Spring 2026 Courses

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Taught by Bridget Kearney (Lake Street Dive) and Bartees Strange with class visits from guest singer/songwriters and music critics, this course is an introduction to the art of writing words for music, an art at the core of our literary tradition from the Beowulf poet through Lord Byron and Bessie Smith to Bob Dylan and the Notorious B.I.G.. Composers, writers and performers will have the opportunity to work in small songwriting teams to respond to such emotionally charged themes as Gratitude, Loss, Protest, Desire, Joyousness, Remorse, and Defiance.

This seminar will explore, primarily in American literature, themes of individual and cultural identity from 19th century texts (Irving, Poe, James) to 20th and 21st century fiction and selected works of art, photography, and film. Students will write 1-2 page papers each week, present an analysis and discussion of a text or art-work, and write a paper of 12-15 pages. Questions will be: Is the "American Dream" an ideal, a shared cultural identity, or is it a chimera? How does the "Dream" manifest itself in individual works of art?

Practice in the original composition of poetry supplemented by the reading and analysis of standard works. Criticism by practicing writers and talented peers encourages the student’s growth as both creator and reader of literature.

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.

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.

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.

Speculative fiction is where the impossible happens. Though this expansive genre is often tagged as escapism, it connects to a deep part of our nature. Our foundation myths and fables are speculative fiction, and their current of fear and wonder runs straight through to contemporary science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In this class, we'll learn about some fascinating genre traditions, embrace experimentation, and try to build universes that won't (per Philip K. Dick) fall apart two days later. A mix of mind-bending readings, stimulating class discussions, and eccentric writing assignments will inspire our own forays into the slipstream.

This is an intensive reading course, which focuses on the skills to read and reread like a writer. A wide selection of readings—novels, stories, plays, poetry—will be covered in the course, a guided tour of books and their authors. Students will be expected to read at least an hour a day, and the average weekly reading load will be between ten and fifteen hours. Students are expected to keep a detailed daily reading journal and participate in group discussions and class presentations.

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 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.

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. In addition to questions of craft, an emphasis will be placed on the formation of healthy creative habits and the sharpening of critical and analytical skills through reading and responding to work of both fellow students and contemporary playwrights of note.

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.

What motivates us to write about our own lives? What is the relationship between the "I' who experiences and the "I" who writes? How scrupulous must we be about telling the truth? What are our moral obligations to the people we write about? In this workshop, we will consider different approaches to the people, places and things that have formed us.

We will explore the foundations of black performance theory, drawing from the fields of performance studies, theater, dance, and black studies. Using methods of ethnography, archival studies, and black theatrical and dance paradigms, we will learn how scholars and artists imagine, complicate, and manifest various forms of blackness across time and space. In particular, we will focus on blackness as both lived experience and as a mode of theoretical inquiry.

In this studio course open to all, we will dive into experiences in which body and language meet. We'll think about these from aesthetic, cultural, political, medical, personal, and philosophical perspectives. We'll explore language from, in, around, and about (our) bodies.

A studio course introducing students to African dance practices and aesthetics, with a focus on how its evolution has influenced American and African American culture, 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. Studio work will be complemented by readings, video viewings, guest speakers, and dance studies. Coursework will require cultural analysis to examine how people interpret meaning within and across cultures.

This course is for all students, whether you've never danced before or have lots of experience in any style. We'll develop a community together, gather tools from multiple dance and somatic forms. We'll learn to create structures that support presence, trust, and playfulness in the unknown. We'll dive into personal, social, and performance practices, think about improvisation as both end in itself and a key aspect of creative processes in other art forms and fields as diverse as science, philosophy, and religion. On Wednesdays we'll build our skills and resources; on Fridays we'll put them to use in a co-created improv jam.

This course offers a broad introduction to the experimental world of contemporary dance. The class will emphasize embodied exploration; you will collaborate, improvise, learn technical sequences, and deploy choreographic strategies to build a timeline and map of the lineages of a field with no particular center. Through readings and viewing live concerts we will engage with creators in the field to gain insight into their cultural, historical, and stylistic perspectives. Students will choreograph and perform dances which move across forms, in order to unearth a particular voice inside dance's unique expressive and communicative environment.

This course introduces students to human anatomy using movement, drawing, and dance practices. We will study the structure and function of the body from an interdisciplinary perspective, with a focus on relationships between cognition, the nervous system and movement. Class time will be shared between anatomy/kinesiology lectures and exploring the material through experiential and creative activities. We will discuss common problems encountered in fitness and every day life, while looking at the human structure in depth to evaluate possible solutions. Creative and research projects explore multiple ways the arts and sciences intersect.

This introductory course gives equal weight to scholarly study and embodied practice, using both approaches to explore the flow, power and cultural contexts of Breaking. This course will focus on developing a clear foundational Breaking technique in order to build a strong basis for exploring other Hip-Hop forms. By critically exploring this form physically and historically, individuals will adapt and apply their own philosophies to dance in order to eventually develop a personalized style.

This seminar is designed for junior students pursuing the minor who are planning to choreograph a senior independent project. Part study and discussion of the processes, aesthetics and politics involved in dance making and viewing - part independent creative practice and critique - this course invites students to a deeper understanding of their own art-making perspectives and to those of their classmates. A practical lighting workshop and other workshops of particular interest to the class prepare students for some of the directional, collaborative and interpersonal challenges involved in leading a significant choreographic enterprise.

Raving: Encounters & Collisions in Night/Life will explore the lives and afterlives of queer rave culture as aesthetic, political, and subjective complex societal networks that implicate us as cultural consumers, producers, and participants. As an operating system for overriding the present, situated at the confluence of Blackness, queerness, and transness, rave culture propels and alters conditions for practicing temporary liveness through rapture & rupture. Through dancing explorations, lectures, discussions, as well as collectively imagined and constructed raves, this course will invite us to continuously renew our habits of assembly.

Live Art, also known as Performance Art, integrates several disciplines: dance, drama, and visual art as well as architecture, anthropology, sociology, and political science. This course includes classes in creative movement, voice and text, improvisation, mixed media, and technology in performance practice. Composition of the site-specific works provides experiences of space and architecture. Theoretical perspectives consider the principles of interdisciplinary practices from early twentieth century and will focus on socio-political contexts that Live Art historically responds to, giving this innovative practice immediacy and relevance.

This advanced studio course compares practices and performance methods of diverse approaches to the body and community in contemporary dance. Through a comparative embodied approach, students will train intensively with a rotating faculty to develop physical research built on a synthesis of experiences. The course exposes students to leading developments in improvisation and choreography and examines their philosophical, cultural and physiological underpinnings.

This advanced studio course explores the Hip-Hop dance aesthetic from multiple perspectives, in order to help students develop their own personal relationship to the culture and its influences. Structured around a different series of guest workshops each year by dancers from a range of traditions, the course will engage with these forms on their own terms, but also with an eye towards exploring the more abstract artistic options that Hip-Hop dance offers.

A studio course in Classical and Contemporary Ballet technique for advanced dancers, with explorations into neoclassical and contemporary choreography through readings, viewings, and the learning of and creation of repertory. Students will also examine ballet's response to recent social movements.

Introduction to Theater Making is a working laboratory, which gives students hands-on experience with theater's fundamental building blocks—writing, design, acting, directing, and producing. Throughout the semester, students read, watch and discuss five different theater works. We will analyze how these plays and events are constructed and investigate their social and political implications. In-class artistic responses provide hands-on exploration as students work in groups to create and rehearse performances inspired by our course texts.

Many Latin American performance artists have reimagined the use of theater to challenge social and political structures. Boal's 'Theater of the Oppressed', Teatro Yuyachkani, TiT, Teatro Trono, and more, challenge, subvert, and manipulate classic Eurocentric theater perspectives to spur awareness and action in their audiences. Through readings, discussion, viewing, writing, improv and play we will explore these artists' work, theatrical origins, and socio/geopolitical contexts. We will apply inspired tactics to our own work. Spanish not required. Acting experience not required. Willingness to play and take risks is integral to class.

We will explore the foundations of black performance theory, drawing from the fields of performance studies, theater, dance, and black studies. Using methods of ethnography, archival studies, and black theatrical and dance paradigms, we will learn how scholars and artists imagine, complicate, and manifest various forms of blackness across time and space. In particular, we will focus on blackness as both lived experience and as a mode of theoretical inquiry.

This course develops skills needed to successfully approach all acting styles and centers the actor as a lead creative artist. We will concentrate on how the voice, body, and imagination can build a performance. The goal is fluency in these tools, stronger stage presence, and collaborative rehearsal skills. Each class is made up of individual and ensemble-based physical and vocal exercises to bolster creative thinking and to ready the body and voice for performance. We will find inspiration in readings and short performance texts. Students will leave the semester with a strong foundation for further acting courses or projects in all genres.

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.

In this studio course open to all, we will dive into experiences in which body and language meet. We'll think about these from aesthetic, cultural, political, medical, personal, and philosophical perspectives. We'll explore language from, in, around, and about (our) bodies.

This course examines how Deaf culture and American Sign Language (ASL) shape theater through visual storytelling, physical expression, and vaudeville traditions. Students study ASL children's plays, international visual theater, and one-act plays while engaging with guest Deaf artists. Since students in Princeton's ASL program are still developing fluency, the course helps hone expressive and receptive signing skills through rehearsal, performance, and devising. The semester culminates in the Visual Vaudeville Project, an ensemble showcase highlighting the dynamic interplay of language, culture, and performance.

This course is for all students, whether you've never danced before or have lots of experience in any style. We'll develop a community together, gather tools from multiple dance and somatic forms. We'll learn to create structures that support presence, trust, and playfulness in the unknown. We'll dive into personal, social, and performance practices, think about improvisation as both end in itself and a key aspect of creative processes in other art forms and fields as diverse as science, philosophy, and religion. On Wednesdays we'll build our skills and resources; on Fridays we'll put them to use in a co-created improv jam.

This workshop rehearses the critical and compositional skills relevant to the task of writing about live performance. We will engage a variety of critical and creative modes to research and compose original works of performance criticism, performance documentation, and other modes of writing about performance. We will survey the contemporary and historical ecosystems that have shaped the methods, theories, and practice of performance criticism in the United States, while also considering the recurring disruptions of these systems coming not only from artists and audiences, but also changes the technologies and economics of arts writing.

Once described by Samuel Johnson as both irrational and exotic, opera has long fascinated audiences with its curious mixture of drama, music, visual spectacle, and song. In this course we delve into all of the genre's marvelous eccentricities: its use of classical, early modern, and modern literature; the role of star singers in shaping the genre; the presentation of gender and sexuality, race, class, and age; opera production, past and present; and operatic-style entertainments from other cultures (including Peking Opera). Students will have the opportunity to attend a performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

This course is an embodied exploration of Hip Hop feminism as scholarship, praxis, and performance. At once a multimedia research lab and a performance workshop, the course positions students as both critical investigators and creative practitioners. Students will engage the contributions of women in Hip Hop including MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Bahamadia, Eternia, and more.

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. In addition to questions of craft, an emphasis will be placed on the formation of healthy creative habits and the sharpening of critical and analytical skills through reading and responding to work of both fellow students and contemporary playwrights of note.

The most frequently produced musicals are revivals. On Broadway, at universities, at high schools, community theatres, and summer camps, most shows that are performed have been performed before. As musical theater scholars, how do we think about, research, analyze, and interpret revivals? As musical theater artists, how do we navigate revivals and the history of a show? In this seminar, we'll explore the scholarship and the practice of musicals' afterlives, discussing theories of revivals and examining and re-conceptualizing shows. Aspiring directors, music directors, designers, and performers can put your ideas about revivals into practice.

Over the course of the semester, novice and experienced student artists create an ensemble-devised performance of theater or immersive art, and test their project against mock eco-centric challenges from the field. Students will experiment with ecological impacts of producing theater and growing ecological challenges of presenting public art. Students will foster whimsy and innovative thinking to create art-centered solutions. The project will have an open studio performance. Students will also pitch an achievable climate-conscious solution to a challenge they see on campus.

In Advanced French Theater Workshop, students will focus their work on three main French playwrights: one classical, one modern, and one contemporary. This year, students will rehearse and perform excerpts from the great works of Racine, Feydeau, and Lagarce. The course will place emphasis on refining and improving students' acting and speaking skills. It will culminate in the public presentation of the students' "Travaux" at the end of the semester.

This course explores the music and its role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). We will focus on: themes of genre hybridity, intertextuality, orchestration, emotional storytelling; how film scores shape character, narrative, and identity. Students will engage with foundational readings in film music theory and will develop critical listening skills through score analysis and discussions. This course is divided into two parts (the "Infinity Saga" and selected "Multiverse Saga" films up to 2023).

How do you tell a story about climate change that dynamically engages its audiences without overwhelming or boring them? We will explore this question and others by making an original work of investigative theater and through readings and discussions. Employing the methods of investigative theater, the class will create a script or performance text by pursuing a creative inquiry into some aspect of climate change. Each student will do creative research including interviews; collaborate on a script by editing and writing; and work with a team to create a final presentation of the show. Previous theater experience not required.

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression. Students will develop an ability to observe lighting in the world and on the stage; to learn to make lighting choices based on text, space, research, and their own responses; to practice being creative, responsive and communicative under pressure and in company; to prepare well to create under pressure using the designer's visual toolbox; and to play well with others-working creatively and communicating with directors, writers, performers, fellow designers, the crew and others.

This course introduces students to physical acting techniques, which unleash playfulness and expand expressive potential in performance. Games, improvisation, acting exercises and theater masks cultivate freedom, joy, courage, and stage presence. An exploration of the rules of story through movement analysis, along with embodied approaches to text and practical methods to creating characters, prepare for work on monologues and scenes.

Live Art, also known as Performance Art, integrates several disciplines: dance, drama, and visual art as well as architecture, anthropology, sociology, and political science. This course includes classes in creative movement, voice and text, improvisation, mixed media, and technology in performance practice. Composition of the site-specific works provides experiences of space and architecture. Theoretical perspectives consider the principles of interdisciplinary practices from early twentieth century and will focus on socio-political contexts that Live Art historically responds to, giving this innovative practice immediacy and relevance.

Song. Dance. Man. Woman. These are the basic components of the Broadway musical theatre. How have musical theatre artists, composers, lyricists, librettists, directors, choreographers, and designers worked with these building blocks to create this quintessentially American form of art and entertainment? This course will explore conventional and resistant performances of gender and sexuality in the Broadway musical since the 1940s. Why are musicals structured by love and romance?

From Cross Colours to boom boxes, the 1990s was loud and colorful. But alongside the fun, black people in the U.S. dealt with heightened criminalization and poverty codified through the War on Drugs, welfare reform, HIV/AIDS, and police brutality. We will study the various cultural productions of black performers and consumers as they navigated the social and political landscapes of the 1990s. We will examine works growing out of music, televisual media, fashion, and public policy, using theories from performance and cultural studies to understand the specificities of blackness, gender, class, and sexuality.

The course is designed to encourage the development of directors for theater and music theater. The course will incorporate a strong practical element, giving student directors the opportunity to explore and hone their own practices, developing useful and appropriate style and language as they move forward in their work as young directors.

The course is an acting intensive offering students the opportunity to engage in a rigorous rehearsal process with a professional theater director. The course emphasizes exploration and embodiment of character, and culminates in a staged production in the Berlind Theater. This semester, the topic of The Comeuppance by Tony and Pulitzer prize winner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins '06 will be explored—a comedy about isolation and nostalgia, following a group of friends preparing for their twentieth high school reunion.

The great thing about drawing is that you can do it anywhere! This course approaches drawing as a way of thinking and seeing. We'll learn from observation methods (still-life, plein-air, and figure drawing) while becoming adept at translating physical and lived experiences onto two-dimensional surfaces. Students will learn the basics of shading, proportion, composition, and gesture through various methods - privileging experimentation and curiosity. Lectures will be held to broaden an understanding of historical and contemporary drawing practices. By the end of the semester, you'll develop a final project of your choosing.

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. Princeton will provide all materials for the painting class.

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. The processes will begin with cyanotypes and culminate with large format film exposure and processing, and printing. These processes trace the origins of photography. Final projects will examine new potentials in photographic expression including images that hybridize analog and digital interfaces. The goal of this course is to make art, and by doing so, understand the necessity for the invention of photography.

This studio course introduces students to the aesthetic, philosophical and theoretical implications of digital photography. Emphasis is on understanding digital equipment and protocols, print management, and familiarity with the digital workspace. The "afterlife" of analogue photography in digital media will be emphasized. Slide lectures, readings, and class discussion of texts and with student work in critique format will augment critical and conceptual understanding of recent contemporary photography and art.

This course introduces students to 16mm analog film production. The focus of this course is on the completion of a short experimental film originating on analog film. Various hands-on exercises with 16mm film production cameras, lenses, light meters, tripods, and film stocks will prepare students for making their film. Students will also learn dark room motion picture film developing. Analysis of the works of experimental filmmakers will provide historical context of the form.

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.

This class will be a 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.

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. Studio work will be complemented by readings, research presentations, breakout groups, and individual meetings.

This course takes an exciting approach to color photography using methods of cameraless and lens based analog photography. We will experiment with Lumen Printing, analog color printing and Polaroids. Participants are encouraged to experiment, using the medium to convey observations and ideas. The possibilities of color in photographs are endless and together we will expand the ability to interpret color. The class is augmented by lectures, readings, critiques, and a visiting artist.

Through a series of short exercises students will learn the craft, history and theory of alternative modes in documentary filmmaking. We will emphasize experimentation with various formal strategies to probe the impulse to engage the "real". Topics in this course will include portraits, interviews, ethnography, space and place, narrativity, personal film, re-enactments and performance. Students will be encouraged to draw unexpected connections and use experimental approaches in their aesthetic pursuits.

This interdisciplinary studio and seminar class will investigate the concept of the archive from an embodied perspective, asking: How can analog and physical memory-keeping counter the digital and the institutional record? When do they work responsibly in tandem? What unexpected forms can story-keeping take? We will work to undermine the totality of the internet, elude surveillance, and complicate historical narratives through oral histories, encounters with the land, ephemeral experimentation, and redaction.

This interdisciplinary studio seminar explores the material, scientific, and cultural dimensions of glass. Co-taught by a sculptor and a material scientist, the course considers glass at both the molecular and artistic levels. Students investigate properties such as thermal expansion, refractive index, and durability while examining how transparency, fragility, and luminosity have shaped technology and visual culture. The seminar pairs scientific inquiry with creative practice: the first half features lectures, demos, and field trips; the second culminates in a glass kiln casting project from wax modeling to mold making and cold working.

Learn how to draw with perspective! Take flat surface lines to three-dimensional depth. Students will acquire skills of drawing one-point, two-point, and three-point perspective creating illusion of depth with spatial relationships. Students will think about line formation and the poetics of lines. With the techniques learned, students will apply into a drawing project of their choosing. Students will gain confidence in learning how to speak about their work and learn various methods to offer valuable feedback to their peers. Students will read and study from artists to gain greater knowledge and a new perspective on drawing.

The nature of this class is experimental. This course explores the way drawing can move beyond straightforward representation, to create a sense of how it feels to have a body in space through gesture, materials, and processes. We will look at the history of what counts as drawing, how artists throughout time have used drawing to examine the boundaries of perception, and how young artists in this time can push this. Themes will include abstraction, figure/ground relationships, duration, color relationships, alternative tools, collage, and process-based iterative series. Lectures, readings, and projects will consider experimental drawing.

An introduction to narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques. This course teaches the basic tools and techniques for storytelling with digital media by providing technical instruction in camera operation, nonlinear editing, and sound design paired with the conceptual frameworks of shot design, visual composition, film grammar and cinema syntax.

In a digital world, this course promotes hand-made printed images. Students will examine two kinds of printmaking: relief and intaglio. To make images that matter, students will learn to cut blocks, fashion stencils, plan and execute color layers, etch and drypoint copper plates, and understand the range of mark making possibilities available in printmaking. Students are encouraged to draw regularly to cultivate themes and content, and to develop a basic knowledge of print in contemporary art. Woodblocks have been around since the 8th century; etchings for 500 years. Students will make something completely new from something old.

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for the stage and an exploration of light as a medium for expression. Students will develop an ability to observe lighting in the world and on the stage; to learn to make lighting choices based on text, space, research, and their own responses; to practice being creative, responsive and communicative under pressure and in company; to prepare well to create under pressure using the designer's visual toolbox; and to play well with others-working creatively and communicating with directors, writers, performers, fellow designers, the crew and others.

This intermediate-level studio course will build on the foundations of animation covered in Animation I. Students will investigate a wider range of techniques and technologies, while experimenting with varied modes of audiovisual storytelling, time-based collage, and motion graphics. For the final project, each student will direct a short film using a blend of analog and digital materials and tools, explored during the semester. Screenings and class discussions will dive more deeply into the history and potential of animation, as well as its connections to other forms of visual art, filmmaking, computation, and design.

Live Art, also known as Performance Art, integrates several disciplines: dance, drama, and visual art as well as architecture, anthropology, sociology, and political science. This course includes classes in creative movement, voice and text, improvisation, mixed media, and technology in performance practice. Composition of the site-specific works provides experiences of space and architecture. Theoretical perspectives consider the principles of interdisciplinary practices from early twentieth century and will focus on socio-political contexts that Live Art historically responds to, giving this innovative practice immediacy and relevance.

An intermediate exploration of narrative and avant-garde narrative film production through the creation of hands-on digital video exercises, short film screenings, critical readings, and group critiques. This course picks up where Narrative Filmmaking I left off, expanding on the basic tools and techniques for storytelling with digital media by providing further technical instruction in camera operation, nonlinear editing, dialogue recording, and sound mixing paired with the conceptual frameworks of point of view (narrative stance), master shot technique, performance, and blocking.

This class will focus on how contemporary painting considers the human figure. Portraits without people, the selfie, imagined figures, forgotten figures, fragmented figures, figures from our lives, abstract figures, cyborgs, crowds, and composite figures will be considered within a structure of exploratory painterly approaches. This class will not focus on "how to" paint the figure. No experience painting the figure is necessary.

This course is designed to guide photography students toward a distinct artistic voice, and projects will be assigned to suit individuals’ aesthetic trajectories. Technical components of the class will focus on how digital and analogue photography merge with other practices such as site-specific installation work and time-based media. Materialist and text-based approaches to photography will be encouraged and visiting artists and gallery and museum visits will lean in this direction.

How do Black visual artists draw on cinematic, photographic and historical archives to create innovative new work? How do they "fabulate" new possibilities for understanding the past and envisioning the future differently? And how might aspiring young artists use this work as a source of inspiration? This seminar engages the practice of "critical fabulation" (rigorous archival research and speculative storytelling) in the work of Black contemporary artists, using it as a point of departure for students to craft their own critical responses to these artworks in ways that bring their research and creative practice into conversation.

This course provides a structured environment for students to present their ongoing film projects and receive sustained critical feedback. Throughout the semester, we will screen and discuss each student's work-in-progress, emphasizing artistic development, technical refinement, and conceptual clarity. The course will also include screenings with invited filmmakers and occasional field trips to relevant exhibitions, screenings, or production sites.

Haptic Lab is a hands-on studio course in which digital technologies are informed by tactile experience. The Spring 2026 lab will focus on four technically diverse ideas: pre-cinematic devices, the materiality of language, human prosthetics, and "searched" material. Students will engage in making artworks by hand but also engage in the critical analysis of their transformation into digital space and back again. Course work will be supported by visiting artists and frequent use of the maker spaces in Fine Hall and the Keller Center.