent development of subject matter.

The Photographic Apparatus

VIS 311 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Fia Backström

Since it’s inception, the technical development of photography has arisen out of specific historical and political circumstances that have “naturalized” its practice and ideologically coded its apparatus. Through critical discussions, material examinations, and studio projects, this seminar will take a reflexive approach to photographic technology past, present, and future.

Lighting Design

THR 318 / VIS 318 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Jane Cox

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression.

Topics in Cinema and Culture – White Men Gone Wild in Colonial Latin America

LAS 334 / VIS 323 / SPA 319 · Spring 2017

S01 · Tuesday and Thursday, 1:30 - 2:50 pm

Instructors: Nicole Legnani

An exploration of films made in the last fifty years featuring "descents into savagery" and the colonial, alphabetic texts that inspired them. Topics to be discussed, among others: primitivism and progress; coloniality; media and mediation; race and gender; intercultural dialogues; healing practices; community-based performances.

Women / Writing / Cinema

VIS 335 / CWR 335 / GSS 386 · Spring 2017

S01 · Thursdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Rebekah Rutkoff

This course will be structured around female artists, both contemporary and historical, whose work exists at the crossroads of writing and moving images.

Sonic Cinema: Music, Noise, and the Moving Image

VIS 336 / MUS 302 · Spring 2017

Multiple sections offered

Instructors: Amy Herzog

This course will explore the use of sound in relation to moving images, including film scoring, musicals, soundtracks, music videos, and experimental sound and video art.

Intermediate Video and Film Production

VIS 362 · Spring 2017

C01 · Wednesdays, 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Su Friedrich

For those who have taken a 200 level film production course and want to pursue their interest in writing, shooting and editing digital media, whether through documentary, narrative or experimental films.

Special Topics in Screenwriting: Intermediate Screenwriting: Writing the Feature Film

CWR 403 / VIS 406 · Spring 2017

C01 · Tuesdays, 1:30 - 3:50 pm

Instructors: Afia Serena Nathaniel

How does a screenwriter, organize and develop the ideas that will form a feature narrative script? In this class, students will become familiar with feature film structure, plot evolution, character development, scene shaping and dialogue, and effective techniques for achieving the complex visual and emotional rhythm required by compelling narrative scripts.

Painting II

VIS 404 · Spring 2017

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Pam Lins

This class will focus on how current painting considers the human figure.

Advanced Questions in Photography

VIS 411 · Spring 2017

C01 - Deana Lawson · Wednesdays 1:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Deana Lawson

This class will investigate the idea of "manipulation" in photography and examine different approaches to controlling form and content. Class lectures will look at the work of such artists as James Welling, Collier Schorr, Arthur Jaffa, and Boris Mikhailov, among others.

Advanced Sculpture

VIS 421 · Spring 2017

U01 · Wednesdays, 12:30 - 4:20 pm

Instructors: Martha Friedman

This class will engage contemporary approaches to the figure and the various ways that artists contest, assimilate, and reckon with the human body in sculpture.