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Learning to draw is as much about learning how to use your hand as it is learning how to see. The focus of this course is learning to draw from observation and developing close looking skills; to that end this course will expand your capacity to see and represent what you see by inviting you to explore an array of methods, materials, and techniques. 

Clay responds directly to touch, retains memory and is forced through the dynamic process of firing to fix a point in time. This class will introduce students to a variety of hand-building techniques to construct sculptural and/or utilitarian forms. Students will develop their skills by practicing techniques demonstrated in class. Through making, students’ skills will increase, granting more confidence, and allowing more control over the objects they wish to realize.

The craft of acting will be the main focus of this class.

The class will be concerned with animating inanimate objects by primarily stop motion.  Locations will be constructed, objects to animated formed, and lighting explored in order to create the imaginary world. A variety of filmmakers and techniques will be looked at during the course of the semester, with individual research undertaken and presented.  Students will be expected to produce a variety of short projects over the first seven weeks based on current affairs and future worlds, followed by a longer more sustained project.

An introduction to music theory course. Music theory fundamentals will be taught utilizing voice (singing) and an instrument in hand. Knowledge of the piano keyboard will be learned and utilized. Curriculum will span the harmonic series, circle of 5ths, scales and chords to ear training, harmonic and rhythmic dictation, and beginning composition. Score reading, listening, and analysis will include music of composers from diverse ethnic, racial, sexual, and cultural backgrounds. Course will include singing, aural, and listening components as well as written work.

A set design communicates lots of information to an audience, and provides the physical world in which a performance takes place. In his book The Dramatic Imagination, the great set designer Robert Edmond Jones wrote: “…we may fairly speak of the art of stage designing as poetic, in that it seeks to give expression to the essential quality of a play rather than to its outward characteristics.” Students in this course will work through the process of designing stage sets in which poetic expression is evident and functionality is addressed.

How do we physically understand the spaces we are in? How is each of us affected by them? How do we develop a deeper sense of place? The Body Acoustic aims to heighten awareness of the reciprocal relationship between the built environment and our senses. Light and sound, distances, height, volume, surfaces, angles/curves and a/symmetries all affect one’s movement through interior and exterior spaces; one’s movement, in turn, affects the perception of these spaces.

This is an analog film-based black-and-white photography course designed for those with little or no experience in photography. Emphasis will be placed on the application of technique in terms of personal expression through the selection and composition of subject matter. The course comprises technical lectures, darkroom demonstrations; lectures on historical and contemporary photographs as well as class critiques.

This foundational class covers modes of reasoning used in quantitative sciences and mathematics. While learning the art of mathematical modeling, i.e. translating the physical systems/real-life situations into mathematics, we will apply problem solving and practice effective communication of mathematics.

Viewpoints is a physical improvisational form used for training actors and creating movement for the stage. This class encourages students to explore the physical and vocal possibilities of time and space, with a specific focus on developing the capacity to be physically present, emotionally open, and free to follow creative impulses. Special emphasis will be placed on developing listening skills and ensemble building. Coursework will cover the nine Viewpoints and their application to character exploration and composition within the world of a play.

This course serves as an introduction to dance studies at �����Ź��� College. It is intended for students new to �����Ź��� who have a serious interest in dance, as well as those with a desire to deeply explore movement and embodied practice as an artistic form.

Graduate Teaching Fellows in Dance are integrated into the dance program as teaching assistants. In consultation with their academic advisors and the dance faculty, MFA candidates develop an assistantship schedule of approximately ten hours weekly; the courses they develop and teach are listed in the curriculum. All Teaching Fellows bring their own professional histories and contribute their own manners of teaching. Outside of listed class times, TBD, the Teaching Fellows will meet to discuss their courses with the designated faculty and with each other.

It is trite but true: kids grow up so fast. In this course we will discuss the incredible growth of infants, toddlers, and children in multiple domains (physical, cognitive, emotional/social). We will discover how growth in each domain affects the others. We will explore enduring topics of discourse in child development, such as nature and nurture, individual differences, and the nature of change.

A “rigorous study of art” became the goal of Philosopher and Cultural Critic Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) when his growing distaste for the outlook and methods of his art history professor—the famous and foundational Heinrich Wölfflin—caused him to consider publishing an account of “the most disastrous activity I have ever encountered at a German university.”

In this course, students will examine the building blocks which make up the interlocking systems of language and observe how those systems are enacted and granted layers of meaning through social practice.

How have psychologists defined feelings over the years, and how is the field continuing to change?  We will begin with the 19th Century, when scientists like Wundt and Charcot brought human perception and mental health symptoms out of the realm of metaphysics.  After briefly considering Darwin’s view of emotion and new perspectives on artwork from early asylums, we will evaluate emotion as featured in two central debates from the 20th Century: (1) the psychodynamic approach of Freud, one of Charcot’s students, versus humanism and (2) the behaviorists’ broad rejection of feelings a

This class examines a variety of answers to the ancient question: How do I live a good life? We’ll engage with thinkers from diverse traditions across time and space as we clarify our own understanding of what makes life worth living and as we articulate a more developed conception of the good life.

Earthʹs life‐supporting environmental systems are controlled by a complex interplay between geologic and biological processes acting both on the surface and deep within the planetary interior. This course will explore how earth materials and physical processes contribute to a healthy environment, and how humans impact geologic processes. Topics covered will include: earth resources, natural hazards, water resources and pollution, soil formation and depletion, coastal processes, energy resources, and climate change.

In this class, we will begin by investigating sound, music, image, and form in poetry and how these poetic elements are presented in fiction. From fiction, we will study narrative, character, plot, and setting. Finally, we will progress towards personal nonfiction, fusing the elements of our poetry and fiction investigations. We will read classical and contemporary texts from diverse authors and voices, while also crafting individualized creative work. Students are expected to also write critically on creative texts.

This course introduces a variety of materials, techniques and approaches to working with oil paint. Emphasis is placed on developing and understanding of color, form and space as well as individual research and conceptual concerns. The daily experience of seeing, along with examples from art history and contemporary art, provide a base from which investigations are made. Formal, poetic, and social implications within paintings both from class and from a wide-ranging selection of practicing artists are examined and discussed. Students complete work weekly.

Acting is the art of bringing text to life with heart, soul, and skill—and in this course, we’ll train your voice, body, mind, and spirit to do just that!

In a fun and supportive space, we’ll dive into the building blocks of actor training, pushing our creativity to build dynamic, three-dimensional characters ready for the stage.

Through scene work, improv, readings, and engaging exercises, we’ll tap into your unique experiences to strengthen your craft and bring your performances to life. Let’s play, explore, and grow together!

Whose class is this anyway? Yours! Improv is for everyone—just like life, it’s all about making it up as we go.

In this course, we’ll explore the fundamentals of improvisation through high-energy theater games, pattern and rhythm exercises, and ensemble-building activities. We’ll dive into character, object, and environment work while staying grounded, truthful, and spontaneous.

This seminar will study the mid-20th century revolution in poetic style and content known as "confessional poetry," a school of poetry that gave voice to the private and personal, highlighting extreme autobiographical experience, as well as subjects that were previously seen as improper or taboo, including mental health, sexuality, suicidal ideation, trauma, menstruation, abortion, postpartum depression, divorce, family dysfunction, rage, and despair.

Contemporary efforts to confront our most pressing ecological problems are characterized by a tension between the global realities of these problems and the territorial borders and logics that define sovereign nation-states. This course will explore this tension in three parts. First, we will engage with a variety of theoretical and conceptual debates introduced by scholars of global environmental politics — a heterodox field that draws insights from international relations theory, international political economy, ecological economics, and environmental sociology (among others).

“It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire,” F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his epitaph to the Jazz Age in 1931. It was something else too: a social and literary revolution fueled by new communications technology, mass popular entertainment, Jazz and the Blues, and a bold “collaborative energy” (Ann Douglas) between the Black artists of the Harlem Renaissance and the predominantly white figures who were grouped together as the Lost Generation.

In this course we will undertake a comprehensive survey of American Transcendentalism through a close examination of the major writings from this tumultuous period. We will read the major figures (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau), as well as a host of lesser known members of the Transcendental Club (Orestes Brownson, Ellery Channing, poet Jones Very). We will also read some of the most withering critiques that the movement inspired, including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s satiric novel of the Utopian Brook Farm community, The Blithedale Romance.

In this course we are tackling the Shakespeare history plays, examining the imperialistic and violent movements of Henrys and Richards, et al, exploring betrayals, battles, the War of the Roses, British history -- as understood in our contemporary time and compared to how it was understood by Shakespeare, who cut his teeth on the histories, spreading both English lore and his own poetic voice far and wide in service of King (Queen) and Country.

Halfway through John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, he admits to the reader in his call to the Muses that he has "fallen on evil days" and into unwelcome solitude, caught "[i]n darkness, with dangers compassed round." Milton wrote Paradise Lost under epically gnarly circumstances -- jailed and fined for backing the failed removal and execution of the King, going blind, having lost his wife and son to illness.

This class will examine contemporary challenges through the lens of complex systems. The class will include a training in Mediation and Negotiation skills. Through readings, discussion, exercises and role-plays, the class will examine and deconstruct the complexities of current democratic and environmental issues related to local, national and global governance, We will begin with personal training and extend it to group multi-party collaborative problem-solving. 

What remains of dance? The lament of dance’s ephemerality coincides with broader Western temporal projects conceived through the linear unfolding of human progress and social evolution, relegating our movements to an irretrievable past.

The study of foreign languages and cultures is a crucial asset. For some, it is a life-saving necessity. For others it represents a powerful tool in a toolkit for antiracism, social justice, and intercultural understanding. In this course, students will gain a basic understanding of language and culture teaching to young children and adults. Discussions with local teachers and language acquisition experts will provide a professional perspective on the course content.

This course gives students the opportunity to encounter, participate in and design choreographic practices with an emphasis on the vast approaches to process and artistic research that are current and emergent in the expanded field of dance. The course challenges students to develop relationships to performance/performative action as research. We will engage practices where seeing and being seen by each other are central, studying the ways in which witnessing one another in process stimulates and deepens learning.

Since its inception, film has been used for propaganda - disseminating information with a particular slant, whether subtle or obvious - by regimes and independent players across the political spectrum. As the means of production and circuits of distribution become ever more accessible to individuals, we have moved from an era of focused agitprop into a new era of diffused disinformation.

This course will introduce students to the components of storytelling in photographic series by examining migration as a theme and using photography as a research tool. Students will develop a robust sense of artistic ethics by studying representations of migration by photographers in diasporic communities and engaging methods for creating visual narratives around topics of belonging, heritage, and identity.

This class will look at the intersection of photography and performance art inside the contributions of feminist and queer practices. Students will respond to different performance prompts, alternating between the roles of performers and photographers, and thinking about ways to use the camera as an artistic and documentation tool. They will also engage in readings and analysis of works from BIPOC, feminist, and queer authors and photographers from the global south.

Are you interested in taking a closer look at the  immediate and collective spaces that we live in? What are some of the realities that exist around us and why/ how can we build work that pushes against these basic constructs.

This course offers an immersive experience into the world of DNA, genes, and genomes in eukaryotic organisms.  In addition to getting a grasp of the foundational biology, students will engage with various online databases and resources, becoming familiar with the computational algorithms and methodologies used to mine and analyze the ever-increasing data generated from whole-genome sequencing, and consider how that improves our understanding of evolutionary relationships amongst organisms based on their molecular fingerprints.  In the second half of the term, students

Designed to help beginner translators with no experience build their own ethical translation practices—with attention to issues of race, gender, and queerness—this course offers an introduction to translation via a hands-on approach. What pronouns do you use when translating from a language that doesn’t have gendered pronouns? Do you translate slurs? We will tackle these questions, plus the basics, thinking about a work’s tone, audience, and sociohistorical context in order to bring it to life in English.

This course is an introductory level print media and drawing class. Students will learn about relief printmaking through demonstrations of techniques, hands-on experience, and critiques. Techniques include but are not limited to wood cut and linoleum cut. With this simple process, we will be able to explore color printing in depth. This course is also an introduction to making 2D images and the study of visual language. Students who have experience beyond the introductory level are welcome.

The Alexander Technique invites students to engage with how they move through the world. Students will learn to notice what it is they are doing in their everyday movement, dance practice, performance, & an overall deeper engagement with the body. 

In this wide-ranging introduction to the study of international politics, we will be exploring how states and non-state actors negotiate their interactions in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent and globalized world.

This course will focus on teaching methods. While applicable to college, they’ll mostly be of the K-12 variety. Proleptically, it should always already recognize the false dichotomy rather too neatly encapsulated in its subtitle.

The Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” is a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with writing and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we work to create new habits and productive strategies for analytical writing.

The Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” is a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with writing and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we work to create new habits and productive strategies for analytical writing.

Have you ever wondered what a computer is and how it actually works?  In this course, we’ll answer the hardware half of this question.

This Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” functions as a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with discussion, writing, and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we create new habits and strategies for our analytical writing. We will write in various essay structures with the aim of developing a well-supported thesis; in addition, we will revise collaboratively, improve our research and citation skills, and study grammar and style.

This Scriptorium, a “place for writing,” functions as a class for writers interested in improving their critical essay-writing skills. We will read to write and write to read. Much of our time will be occupied with discussion, writing, and revising—essai means “trial” or “attempt”—as we create new habits and strategies for our analytical writing. We will write in various essay structures with the aim of developing a well-supported thesis; in addition, we will revise collaboratively, improve our research and citation skills, and study grammar and style.

Together with calculus, linear algebra is one of the foundations of higher-level mathematics and its applications. This is NOT just the algebra you know from high school. There are several perspectives one can take on linear algebra: it is a method for handling large systems of linear equations, it is a theory of linear geometry (including in dimensions larger than three), it is matrix algebra, and it is a theoretical structure that appears throughout mathematics, physics, computer science, and statistics.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mathematics underwent a vast expansion, into new, exciting, and increasingly counter-intuitive realms. The subject risked mystification and mutual incomprehensibility between experts in different sub-fields. In the first part of the twentieth century, a group of French mathematicians, under the pseudonym Bourbaki, undertook an ultimately successful program to use the foundation of set theory to put all of mathematics onto a common conceptual and logical foundation.

�����Ź���’s campus supports beautiful examples of temperate deciduous mixed hardwood forests. This class is a deep dive into forest ecology, land use change, and forest succession at a local scale. Students will explore the local forest community composition, structure, and function over the last 15,000 years and discuss the environmental conditions, disturbance dynamics, and biotic interactions responsible for the forest we have today.