An overview of the development of film as an art and as an industry from silent to digital cinema. Students learn the stylistic, narrative and industrial developments of cinema through the analysis of classic films.

Credits: 4

An overview of the international development of television as a cultural form and zone of political struggle. Students learn to examine television as a mass medium, with a focus on its critical role in mediating the relationships between the state and society, and between commerce and art.

Credits: 4

An intensive study of film history with analysis of specific films that represent stages in the evolution of the formal aspects of cinematic expression. Film showings, lectures, seminars.

Credits: 4

A continuation of CIN 1500.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500

The techniques of filmic expression are examined through a focused, detailed analysis of cinematography, editing, lighting, mise-en-scène, and soundtrack in celebrated cinematic works from around the world. Course content is organized around the establishment or subversion of narrative, generic, and stylistic conventions through the works of one director, a particular genre, or a film movement.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Examines the history of music videos, studying their effectiveness as a sales mechanisms as well as their influence on how today’s movies, television and commercials are photographed. Students are required to shoot practice exercises throughout the semester, complete a final paper, and shoot a music video on their own for a campus band or musician. Students must have experience operating a video camera and have access to a digital editing platform or be familiar with Final Cut Pro.

Credits: 4

The goals of this course are two-fold. First, the history of silent film through the advent of sound is explored to reveal what early cinema can teach about the present and future of visual culture. Second, students use this exploration into early cinema to improve their film research skills, from data gathering to revision.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An intensive course for cinema studies majors that combines hands-on practice with close analysis. Students explore the art of montage by analyzing the film language of great directors and by shooting and editing short video projects, with an emphasis on the major principles of montage.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Research and practice in film programming practices and histories. Students research historical and contemporary case studies in film programming and exhibition while engaging in their own on-campus programming. They organize film series and screenings, gaining hands-on experience with and studying diverse perspectives on programming, distribution, curating, fundraising, advertising, engaging in audience outreach, event managing, researching, and writing.

Credits: 4

Third cinema was a movement proposed by Latin American directors in the 1960s and further developed by African directors in the 1970s. It addresses important questions about independent national cinemas, colonialism, race, and identity. This course examines the movement and its global influence, with emphasis on the cinemas of Latin America, Africa, black Britain, and American minorities.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An intensive focus on the intersection between cinema and history. Students examine the debates around cinema’s status as historical document, surveying different approaches to the relationship between cinematic formal traditions and social history. The course emphasizes the analysis of primary sources, such as reviews, posters, magazine and newspaper articles, personal correspondence, trade publications, and blogs.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Through a historical survey of documentary and ethnographic film, this course explores documentary theory, aesthetics, and ethics. Topics include early cinema, World War II propaganda, cinema verité, radical documentary, the essay film, counter-ethnographies, and contemporary mixed forms. Films by the Lumières, Flaherty, Marker, Rouch, Minh-ha, and others.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Asian cinema is often rechanneled by the socio-political and cultural situations created by colonialism, wars, revolutions, and global capitalism. This course examines Asian cinemas within the context of international film history and explores significant genres, movements, and themes from the 1920s to the present. The course investigates how the transnational cinematic flow engages with discourses on nationalism, internationalism and cosmopolitanism.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1510 Or CIN1030

Students in this course will write, shoot and edit short documentary and/or fiction films reflecting the culture and country where the films are shot. International student teams work together on locations in USA, Haiti and Africa to produce films which will be screened at cultural events and film festivals.

Credits: 1

Working in collaboration with students from film schools in France and Africa, students engage in preproduction via video conference on film projects they will complete together during a subsequent summer study abroad session. Students also examine contemporary cinematic trends in France and Africa, with special focus on diverse geographical settings, cultural and aesthetic histories, and conditions of production and exhibition.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An intense focus on sound technology, with careful attention to the way image, dialogue, music, and sound interact in both film and video. The history of sound technology and sound theory are explored by comparing sound innovations in other fields (music, radio, television) to developments in film/video. Films include The Jazz Singer, The Conversation, Pi, and Run Lola Run.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

The history of moving images is marked by class struggle, on screen and behind the camera. Cinema, in turn, has itself both upheld and helped to reveal class relations. Students will learn key Marxist concepts related to capitalism and class, and how these concepts are activated within film history and practice.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1510

As a global internet TV network, Netflix produces and distributes fiction films, documentaries and television series in Latin America. By paying close attention to this content, students examine the quickly-evolving media landscape in Latin America, evaluating the ways in which Netflix has impacted production and distribution in the region. Students should have access to Netflix.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1510

Examines the state of television today, with special attention to new genres, narratives, technologies, audiences, and corporate practices, with special attention to the growth of cable networks, online sites, streaming serials, new modes of spectatorship, and new forms of fan culture.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A survey of the development of broadcasting and electronic media in the United States. It emphasizes the cultural and institutional history of the medium, as well as the aesthetic of televisual genres.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A survey of the history of Mexican cinema from the early 1930s to the present. Students examine popular genres like la comedia ranchera (Mexican cowboy musical), el género cabaretil (dancehall film), and el cine de luchadores (wrestling film) as well as the work of the most prominent Mexican filmmakers (e.g., Arturo Ripstein, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Nicolás Echeverría, María Novaro, Guillermo del Toro).

Credits: 4

The films covered offer an opportunity to deeply analyze the formation of national identity, migration, gender and race relations, social inequalities, the rural and urban worlds, and political events that have had an impact on the contemporary societies of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A survey of animated filmmaking from the inception of cinema to the contemporary era.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Explores the role of cinematic representation in shaping the urban imagination. Taking both a historical and a comparative approach, students study the figuration of American, European, and non-Western cities from the silent era to the digital age. Discussions include how cinema has portrayed these metropolitan areas and their people, cultures, and public and private spaces.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

As people migrate across the globe, their media forms move with them—sometimes following them, documenting their movement, other times traveling with them, as traces of their home cultures. Focusing on a variety of transnational media forms, this course examines how media producers treat themes of home, nation, belonging, migration, immigration, displacement, alienation, border crossing, and mobile identities.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: (CIN1500 And CIN1510 ) Or MSA2200 Or NME2100

Sophisticated works in the heterogeneous genres of personal documentary and essay film re-situate self and environment, subverting dominant practices to produce new meaning. Students examine projects from diverse cultural contexts transgressing categories of narrative, documentary, and avant-garde, critical texts from cinema and media studies to feminist theory and disability studies, producing moving image exercises in addition to written texts.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1510 Or CIN1030

A detailed examination of a filmmaker’s career. Students analyze films in light of a filmmaker’s entire output while situating the artist’s creative process in relation to the industrial and historical context. The course also introduces students to the tradition of auteur criticism.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

In this course, affect is considered as a form of power—the embodied capacity to affect and be affected. Students explore affective genres of visual culture, such as horror, comedy, melodrama, and pornography. The course draws on a range of theoretical perspectives on affect and emotion, emphasizing work from psychoanalysis, philosophy, feminism, and queer theory.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A study of contemporary global cinema and recent trends in cinematic style and narrative. The course focuses on non-American/non-European cinemas and co-productions and on important developments in the regional cinemas of Africa and Latin America. The final quarter examines “cinema” from a global perspective, particularly the extent to which new technology and cultural circuits have fostered techniques, styles, and narrative forms.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Examines recent debates in media theory, offering critical frameworks to understand the complexities of what a “medium” is, its forms and aesthetics, how it circulates and interacts with subjects and objects, and how it culturally signifies. Critical inquiry is grounded in a range of media texts, from films to reality TV, video games, and artworks.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Networked computing has reconfigured cultural production, distribution, textual practices, and consumption. Students investigate how cinema registers these shifts by analyzing films that address the internet and by examining the ways that computing technologies renew film’s significance. Readings cover the latest conversations in media theory, addressing such issues as photographic indexicality, database narratives, digital aesthetics, software studies, and social media.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Historical trauma has characterized the 20th century. Traumatic events return in unexpected forms, haunting communities and shaping both collective memory and mourning practices. Taking a comparative approach across national cinemas, this course analyzes the historical context, style, and narratives of films that circle around the question of trauma. The course covers German, Israeli, Chilean, Japanese, Russian, and American cinemas.

Credits: 4

Emerging queer cinema is explored in its historical contexts and its relation to contemporary theories of gender, sexuality, and their intersection with race, class, and nationality. The course focuses on the “queering of the gaze,” interrogating conventional notions of representation, desire, identification, filmmaking, and spectatorship. Featured directors: Warhol, Fassbinder, Haynes, Von Trotta, Akerman, Rozema, La Bruce, Araki, Denis, Jarman.

Credits: 4

An in-depth look at French-language cinema “beyond the hexagon”—that is, film and media originating from regions of the world outside of France, including Africa, the Middle East, the French Caribbean, Belgium, Switzerland, and Québec. The impact of diverse geographical settings, cultural histories, and conditions of production and exhibition are addressed, along with such factors as colonialization, hybridity, diaspora, and globalization.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Stanley Kubrick was one of the most original and cinematic of all film directors. His films were highly original in form, with an innovative use of the medium’s primary elements, including editing, composition, and camera movement. Most were also adaptations of classic and contemporary literature. His ability to transform an author’s literary vision into his cinematic vision was one of the keys to his genius. This course analyzes his films on their own terms and in comparison to their literary sources.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A detailed examination of the notion of film genre, and consideration of one or more classical Hollywood genres, including the western, musical, melodrama, and film noir.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

In light of a resurgence of the western in film and television, this course spans the history of the genre, from the earliest silent screen versions of dime store novels to its contemporary manifestations. While paying careful attention to the western as myth, epic, and landscape art, the course also explores themes of freedom, justice, and individualism as embedded and transformed in the genre.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Film noir represents the intersection of theme and style that gave American films from 1941 to 1955 a new cynicism, moral ambiguity, and atmosphere of terror. This course attempts to define and explore the concept of film noir by close analysis of films like The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, Detour, The Big Heat, The Big Combo, Somewhere in the Night, and Kiss Me Deadly.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

History of American independent filmmaking from the 1940s to the present. Focuses on a range of directors, including Sam Fuller, Morris Engel, John Cassavetes, and Robert Altman.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An examination of the political imaginary of 21st century Hollywood film. Drawing on the writings of Siegfried Kracauer, students place contemporary American cinema in a comparative historical framework in order to understand the complex ways that ideological formations (imperialism, authoritarianism, racism, neoliberalism, leftism/progressivism) are encoded within the imagery and narratives of popular film and related media.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1510

Investigation of a range of filmmakers who attempt to convey the spiritual through manipulation of film form. Films by Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, Tarkovsky, and others.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

In this course on internationally acclaimed auteurs of East Asian cinema (Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea), emphasis is placed on the concepts of “national cinema” and “new waves.” In particular, the critique of nationalism via a radicalization of both content and form in the various new waves is examined.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A key element of the classical Hollywood tradition (e.g., classical form, the auteur, the star system, or studio practices) is considered in detail.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

American cinema underwent significant upheaval during the 1950s with the crumbling of the studio system, the proliferation of television, fallout from the McCarthy hearings, and the Cold War. This course examines how such directors as Minnelli, Fuller, Welles, Preminger, Sirk, and Ray responded to these extremes, with attention to the historical circumstances and formal innovations that defined the era.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

A study of American mainstream films of the “New Hollywood” or “New American” period of cinema, c. 1965 to the present. Students explore the evolution of American popular cinema in relation to stylistic innovation in international cinema, shifting audience demographics in the domestic market, and industrial and social change in the U.S.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Survey of Italian cinema of the postneorealist era, with special focus on the films of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An advanced seminar focusing on the criticism of André Bazin, a co-founder of the influential magazine Cahiers du Cinéma and prolific author (What is Cinema? Vol. 1 and 2); the cinema that he championed, including Italian neorealism; his influence on post–World War II film studies and criticism; and his current renaissance in contemporary filmmaking and criticism.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An examination of cinema in the Israeli and Palestinian context, from the Lumière brothers’ actualities to contemporary productions by Ari Folman, Amos Gitai, Michel Khleifi, and Elia Suleiman. What role has the medium played in articulating ethnoreligious identity, national ideology, traumatic historical experience, and conflicting territorial claims? How do Middle Eastern films challenge traditional conceptions of cinematic space and time?

Credits: 4

The French refer to filmmaking as the seventh art, i.e., an art form on the level of other fine arts. This course examines French cinema from the silent era to 1970, with special focus on poetic realism and the French New Wave. Films by Vigo, Carné, Renoir, Melville, Truffaut, Godard, Rivette, Rohmer, Resnais, Marker, Varda, and others.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Melodrama is both a historical genre and a mode of imagination that operates across media. To bridge these two aspects of melodrama, the course examines its theatrical origins, the film genres that employ its rhetorical devices (the woman’s film, action and disaster films, horror), and its further development in television series and soap operas.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An examination of how environments are represented across media forms and how they mediate cultural practices. Media forms include landscape painting, nature photography, art installations, music, nature writing, science fiction writing, and eco-cinema. Cultural practices include romantic, philosophical, and aesthetic traditions; indigeneities, nationalism, environmentalism, warfare, eco-mafias; and the arts and sciences of biomedia.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: (CIN1500 And CIN1510 ) Or MSA1050 Or ANT1500

A survey of the most important developments in film theory. The goal is to familiarize students with the diversity of critical approaches in film studies and increase understanding of both the aesthetic qualities and social forces at work. Topics include the relationship of film to other forms of media and alternative or counter-hegemonic conceptions of cinema.

Credits: 4

Prepares cinema studies majors for the conception and writing of their senior project. The course emphasizes research skills, the formulation of a prospectus and a literature review, the development of a bibliography and a filmography, and the outline of a schedule for completion of the project.

Credits: 2

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

An introduction to the craft of digital filmmaking: cinematography, lighting, staging, sound mixing, and editing. Students work in groups on short exercises to develop their skills and collaborate on a final short film.

Credits: 3

In this introduction to the basics of documentary filmmaking, students learn what it means to construct a visual argument, with attention to process, place, documentary ethics, and good interviewing techniques. Production is complemented by screenings, class discussions, and demonstrations.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: FLM1050 Or COM1400

In this continuation of Documentary Filmmaking, students design, research, and produce their own documentary film. Screenings, class discussions, and group critique complement the production of the film.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: FLM3025 Or CIN3320

An intensive production-oriented course designed to familiarize students with the fundamentals of storytelling in narrative film. The course covers dramatic and stylistic elements of filmmaking. Students direct and edit three short films during the semester, each assignment demonstrating specific principles covered in class.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: FLM1050 Or COM1400 Or PSW1010

Students closely analyze the construction and purpose of a short sequence in the context of the overall story. This course examines the various emotional and intellectual levels layered within a scene that can and do impact the audience. Students write, direct, and edit a short film during the semester.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: CIN1100 Or FLM3050

Students explore the underlying historical narratives of films from 1930 to 1960 that address topics from early America. These narratives are compared to the ways Hollywood recast historical lessons to suit modern circumstances and to promote “American values” challenged by economic depression and the rise of fascism and communism. Special emphasis is on the works of Ford and Capra.

Credits: 4

Considers the intersections of sexual difference and cinema. Topics include theories of enunciation and sexual difference, female authorship and the idea of “women’s cinema,” gender and genre, woman as spectacle, the female spectator, and feminist film theory. Representations of sexual difference in films by selected male directors are studied as a means of examining the institution(s) of cinematic expression. The bulk of the course is devoted to studying women directors as they attempt to work within and against that institution.

Credits: 4

Surrealist literature, films, and art in France, Spain, and Latin America. Artists include Aragon, Breton, Buñuel, Césaire, Char, Dali, Eluard, and Lorca. Works are read in translation and lectures given in English; students with French and/or Spanish are encouraged to read in the original language.

Credits: 4

In 1991, The Real World pioneered a genre of “unscripted” television that reshaped national media culture, culminating in the reality of the 2016 election. Students study theories of Hall, Habermas and Gramsci to explore how the genre reflects and shapes attitudes of U.S. audiences to surveillance, class conflict, and the performance of truths. Examples include Jersey Shore and American Idol.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 Or MSA1050 Or NME1050

Students collaborate with students in other cultures, using the Internet to produce videos on subjects of mutual interest. Because the focus is on developing a cross-cultural dialogue, basic video production experience is expected. Before moving to video, the two groups collaboratively write fiction. During the semester, they meet in video conferences with their peers abroad to discuss their productions. Previous semesters have included collaborations with students at universities in Belarus, Turkey, Mexico, Germany, and Lithuania.

Credits: 4

A critical examination of influential attempts to understand the nature of the cinematic medium. Questions raised include: Is film a fine art? Must a movie “represent reality” if it is to succeed as a movie? Are there certain insights into human experience that are better expressed through film than through other media? Readings include Siegfried Kracauer, André Bazin, and Stanley Cavell.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: (CIN1500 And CIN1510 ) Or PHI1515 Or PHI2110 Or PHI3212

Learn the fundamentals of television (episodic/serial) writing. All aspects of dramatic storytelling in the episodic/serial form will be covered - from proper formatting to television's various dramatic structures and genres. Students will complete exercises that reinforce the concepts and present these for in-class workshops.

Credits: 4

An introductory survey of music, theatre, and dance in Western and non-Western cultures, including the relationships between music and religion, dance and weddings, theatre and curing. The course also explores the performing arts as aesthetic phenomena in their own right. Live performances by non-Western performers and optional field trips are planned.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: ANT1500 Or MSA1050 Or NME1050

An examination of contemporary art outside of the traditional media of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Looking at painting-based performances of the 1950s, feminist body art, guerrilla television, and current political interventions based in digital media, students identify the strategies artists used to create new forms, and assess their success in modifying our understanding of the world.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

A focused inquiry into the process of designing for, and the creation of, interactive platforms for the purposes of entertainment, persuasion, recreation, and/or human enrichment where the viewer is an active participant. This course is an intensive investigation into considerations surrounding interactive, or experience-oriented, design spaces, and samples supplemental readings from sociology, anthropology, and game theory. You will be required to work collaboratively to pursue concepts through a series of physical and digital investigations.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: (DES2460 And DES3510 ) And DES3200

Builds on the principles and skills of time-based and interactive design introduced in DES 2460. Technique, theory, and practice are further explored through projects using time, on-screen spatiality, transition, kinetic typography, narrative, and sound. Projects address linear and nonlinear environments such as film and television titling, DVD menus, web splash pages, and graphics for mobile devices.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: DES2460

A combined lecture/studio course that examines ethical and social issues in contemporary artistic production and design. The goal is to develop active research about such urgent issues as ecology, body politics and gender, race and urban justice, and human rights, with respect to new futures. Projects incorporate art installations, visualizations, websites, performances, and public campaigns by focusing on creative public engagement.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: NME2100 Or (DES2600 And DES2460 )

Focuses on print communication, primarily graphic design, in the Western world from the late 19th century to the present. A brief summary of important historical precedents launches a chronological series of lectures on significant movements and individuals and the economic, political, and technological developments that have influenced modern and contemporary print communication.

Credits: 4

An introduction to problem solving, using computers. Emphasis is on programming, including the study of syntax, semantics, logical structures, graphics, and object-oriented programming. General topics of algorithm development, formulating problems, finding methods for computer solutions, differences among computer languages, and trends in the industry are also discussed. Experience is acquired through hands-on labs and several programming assignments.

Credits: 4

Building on the programming introduction in the prerequisite course, students learn about scripting for websites, including HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and php. Topics include the use of cookies, localStorage, video/audio, geolocation, an application program interface such as the Google Maps API, responsive design, and accessibility. Comparisons are made between scripting and compiled languages and client versus server computing.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: MAT1520 Or NME1450 Or MAT1540

Introduces concepts and skills used in analyzing and designing interfaces for computer applications. As students study techniques and “rules of thumb,” they discover that the design and implementation of each interface is a unique challenge, which requires creativity and consideration of technical, aesthetic, and psychological factors. Includes the use of XML, XSL, XHTML-MP, VoiceXML, and usability studies.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: MAT1520 Or NME1520

Social software is explored both from technical and critical perspectives. Hands-on work in conceptualizing, designing, and developing social software projects is informed by examining the evolution of social software and its impact on society. Includes modules on version control, collaborative open source software projects and application programming interfaces. Projects may range in complexity from simple websites to data-driven web applications to real-time applications.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: MAT1420 Or NME1420 Or NME1450 Or MAT1520 Or NME1520

Covers the key conceptual and practical aspects of networking and security, which are increasingly important in the era of the Internet, the connected enterprise and our ever expanding socially networked world. TCP/IP communications protocols are explored at multiple levels of the protocol stack. Performance and reliability issues are also studied, using campus intranet and internet connections. Security topics include encryption, authentication, denial of service attacks, and case studies.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: MAT1520 Or NME1520

An introduction to theories of the media, visual, and performing arts. Using semiotics as a point of departure, students explore the language and iconography of visual communication. The course focuses on works of art, advertising, television, and the web as social contexts of cultural production and analyses the role that ordinary people play in the production of media.

Credits: 3

Examines the connections between computers and culture, with a critical look at how computers may be changing and shaping culture, and how culture affects people’s use and understanding of computers. The course focuses in particular on the ways in which gender, race, and class affect people’s experiences with and understanding of computers. Both work and leisure uses of computers are considered.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: NME1050 Or MSA1050

Media convergence refers to large-scale changes in the ownership and production of media content, as well as the role that audiences and consumers have in its development. This course examines media convergence from the perspectives of queer theory and history, and asks how queer identities, sensibilities, styles, and practices both shape and are shaped by media convergence.

Credits: 4

A hands-on, introductory audio class in which students learn how to use sound in practical and creative ways, in three phases of production: acquisition, manipulation, and reproduction. Students also learn some of the history of artists and makers who use sound as their medium, as well of some of the technical and theoretical aspects of how sound is created and perceived.

Credits: 3

A hands-on introduction to the language of design and design principles with emphasis on composition, color, and type. Software for vector image creation is taught alongside understanding the full design process, from visual research to beta testing. Print output is introduced, although the focus is on screen-based media.

Credits: 4

Using a visual environment that provides immediate feedback, students are taught the basic principles of programming and, by extension, math. Lectures focus on key aspects of programming and how working artists use code creatively in their practice. In this course, math is never the end but rather the means to problem-solve during the creative process.

Credits: 4

Students take this course in the semester that they apply for Advance Standing. Grading is on a pass/no credit basis. Advanced Standing is a portfolio review that asks students to present work from the broad range of foundation classes they have taken. After applying for and receiving Advanced Standing, New Media majors pursue a program of upper-level study in which they may pursue a broad range of individual interests.

Credits: 1

Examines the interplay between new art forms and technologies from early modernism through today. Focusing on how the two fields have developed in relation to each other, the course addresses two questions: what is the relationship between technology, technique, and art, and how has it changed over time? This is both an art survey course and a study of related philosophical questions.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: NME1050 Or MSA1050

An introduction to video as a creative visual, auditory, and spatial medium. Students learn the fundamentals of video production with the goal of making original work in the genres of single-channel tape, performance, and installation. At the same time, students are introduced to key works in the history of time-based arts in a weekly thematic program of viewing, listening, reading, and critique.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME1010 Or NME1100 Or NME1060 Or VIS1330

An intermediate lecture/studio course that explores techniques for creating dynamic, poetic, and lifelike animations in code. Students learn techniques to program movement and the simulation of natural systems and behaviors, and develop works that respond to various inputs. Projects are developed using open-source software environments like Processing and p5.js.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: VIS1450 Or MAT1520 Or NME1450 Or NME1520 Or MAT1420 Or NME1420

Students gain a solid understanding of website creation, using HTML and Cascading Style Sheets. Scripting languages and libraries are also introduced to create more advanced interactions or animations. Along with technical skills, students learn web design fundamentals and how artists have used and even served as authors of the web since its inception.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME1160

Students collaborate with students in other cultures, using the Internet to produce videos on subjects of mutual interest. Because the focus is on developing a cross-cultural dialogue, basic video production experience is expected. Before moving to video, the two groups collaboratively write fiction. During the semester, they meet in video conferences with their peers abroad to discuss their productions. Previous semesters have included collaborations with students at universities in Belarus, Turkey, Mexico, Germany, and Lithuania.

Credits: 4

A growing dialogue surrounding internet art echoes the rhetoric of community-oriented art practices and public art movements of the past. Topics include an introduction to the history of public art; current internet art practice and theory; how networks can serve physical situations or communities, rather than being a purely screen-based phenomenon; policies that are shaping the functionality of the internet; and new artistic possibilities that arise as ubiquitous computing integrates with public space.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2300

A hands-on examination of what it means to live in an information age. Students learn to make sense—and sometimes, new meaning—of data through creative visualizations. The course considers audience together with the politics of information and the persuasion of the visual.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME1160

Examines how contemporary artists and activists are using print media to communicate ideas in public spaces. The course also more generally considers how printed matter has been used to expand popular consciousness since the invention of the printing press. Students produce their own print interventions for public spaces and incorporate digital media to sustain interaction.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

Focuses on the relationship between digitally aided production processes and traditional techniques of drawing and object building. Emphasis is placed on the fabrication of objects and prints in multiples that interact with physical space and the body. Students are also encouraged to develop their own drawing tools and initiate ideas around making with new media technologies.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

The first rule of guerrilla warfare is to know the terrain. Today’s terrain is one of symbols, media spectacles, and technology that artists are uniquely equipped to navigate. In this course, students learn to combine sociological research, communications strategy, technological methods, and artistic tactics to plan effective social interventions. Students should bring their passion, thoughtfulness, compassion, and planning skills.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

Focuses on establishing a broad understanding of the 3-D game engine Unity and a critical understanding of the discourse surrounding modern virtual environments. Students are encouraged to deviate from traditional 3-D games, bringing content and forms of storytelling from other areas of interest. Artists and texts that examine our cultural fascination with the virtual are presented in class. Students are introduced to Unity and to the programming language C#, but some prior programming experience is expected.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME1450 Or MAT1520

Using Pure Data, an open-source, graphical programming environment, students experiment with real-time media processing while exploring conceptual concerns and implications through historical and theoretical readings. Students are encouraged to explore personal experiments integrating these conceptual ideas into projects that may include algorithmic or interactive audio performances, screen-based visuals, or interaction with physical devices.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

Focusing on specialized topics in new media, students work closely with faculty to explore new areas of their practice and research. Students develop projects in particular area of specialization. The curriculum will vary in relation to the faculty member’s practice and research.

Credits: 4

What does it mean to be a photographer in the age of ubiquitous imaging technologies (e.g., cellphones, surveillance cameras, satellites, and drones), social media, and online image databases? Students explore questions related to the status of photography, consider interdisciplinary approaches using emerging technologies (including online platforms, laser cutters, and drones), and work collaboratively in a studio-based environment.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: PHO1100 Or NME1010

An introduction to fine art digital printing and contemporary digital photography. Students expand their two-dimensional image-making skills while developing their artistic vision through the creation of a cohesive body of print-based work. Topics concerning the importance of contemporary photography are discussed in class through lectures and presentations. Students are expected to combine contemporary ideas with the rigor of printing quality images.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

An advanced workshop for highly motivated students who have expressed interest and fluency in time-based video work. The class is devoted to the production of various independent video projects, culminating in a thesis project; in addition, students do multiple presentations focusing on situating their work within historical and contemporary contexts. A wide variety of time-based artworks are explored, including single-channel, multi-channel, and video installation work. Students are expected to have competency with digital video cameras, sound, and editing techniques.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: SCP2420 Or NME2420 And NME2100

An exploration of the ways that graphic techniques can be used by video artists, animators, and designers in their work. Through lectures and presentations, students are exposed to the work of artists who use a variety of approaches, from abstract animation to kinetic text and transformation of live-action video. Students learn about key framing, matting, compositing, working in 3-D spaces, and other computer-based video processes. A special emphasis is placed on issues in contemporary video art, and the ways in which video graphics are used to explore these ideas.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

People are entangled in a dark ecology, in which humans, marshes, car parks, and foreign rubber plantations are all intimately connected. Students explore methods of investigation drawn from both scientific and artistic modes of inquiry, such as mapping, poetic and scientific sensing, visualization, and photography. How can public interventions shift how individuals perceive and represent their deep connections to environmental systems?

Credits: 3

PREREQ: NME1450 Or MAT1520

Students break down the physical barrier of the personal computer and bring computing into the “real” world. The main tool used for this purpose is the Arduino, an open-source micro-controller popular with artists and makers. Students are introduced to theories of game design (both historical and modern) and apply them to their class projects; the course also explores the societal implications of building and programming and repurposing personal electronics, and examines artists and makers who have used physical computing for creative expression.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: (NME1420 Or MAT1420 ) Or (NME1520 Or MAT1520 )

The ease with which digital tools allow people to copy, paste, and recombine creative work challenges long-held ideas about originality and creativity. In this combined studio/lecture course, students examine the theory and history of appropriation, sampling, quotation, and reuse in the arts, while simultaneously creating their own multidisciplinary works that engage with contemporary ideas related to these issues.

Credits: 4

Students develop a definition of new media through a range of learning experiences. These include a survey of work in the field, with guest artists and class trips to galleries, media production houses, and events; students’ critical writing and interactive discussions about what they are experiencing; and teacher-structured and student-initiated collaborative projects in which students test different creative roles, using various media.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: NME2100

Students create custom projects using inexpensive, bank card–sized computers for art installations and works for the public good. In the process, their knowledge of text-based interfaces, free culture, collaboration, circuit building, and the history of creative computing/hacking is deepened.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: NME1450 Or MAT1420 Or MAT1520

Students meet weekly to discuss some of the seminal texts in new media and to make presentations on their senior project proposals. By the end of the semester, each student has a website describing his or her project and a working timeline.

Credits: 2

Students meet weekly to develop their senior projects further, design the new media exhibition, and practice writing proposals to external organizations and preparing their résumés.

Credits: 2

PREREQ: NME4880

An introduction to the basic concepts and techniques of digital photography. Exposure, composition, color, retouching, resolution, and preparation of image files for on-screen and print use are among the techniques covered. Assignments include both technical and aesthetic concerns.

Credits: 4

Students explore the effect of landscapes and surroundings in Pisciotta, Italy, and develop their personal vision by observing and leveraging those landscapes and translating their experiences into powerful images. Working with digital cameras (a simple one is fine), students create a personal photographic essay, depicting what they see through the lens of their surroundings.

Credits: 4

In this digital fabrication course, students explore the relationship between the three-dimensional world and digital technology. In this creative new-media environment, students are given a foundation for developing 3-D content and integrating it into their preferred field. Students generate digital objects, prepare them for real-world fabrication, and create virtual-reality simulations and photorealistic sculpture proposals. This course will utilize laser-cutters, CNC router and 3D printers.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: VIS1260 Or NME2100

Sound is explored as material in the context of the visual arts, using DAT recorders, sampling, synthesis, processing, computers, sensor control, and MIDI systems. Projects may include making sonic instruments, sounding objects, and experimental video; ambient, interactive, performative, and multimedia installations; and surround-sound DVDs. Advanced technological means enable uncharted explorations in the time-based arts.

Credits: 3

Explores the genre of alternate reality or pervasive gaming currently used as an alternative to traditional performance by contemporary theatrical and visual artists, dancers, and musicians. The blurring distinctions between game and narrative are examined, opening new possibilities for performance. Students design and stage their own live alternate-reality game as a means of storytelling or extend an existing narrative through transmedia.

Credits: 4

An overview of electronic media and its relationship to the fine arts. This course covers the genre from its infancy to the present and focuses on the study of the art and artists critical to the genre’s development. Lectures, hands-on demonstrations, and visiting artists are augmented by assigned readings, critical writing, and examinations.

Credits: 3

The art and architecture of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe, presented in terms of their visual and cultural significance.

Credits: 4

A survey of the history of Western art, including the works of Masaccio, Van Eyck, Donatello, Bosch, Michelangelo, and Leonardo; followed by the rise of national styles in the 17th and 18th centuries in France and England. Nineteenth-century neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, and postimpressionism, as well as modernism and developments in 20th-century art, are also covered. The discussion is required.

Credits: 3

COREQ: ARH1021

A discussion of the history of Western art, including the works of Masaccio, Van Eyck, Donatello, Bosch, Michelangelo, and Leonardo; followed by the rise of national styles in the 17th and 18th centuries in France and England. Nineteenth-century neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, impressionism, and postimpressionism, as well as modernism and developments in 20th-century art, are also covered.

Credits: 1

COREQ: ARH1020

In this seminar-style course, freshmen will explore the aesthetic, historical, and literary context of a given exhibition at the Neuberger Museum of Art. Through close observation, readings, and discussion, students will gain a deep knowledge of the artists in the exhibition, the aesthetic and social questions relevant to the artists’ work, and the curatorial logic guiding the exhibition.

Credits: 4

The work of Courbet, Manet, and the circle of the Impressionists sets the stage for the revolutionary modern movements of the 20th century (e.g., Cubism, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism). The course concludes with those artists who came to prominence in America at the time of World War II.

Credits: 4

Introduces the diversity of practices that have dominated the history of art since World War II. Movements include: Abstract Expressionism, postwar European painting, happenings, Fluxus, Pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, and postmodernism. While European and North American art are emphasized, Asian and Latin American art are also addressed, particularly in the context of increasing globalization.

Credits: 4

COREQ: ARH2061

Introduces the diversity of practices that have dominated the history of art since World War II. Movements include: Abstract Expressionism, postwar European painting, happenings, Fluxus, Pop art, minimalism, conceptual art, performance art, and postmodernism. While European and North American art are emphasized, Asian and Latin American art are also addressed, particularly in the context of increasing globalization.

Credits: 1

COREQ: ARH2060

Explores a range of topics, including the history of art museums, current theories and methodologies of display, and museum administration. In addition to class discussion, students meet with museum personnel from the Neuberger Museum of Art to learn the basics of museum operations, including curatorial work, exhibition design, registration, education and public programming, marketing, public relations, and finance.

Credits: 3

An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture during the European Middle Ages, from the end of the Roman Empire through the Gothic era (c. 300–1400). French and Italian art are emphasized, but works from every part of Christian Europe, from England and Spain to the Byzantine Empire, are included.

Credits: 4

What is American about American art, and how have questions of race and ethnic and cultural identity shaped our visual culture? Offering an interpretive overview of American history through the lens of American culture, this course traces the formation of American identity from the eve of the European arrival in North America to shortly before the beginning of World War I.

Credits: 4

An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture produced in Italy from the late 13th century to the late 15th century, including Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Piero della Francesca, and Botticelli.

Credits: 4

An examination of painting, sculpture, and architecture in Italy during the 16th century. The course begins with an in-depth study of the works of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Bramante, Giorgione, and Titian, and then traces the evolution of the anticlassical style known as mannerism.

Credits: 4

Developments in Greek sculpture, vase painting, and architecture are traced from the destruction of the Mycenaean palaces (c. 1200 BCE) to the rise of the Roman Empire (1st and 2nd centuries BCE). Topics include the impact of Near Eastern civilizations on early Greek culture, the “classical” style’s florescence in 5th-century Athens, and the creation of the Hellenistic world by Alexander the Great.

Credits: 4

Begins by examining the relation between landscape and modernity in nineteenth-century painting and photography, ranging from Impressionism to travel and survey photography. We then track modern art’s changing relation to both the natural and built environment through land art, earth art, and the New Topographics movement of the 1960s and 1970s, concluding with contemporary art of the human-altered environment.

Credits: 4

This survey examines the arts and architecture of Africa in a global context from the 13th century to the present. In regional studies of the continent’s vast territory and diaspora, we analyze artworks to consider their roles in daily life, ritual, displays of power and prestige, artistic exploration and innovation, and more. Weekly visits to the Neuberger Museum are required.

Credits: 4

Examines the arts and architecture of Africa in the 20th and 21st centuries, engaging critically with how the field of modern and contemporary African art has developed. Students consider the influence of cross-cultural interactions on artistic practices, concepts of traditional, popular, and high art, colonialism and independence movements, primitivism, the rise of African modernisms, Afro-futurism, and more.

Credits: 4

An introduction to women artists from the Renaissance era through the Enlightenment, including Anguissola, Gentileschi, Vigée-Lebrun, and Kauffmann. Topics include access to professions, constructions of sexuality and gender, and attitudes toward the body in representation.

Credits: 4

Since the 1800s, the avant-gardes have tried to resist the delimited role of fine art in Western culture. In this course, students examine the strategies that avant-garde artists have used to reconnect their art practice with the more contentious areas of social and political life.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

Students contextualize Beninese contemporary art and culture into the larger context of West African history. Readings in African history and post-colonial theory accompany hands-on workshops on how to make and write about art while visiting Benin. Students will write response papers, participate in class discussions, and make work using the methods presented in the course.

Credits: 4

Half of this team-taught course is devoted to examining Johannes Vermeer’s subjects, painting techniques, and reception. The other half examines the invention and use of comparable subjects and literary techniques during the three eras in which Vermeer figured prominently on the global stage: the Dutch Golden Age, the American Gilded Age, and the US financial boom of the 1990s.

Credits: 4

Takes a broad view of the aesthetic, historical, and conceptual development of modern and contemporary art and architecture of the Middle East. Topics include legacies of Orientalism; colonialism and decolonization; religion and secularization; relationships between art and nation-building; the rise of petrocultures; and questions of reception in the context of global contemporary art.

Credits: 4

Explores the history of twentieth-century architecture through the modern city, tracing the rise and occasional decline of the metropolis internationally. Students analyze how architects and urban planners proposed new visions of urban life and devised solutions for urgent social and political problems related to urbanization (e.g. public space, housing, gentrification, globalization).

Credits: 4

Explore the history of colors within global art history in a global context. Factors like the availability and cost of pigments, trade routes, religious and political meanings will be considered, along with the impact of industrial color production, globalization, marketing and digital technology on our understanding of colors.

Credits: 4

Atlantic art forms from 1801, the founding the first multi-racial republic of Haïti to the present. Iconography, style, and materials are considered, along with issues of colonialism, religion, and gender. Students engage with both primary sources and recent scholarly analyses, as well as the collections at the Neuberger Museum of Art.

Credits: 4

How and why do certain artworks become embroiled in major public debates, political scandals, and legal disputes? Beginning with the 1863 Salon des Refusés and continuing to the present day through an itinerary that travels the globe, students will examine the role of controversy in defining art, society, and how we imagine the relationship between the two.

Credits: 4

The paintings of Michelangelo Mersisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610) had a revolutionary impact on the art world of his era, and the fascination with his extraordinary re-evaluation of pictorial effects continues to this day. This course examines Caravaggio’s art and career and considers responses to his work by other artists, including film directors, up to the present.

Credits: 4

Examines the relationship between the traditional crafts and the upheavals of modernity. Beginning with the Arts and Crafts movement in the 19th century and continuing to the present day, students explore how craft is framed as protest against industrialization, as utopian model of labor and exchange, and as aesthetic transformation.

Credits: 4

Examine the display of objects in principle and in practice from the early modern through the modern era. Focus on the way meanings were created through acts of presentation across a range of sites, including scientific collections, cabinets of wonders, salons, stores, shop windows and museums.

Credits: 4

A study of African American painting, sculpture, architecture, prints, drawings, photography, film, and vernacular and popular art. The course begins with the Afro-Atlantic era and covers images made by Southern artists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as artists associated with the “New Negro” movement, the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, and postmodernism.

Credits: 4

Focuses on women artists and their place within the art-historical narrative of the 20th century. Students examine both the diverse practices of women artists and the reception of their work by critics, dealers, and collectors.

Credits: 4

An introduction to a wide range of photographic practices, from the medium’s conception in the 19th century to the ubiquitous online photo-sharing of today. Lectures have a special focus on the major artistic developments of photography. Topics include the significance of vernacular practices and their historical contexts in different parts of the world.

Credits: 4

Treats the history of photography in a global framework. Topics include the transformation of photography as it spreads from Europe to Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East; the decentering of European modernism in postmodernism; the role of photography in colonialism and decolonization; and its role in fine art as well as vernacular portraiture, journalism, documentary, and other fields.

Credits: 4

Examines the photographic medium from its earliest forms through the 1920s and 1930s. Topics include technical innovations, manipulations and interventions, function and reception, the relationship to the fine arts, and debates about photography’s claims of realism.

Credits: 4

A study of the German painter, printmaker, and draftsman Albrecht Dürer. The artist’s interests in science, politics, religious conflicts, sexuality, and the non-Western world are emphasized.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Or HIS1000-2994 Or HIS3000-3994 Or HIS4000-4994

Examines the history of painting and sculpture in Northern Europe from the 14th century to c. 1570. Flemish, Dutch, French, German, and Czech works are considered, with emphasis on such artists as the Limbourg Brothers, Van Eyck, Bosch, Dürer, and Bruegel.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994 Or HIS1000-2994 Or HIS3000-3994 Or HIS4000-4994

From ancient to neoclassical, Campania’s monuments are overwhelming with the riches of the past. Students delve into the histories of these great works and the ways they have shaped the modern world through the development of revivalist styles, academic disciplines, and tourism as a leisure activity. Includes visits to such historic sites as Pompeii, Paestum, Amalfi, and Naples.

Credits: 4

Investigates the themes, diverse genres, and major figures in 17th-century Dutch painting. Current problems of interpretation are examined, including the idea that there may have been a specifically northern form of visual thinking.

Credits: 4

Despite a growing interest in the work of the Russian avant-garde, there is still relatively little known about the artists of the late Russian Empire and the early Soviet Union. This course addresses the broad scope and multidisciplinary practice of Russian modernism, from the shocking primitivism of The Rite of Spring to the cold pragmatism of constructivism.

Credits: 4

An examination of the visual arts in Venice and its hinterland from the early Middle Ages to the end of the Venetian Republic in 1797. In addition to in-depth treatment of such artists as Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, and Tiepolo, the social context of the arts and the unique urban development of Venice are studied in detail.

Credits: 4

A study of the representation of Asians, Africans, and Americans (and their native lands) in European and American art from the end of the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. Some consideration is also given to the impact of non-Western arts on the European tradition.

Credits: 4

Design is both a noun and a verb. This course deals with the idea of design as a cultural phenomenon and a creative practice. Contemporary design and its making are situated within a broad methodological framework, drawing from existing and emerging theories in anthropology, art history, film studies, criticism, the history of technology, and architecture.

Credits: 4

Focuses on contemporary Latin American artists working in and out of Latin America: Gabriel Orozco, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Adriana Varejao, Teresa Margolles, Carlos Garaicoa, Betsabeé Romero, Javier Tellez, Nadín Ospina, Tania Bruguera, and Nicolás de Jesus. Students analyze the way these artists address such questions as urban violence, social inequality, pollution, emigration, and national identity.

Credits: 4

Examines the history of design as it parallels the history of technology and industrialization. Covering a variety of design disciplines, including architecture and urban planning, graphic design, fashion, and industrial design, this course focuses less on aesthetics than on the cultural programs that have shaped buildings, objects, and communication systems for more than two centuries.

Credits: 4

The simultaneous development of various painters associated with Impressionism (e.g., Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Pissarro, Manet, Degas, Cassatt) is presented. This radical new art movement is traced from the first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 to the last exhibition of 1886 and the appearance of the post-Impressionists. Students explore the shared relationships of the Impressionist artists.

Credits: 4

Examines a selection of poetry, short stories, novels, and films from different historical periods that foreground the visual arts through various means, including the character of the artist, the practices of art, the nature of creativity, and the critical reception of art.

Credits: 4

European art from the French Revolution to 1900, with movements in France, Germany, and England receiving particular attention. Major artists studied include David, Gericault, Delacroix, Ingres, Frederich, Constable, Turner, the Pre-Raphaelites, Daumier, Manet, Degas, Monet, and Gauguin.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

An examination of visual artists who have used performance as an integral component of their practice, with emphasis on post-1950 object-oriented work (rather than theatre or dance). Both primary texts and critical interpretations are studied.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH2050 Or ARH2060

An examination of contemporary art outside of the traditional media of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Looking at painting-based performances of the 1950s, feminist body art, guerrilla television, and current political interventions based in digital media, students identify the strategies artists used to create new forms, and assess their success in modifying our understanding of the world.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

From photography’s 19th-century origins to contemporary practices, this survey course explores how and why photography became central to arguments about the modernity of African visual art. Moving from one regional focus to the next, students examine photography’s role in expeditionary and ethnographic projects, identity formation, political activism, spirituality, documenting the landscape, and representing the fantastical and the everyday.

Credits: 4

A variety of intersections between extreme mental conditions and the production of works of art during the modern period are investigated. Topics include connections between creativity and mental instability, artists with a history of mental disorder, and theories about stylistic or formal affinities between madness and art.

Credits: 4

Focuses on the work of French artists from the early modern era to the French Revolution, with special attention to the Gallic obsession with realism, alongside the more abstract aspects of representation.

Credits: 4

An examination of critical and theoretical writing by artists about art. The course considers texts from various eras, but focuses primarily on 20th-century and contemporary material. Artists’ writings are analyzed in the context of art criticism as a whole, and students also have the opportunity try their hand at criticism.

Credits: 4

A broad look at modern and contemporary Mexican art, using an interdisciplinary and comparative approach. Special emphasis is on the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and its aftermath throughout the 20th century. Students analyze links between the visual arts (including mural painting, prints, and photography) and the literature, the popular scene and the mainstream, the street art and the gallery art.

Credits: 4

A survey of Modern and Contemporary Indian art since 1850, examining the rich and complex art practices which have emerged from pre-independent India to date. Focus on the works of the most significant Indian artists; concepts of tradition/modern, nationalism/internationalism and globalization; and on socio-political practices that are reflected in artworks and practices that make Indian art truly distinct

Credits: 4

Provides art history majors with an opportunity to examine the nature of the discipline by analyzing and comparing the writings of several art historians. The seminar concentrates on the work of a single artist in light of various art historical approaches. This writing-intensive course requires a variety of short essays and concludes with a research paper and class presentation. Limited to art history majors.

Credits: 4

Students focus on developing competence in both critical style and content. Focusing on visual art, the course explores different kinds of critical voices, from belle-lettristic to theoretical. Readings and discussions analyze examples by leading critics. Writing assignments aim for students to develop an engaging argument, and the importance of revision, clear thinking, and descriptive ability is stressed.

Credits: 4

Explores ideas of the “normal” and “non-normal” in art and design today. Through readings, guest speakers, and projects, the class investigates both traditional and unusual depictions of bodies, race, and gender, along with the art and design practices developed in order to represent and understand them.

Credits: 4

Participants in this seminar propose, research, plan, and coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming to be undertaken the following semester (as part of the course, Exhibition II). These exhibitions will take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH4035 Or ARH4037

Participants in this seminar coordinate an exhibition series and related public programming based on the plans and preparations of the previous semester (conducted as part of the course, Exhibition I). These exhibitions take place in the Neuberger Museum, other sites around campus, or in a combination of Museum-based and other locations.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: ARH4025

In this seminar, students and the instructor co-curate an exhibition for the Neuberger Museum of Art. The class works on all aspects of the exhibition with the instructor and museum staff. Students learn about the various functions of departments, including curatorial, education, exhibition design, development, and public relations, putting exhibition theory into practice. Exhibition topics vary.

Credits: 4

An investigation of the historical development and function of museums. Students examine the growth of collections and exhibitions, along with the various roles that museums have played in relation to art history and society around the world. Central to this course and its final project is the question: “What should a museum be in the 21st century?”

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH2140 Or ARH4030 Or ARH4715

A rigorous examination of the historical, theoretical, and concrete concerns of curatorial practice. Course-work culminates in a complete exhibition proposal.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH2050 Or ARH2060

Addresses the tension between art and document, or making and recording, in twentieth-century visual culture. The first half investigates the aesthetics and politics of documentary photography and film, including conflicts between realism and modernism. The second half examines the use of documents and documentation by postmodern art and subsequent transformations in the style, form, and truth-content of documentary practices.

Credits: 4

Explores the ways in which ability and disability are conceived, represented, and negotiated in museum culture. Weekly discussions, visiting lecturers and screenings will examine key theoretical concepts, practical case studies, as well as the use of educational and internet-based media as assistive technologies. Specific topics will include: museums and the establishment of norms; the category of “assistive technology”; inclusive architecture and design; staring and other practices of looking; disability and performance art; media advocacy and activism.

Credits: 4

Painting has long been accompanied by theories describing its abilities to attract, deceive, and even harm. This course looks at key theories and debates in the history of the medium (e.g., Rubenistes vs. Poussinistes, painting’s role among pluralistic practices) to better understand how both making and seeing a painting are colored by a history of ideas.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1020 Or ARH2050

A practical course in art criticism, which meets regularly in New York. Contemporary works of art form the basis for lectures, discussions, and written essays.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

Examines how activists and artists have interrogated questions of “normalcy.” We will read deeply in the history of disability rights, as well as theories of personhood, identity, and representation. In so doing, we use ideas from philosophy, anthropology, feminist criticism, and literature to research and explore how art, media and performance studies present bodies deemed nonnormative.

Credits: 4

This seminar focuses on uses of history—as both subject and method—in art around the turn of the 21st century. Within a globally comparative frame, students investigate contemporary theories and practices that take stock of the past in order to reimagine the future at a moment when the world seems simultaneously more connected and more fractured than ever before.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1020 Or ARH2050 Or ARH2060

This seminar delves into the historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of museum and exhibition practices in the U.S., from encyclopedic museums to storefront galleries. In addition to classroom discussion, students visit arts institutions in the area to consider collection and exhibition-related issues and to learn more about the operational function and structure of museums.

Credits: 4

African art and visual culture are considered in the context of African film. African youth, who make up most of the continent’s population, have had a marked effect on many sociopolitical phenomena. The films screened address African youth culture and such issues as the new independence (1960s), post-apartheid South Africa, youth rebels, religious fundamentalism, HIV, hip-hop and digital culture, and global emigration.

Credits: 4

The visual record of the production and consumption of food and drink are examined in this seminar. Topics include food in the still life, the representation of gluttony, and the prominent position of sacred feasts and food miracles in religious art. The primary focus is on Western art, but examples from other traditions are considered.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: ARH1000-1994 Or ARH2000-2994 Or ARH3000-3994 Or ARH4000-4994

In this advanced lecture, the first wave of Gothic novels from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century is examined in relation to visual representations of issues that dominate Gothic discourse. Topics include horror, imprisonment, madness, gender, ghosts and vampires. Authors and artists studied include Austen, the Brontë sisters, Radcliffe, Collins, Blake, Fuseli, and Turner.

Credits: 4

What, if any, moral and political obligations does art have? Should public policy promote some kinds of art and discourage others? This course addresses these and related questions via works from across the arts and philosophical texts.

Credits: 4

In this survey of the historical significance of printmaking, the focus is on understanding the history of print media and its influence on culture in Europe, Asia, and the New World. Students explore both the history of printmaking and its intertwined relationship to the history of art. Of prime concern are the unique and distinct characteristics of each printmaking process.

Credits: 3

Provides an overview of the principles and purpose and practices of public relations. The history of the field will be explored along with present day messaging, tools and tactics utilized by PR professionals and entrepreneurs supporting projects and events in film, music, fashion, beauty, and otherentertainment industries. Areas of focus will include crisis communications, branding, and buzz generating strategies.

Credits: 3

This introduction to the art and science of video production focuses on developing visual literacy and postproduction skills. Starting with an examination of basic video technology and traditional media aesthetics, all stages of the video production process are covered. Students receive introductory technical training and hands-on experience with digital camcorders, microphones, and nonlinear editing equipment.

Credits: 3

The history and impact of communication technologies are examined, beginning with speech and moving forward through print and digital media, advertising and public relations, media regulation and potential, and ending with a consideration of the future.

Credits: 4

The art of the spoken word is studied in many of its forms, including political speeches, story-based podcasts, and slam poetry. Students research and create concise stories; examine the role that rhythm, cadence, structure, and sound patterns play in creating a memorable performance; and then practice delivering the message for their intended audience. Uses and impacts for inspiring, informing, and persuading are considered.

Credits: 2

Students develop expertise in public speaking by preparing and presenting different types of speeches for a variety of purposes. The focus is on the main elements of planning and delivering a speech: the message, the speaker, the audience, and the occasion. All speeches are critiqued in class. As an integral part of the course, students learn PowerPoint.

Credits: 4

Students will learn how to collaborate in order to work with others to achieve goals. Those goals may be personal, social and/or task oriented. Through practical, hands-on exercises, students will apply theories of group interaction to demonstrate their working knowledge of effective process. Students will be able to recognize when groups become stuck and brainstorm ways to move forward.

Credits: 3

Students will learn the fundamental principles of design and how these relate to effective visual communication. We will explore the role that advertising plays in society and how to create effective visual advertisements. Students will also learn the basics of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and how to shoot and edit photos.

Credits: 4

Introduces basic concepts of intercultural communication. By examining communication practices in diverse contexts (e.g., family, education, workplace, health and recreation), students learn how cultural rules and norms are enacted and how violations are sanctioned. International factors, cross-cultural competence, and global citizenship are discussed with the goal of increasing understanding, enhancing each student’s ability to interact appropriately in the U.S. and abroad.

Credits: 2

In this writing intensive course, students build foundational skills in writing for a variety of media and purposes: print, digital, and broadcast media, public relations and advertising. Students begin to explore the divergent applications of written communication by analyzing their roles as both consumers of and writers for media. Ethical and legal issues are also introduced.

Credits: 4

The First Amendment allows the mass media certain freedoms to publish, broadcast, advertise, and promote. Yet with those rights come responsibilities. This course examines the legal and ethical dimensions and issues involved with contemporary American mass media.

Credits: 4

An interdisciplinary (social science and humanities) course that emphasizes critical thinking in understanding the social and historical effects of mass media in the U.S. and throughout the world. This course begins in 19th-century America, when print media shaped and defined the national culture, and concludes in the current century with the mass-media convergence of print, electronic, and digital multimedia that is shaping and defining our global culture.

Credits: 4

Students become acquainted with methods that communication practitioners use to conduct different types of research. Goals include learning to identify, understand, and evaluate diverse research strategies; distinguish between qualitative and quantitative methods, the types of knowledge they produce (big/small data), and the strengths and the weaknesses of each; and think critically about objectivity, researcher standpoint, and research ethics.

Credits: 4

What are the different forms messages take in spoken and written communication? After examining actual messages in different contexts and assessing their impact on individuals and groups, students learn how to craft messages and select the appropriate timing, style, and medium for delivery. Participants have the opportunity to design, deliver, and test the impact of new messages.

Credits: 4

Negotiation is approached from a communication perspective in this course. Students explore the cooperative decision-making process in which individuals and groups work together to attempt to achieve goals that may initially seem divergent. By examining the way language is used to frame arguments and barriers, students practice planning, reframing, and bargaining to maintain roles and relationships.

Credits: 2

Students learn how to inform and influence large audiences about noncommercial issues through a series of purposeful communication activities. By examining cases in environment, health, human and animal welfare, and disaster prevention, participants differentiate successful from unsuccessful campaigns and review the process for crafting appropriate mediated messages and selecting specific channels to produce a desired impact.

Credits: 4

Media literacy encompasses the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. In this course, students learn to critically examine visual, audio, and online media while gaining an understanding of the media’s effect on culture and society.

Credits: 4

The roles and theories of communication and leadership, together with the skills and traits of effective managers, are studied. Students examine how managers use behavioral modification and motivation techniques, develop coaching skills, manage change and conflict, and create a vision for their employees. The topics of strategy, organizational culture, and diversity are also included.

Credits: 4

An examination of the history, cultural impact, and aesthetics of documentary film and video production. Through viewings, lectures, discussions, and hands-on exercises, students learn how to research, write, interview, direct, shoot, and edit a documentary. Using camcorders and editing equipment, students produce their own short documentaries.

Credits: 3

Students learn how to influence others by crafting and orally delivering convincing messages that appeal to logic, reason, emotion, and feelings. Ancient rhetorical and contemporary scholarship is used to examine and compare persuasive speeches and advertisements. The class explores written, face-to-face, and digitally-mediated arguments in legal discourse, health, and marketing promotions. The student’s ability to identify speaking differences in style, arguments, and credibility is also sharpened.

Credits: 4

This course focuses on understanding communication in relationships (interpersonal) and within the mind (intrapsychic: thinking, alone time, analyzing, understanding the external world and how one communicates internally). Topics include communication styles and communication in the intimate relationship, within the family, and at the workplace.

Credits: 4

How do brands communicate during times of crisis? Students will analyze case-studies, leverage best practices and develop their own campaigns to demonstrate how to successfully steer a brand through their most troubling hour. We will touch on key concepts including reputation management, spokesperson training and press conferences, rich and social media, and more in this public relations course.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: COM2050 Or CMS2050

Students will learn different styles of podcasting, best practices for developing and pitching a show, how to use professional audio recorders, basic audio editing techniques with Adobe Audition and how to build an audience and distribute a podcast once it's complete.

Credits: 3

Provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals needed to build an integrated marketing communications plan, from creating a common objective, aligning strategies, and producing a consistent message. By strategically aligning various marketing functions and leveraging each disciplines strength’s, (i.e. paid advertising, public relations, social media, point of purchase and digital marketing), students can more purposefully design campaigns for maximum impact.

Credits: 3

Knowing how to get work done through meetings is an increasingly important skill set. Students explore the discursive strategies used in a variety of multicultural business meetings, both face-to-face and virtual. Using communication methods, students analyze why some meetings are considered productive and others not so much, as well as the roles, relationships, conflict, and written documentation enacted therein.

Credits: 2

Offers hands-on tools to prepare students to market their work while staying true to their artistic and creative sensibilities. Topics include how to submit work to producers, competitions, and companies. Students learn how to write professional synopses, query letters, and one-sheets, plus the technique of pitching, with practice pitching sessions.

Credits: 2

After reviewing basic presentation skills and techniques, student gain experience handling digital devices to record presentations of themselves and others. Providing hands-on instruction and practice for conducting and recording professional presentations and interviews (still frame and in motion), the course also covers essential production elements: shooting and editing, interviewing and selecting sound bites, and writing and voicing.

Credits: 2

Learn how to write, edit, punch up and perform your own unique standup comedy piece. The course will focus on creating comedic stories, joke construction and performance techniques. An essential part of being successful is learning to give and receive feedback. The class will provide a safe, non-judgmental environment where feedback can be shared and everyone can continuously improve.

Credits: 2

Television is much more than a passive, incessant means of diversion—it is a powerful environment of ideas, emotions, and values that influences people’s thoughts, actions, and relationships. Students become acquainted with current issues concerning television in society and explore the impact of television on society. Aspects examined include the 1950s and mass culture, viewer response, serial/episodic structure, and the rise of cable.

Credits: 4

Hands-on work in the TV studio from conceptualization to post-production. In small groups, students will gain a practical understanding of writing, camera work, editing and working with on-camera personalities. The course will be structured as follows: demonstrating skillful use of equipment, enacting production techniques, and coordinating shooting logistics.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: COM1400 Or FLM1050

Students will work in small groups to produce, shoot and edit Purchase Presents, a television show focused on issues happening on campus.

Credits: 3

PREREQ: COM3750 Or JOU3160

One-semester media project or research paper that involves empirical research or library investigation. Course sections are overseen by faculty within each concentration to foster integration of prior coursework, and should be selected in consultation with academic advisors.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI1110 Or WRI2110 Or Or

Explore how history is produced and represented in various media, including documentary film, podcasts, Twitter, blogs and other forms of professional writing. In addition to learning from real-world examples, gain experience analyzing and constructing compelling historical narratives for broad audiences, including researching, writing, producing, recording, and editing a history-based podcast or other multimedia project.

Credits: 4

Building on skills developed in COM3375 Podcasting and Audio Storytelling, students will create longer audio reporting projects with more complex structures. Focus will be on audio documentary and nonfiction narrative storytelling and production.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: COM3375

How do we create meaningful writing for an online readership that scrolls quickly and relies less on the printed page than any other generation? Students will write essays, features, and criticism and identify online publications that suit each project, while guest lecturers offer insight on engaging social media to share reported stories. Students co-edit Expose, Purchase's online expository writing magazine.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI1110

Introduces various aspects of Chinese culture (e.g., values, customs, manners, and festivals) and discusses everyday life in contemporary Chinese society.

Credits: 3

An intensive focus on the intersection between cinema and history. Students examine the debates around cinema’s status as historical document, surveying different approaches to the relationship between cinematic formal traditions and social history. The course emphasizes the analysis of primary sources, such as reviews, posters, magazine and newspaper articles, personal correspondence, trade publications, and blogs.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: CIN1500 And CIN1510

Historical trauma has characterized the 20th century. Traumatic events return in unexpected forms, haunting communities and shaping both collective memory and mourning practices. Taking a comparative approach across national cinemas, this course analyzes the historical context, style, and narratives of films that circle around the question of trauma. The course covers German, Israeli, Chilean, Japanese, Russian, and American cinemas.

Credits: 4

The ancient world to the beginning of the modern world at 1500 AD: an amalgamation of Celtic, Jewish, Greek, Roman, and German historical traditions.

Credits: 4

A study of texts and events that have shaped Western society and culture since 1500.

Credits: 4

Combines a history of the discovery and excavation of famous archaeological sites worldwide with an introduction to archaeological methodology. Students explore the role that material culture plays in understanding social, political, and economic systems and examine the role of archaeologist as interpreter of the past.

Credits: 3

Spotlights moments when history became the focus of wider social debate, including the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a trial involving Holocaust denier David Irving and an academic historian, and the debates that took place between historians concerning the invasion of Iraq. This course illustrates that, by reflecting on fundamental questions about history—how evidence is used, who has agency in history, how people make moral judgments—citizens are better equipped to confront contemporary political and social issues.

Credits: 4

Examines the history of the United States from European colonization and initial contact with Native Americans through the Civil War. Subjects include the diversity of settlement experiences; European-Native American relations; the development of slavery; the causes and consequences of the American Revolution; social, political, and cultural changes in the 18th and 19th centuries; the sectional crisis; and the significance of the Civil War.

Credits: 3

Examines the history of the United States from Reconstruction through the end of the 20th century. Subjects include changes in race and gender relations; industrialization, urbanization, and suburbanization; the emergence of new social and political movements; the impact of war on American institutions; and America’s rise to world power.

Credits: 3

Offers an expansive view of North America’s early history through exploration of the peoples, places and ideas of the United States, Canada, Mexico, and various Caribbean nations. Special emphasis is placed on social history – the lived lives, built environments, cultural collisions, and examples of coexistence among people in an especially-robust phase of human encounter.

Credits: 4

An introductory survey of the history of Latin America from colonial times to the present. Topics include geography, indigenous peoples, colonization and nation formation, society, politics, economy and culture of contemporary Latin America, and its place in today’s world.

Credits: 4

Before the Industrial Revolution, the European Middle Ages enjoyed explosions in urban development, industry, intellectual life, science and technology, and travel. This period witnessed a spike in material consumption that included the things people ingested and their physical environments as well as education and literacy. We will explore these developments and their impact on early modern and modern European society.

Credits: 4

Through lectures, discussion, and the viewing of films, this course compares popular depictions of the Middle Ages with the historical record and modern historiography of the Middle Ages and considers the relationship between fiction and history. Topics include: knighthood, peasants, royalty, religion, warfare and violence and preconceptions about the medieval world that have been inherited from popular culture.

Credits: 4

Topics in history to be determined each semester.

Credits: 3

Explores major social, cultural, economic, and political developments in Latin America from the period following the Wars of Independence to the present. The historical roots of such problems as racism, persistent poverty, and political repression are examined, focusing on “subaltern” groups (e.g., peasants, workers, women, and people of color).

Credits: 4

An exploration of the relationship between Judaism and other religions and cultures in the ancient Mediterranean world. Students will study the historical development of and religious innovation within Judaism in the context of intercultural and interreligious contact in the Greco-Roman period

Credits: 4

Explores the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, including those of Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. Students examine cultural, social, and political movements using texts as well as archaeology as sources.

Credits: 4

Examines how early Jewish interactions with various cultures affected the development of Judaism. Interactions with Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Christian, and Muslim cultures are explored. Topics include conflicts with external powers, exile, and diaspora.

Credits: 4

An exploration of the many religious cults that populated the ancient world from Greece to Egypt to the near East. Students will study the history and development of counter-cultural movements like the Greek cults of Asclepios and Isis, the Jewish sect of Essenes, the messianic Jesus movement, and Roman Mithraism. Students will also examine the distinction between a “religion” and a “cult”.

Credits: 4

A survey of the history of Europe in the Middle Ages (1000–1400). Topics include the expansion of the frontiers of European civilization, the changing forms of intellectual and religious life, and the growth of towns and trade.

Credits: 3

An introductory survey of the history of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest and colonization of the Americas from 1450 to 1810, i.e., from the late preconquest period to the Latin American struggle for independence. Lectures, readings, and discussions provide an overview of the economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions of colonization.

Credits: 4

Examines the origins of modern Europe from the Renaissance in Italy through the Protestant Reformation and the age of religious wars, using both primary source readings and secondary historical scholarship.

Credits: 3

Focuses on the history of Latinos in urban centers across the U.S. and Latin America. Students explore how Latinos established and maintained distinctive social and cultural identities in the Americas. The historical definition of “Latinidad” is also discussed through the study of colonization, immigration, diaspora, globalization, and the history of the racialization of Latin American descendants.

Credits: 4

Explores the political and social transformation of Europe between the religious wars of the 16th century and the French Revolution. Topics include the growth of commercial capitalism and the scientific revolution.

Credits: 3

The invention of sound recording in the late 1800s caused profound aesthetic transformations in music. This course surveys the many styles that have swept through American music—from parlor songs, ragtime, blues, and brass band through R&B, top 40, heavy metal, rap, and hip-hop—and discusses the roles of rural and urban musical centers. Using the last 125 years of technological innovation in recording, students analyze the more significant cultural changes that continue to reverberate throughout American society.

Credits: 4

Explores migration and immigration from 1830 to the present. Major subjects include Native American removal and genocide, the intersection of migration and slavery, immigration exclusion, and race and the making of illegal immigration. Students examine long patterns of U.S. legislative policies alongside on-the-ground experiences and reactions to migration and immigration. The course concludes with an analysis of immigration in the post-9/11 era.

Credits: 4

Covers European institutions, traditions, economies, geopolitical boundaries, and the essential social and intellectual framework of the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. Critical changes and events covered include the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, Napoleon, the revolutions of 1848, romanticism, nationalism, and communism. Readings consist of extensive primary source materials in addition to secondary works.

Credits: 4

Focuses on the prehistory of the Americas from the first peoples through 1492, beginning with the Ice Age cultures of the New World and moving forward chronologically. South, Central, and North American cultures are examined, including the Olmec, Woodlands, and Mississippi Valley cultures, pueblo culture, and the Maya, Aztec, and Inca.

Credits: 4

Explores the encounters and interactions of the major populations who lived on the landmasses rimming the Atlantic Ocean (native peoples, Africans, and Europeans) from 1450 to 1888. Topics include migration, religion, slaves and enslavement, lived lives and material culture, foodways and folkways, the age of revolutions, and the fight for abolition.

Credits: 4

How are we to understand the century that has just ended? This course examines the political, social, and ideological forces that have shaped Europe since World War I. Special attention is paid to the impact of war and revolution, economic change, the Nazi dictatorship, the Cold War and its demise, and the changing role of Europe in world affairs.

Credits: 3

In this examination of the turbulent decade of the 1960s, students explore key social, political, economic, and cultural issues of the era. Specific topics include various struggles for civil rights and social equality; the escalation of the U.S. presence in Vietnam; the sexual revolution; the vision and limitations of the Great Society; and the rise of the New Right.

Credits: 4

Covers the experience of American women from colonial times to the 20th century, from political, social, religious, cultural, and economic points of view.

Credits: 4

Covers the history of Brazil from independence to the present. During this period, Brazil has transformed from a colonial, agrarian, slave society to a predominantly urban, industrialized nation and an aspiring world power. Students explore slavery, racism, urban life, immigration and industrialization, changing gender roles, political repression and military rule, carnaval and popular culture.

Credits: 4

An introduction to modern Japanese history, from the end of the Tokugawa period in the mid-19th century to the present. Japanese imperialism, Japan’s spectacular economic growth after World War II, and U.S.-Japanese relations are discussed.

Credits: 4

Explores African civilizations from the ninth millennium BCE to the 16th century CE. The diverse regions of ancient Africa are studied using archaeology, written and oral history, linguistics, art, and science, following cultural development in simple societies, states, and empires. Ancient Africa is presented in global context in terms of past civilizations but also in modern scholarship, identity, and popular media.

Credits: 4

Covers the history and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. Topics include Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period, Etruscan civilization, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, Roman interactions with neighbors, the birth of Christianity, and the early years of the Byzantine Empire. This course also addresses how to read primary sources, the historiography of antiquity, and how to use archaeological sources.

Credits: 4

How was the Holocaust possible in the 20th century? This course responds to the question by examining specific issues: German anti-Semitism; Hitler’s rise to power; the genocide process; responses to Nazism and the news of the Holocaust in Jewish and international communities; resistance and collaboration; and theological and moral questions.

Credits: 4

A survey of Chinese arts and culture that introduces approaches to and connoisseurship of painting, calligraphy, sculpture, gardens, and architecture in dynamic relation to dynastic changes, literati-scholar tradition, cosmological and aesthetic concepts, and influences of Taoism and Buddhism during the period 221 BC to 1950. Knowledge of Chinese language is not required or expected.

Credits: 3

Investigates the fascinating and complex social, economic, cultural, and political history of South Asia, focusing primarily on the Mughal Empire, British colonial rule in India, and the contemporary nation-states of India and Pakistan. Course materials include introductory history texts, speeches, primary source documents, photographs, musical clips, recipes, short stories, and films.

Credits: 3

Examines the histories of China, Japan, and Korea from the disintegration of the traditional order through the transition to modern nation states. Asian views and perspectives are introduced and discussed.

Credits: 3

Considers the profound influence Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have exerted on the social, cultural, and political history of the East and the West. This course examines the historical developments, tenets, and scriptures of the three religions.

Credits: 3

We will learn the skills needed to “read” the objects of America’s past – household items, buildings, images, etc. - in ways that allow for the interpretation of the lived lives of historical people. This course is excellent preparation for work in history museums, house museums, and other types of historic sites and agencies that preserve history.

Credits: 4

Explore how history is produced and represented in various media, including documentary film, podcasts, Twitter, blogs and other forms of professional writing. In addition to learning from real-world examples, gain experience analyzing and constructing compelling historical narratives for broad audiences, including researching, writing, producing, recording, and editing a history-based podcast or other multimedia project.

Credits: 4

Public history—history museums, historic houses and landscapes, objects, documentary films—reaches and educates millions of Americans. Students explore how these experiences evolve through time and take part in activities related to handling and interpreting the past. Hands-on learning projects and several off-campus lectures at local historic sites are a critical dimension of this course.

Credits: 4

The U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. Topics include Prohibition; the New Morality; fundamentalism; the KKK and immigration restriction; African American migration and culture; causes and social effects of the Great Depression; FDR and the New Deal; popular culture; radical challenges; the coming of World War II.

Credits: 4

An interdisciplinary course that will trace the relationship between baseball and American society and culture. We will study the early history of the game and historical developments during the emergence of the American professional teams in connection with government, culture, and issues of society.

Credits: 4

Examines European social, political, and cultural developments since the 1950s through history, sociology, literature, and film. Themes include the Cold War, the evolution of the Common Market, youth, women and feminism, consumerism, immigration and labor migration, national identity, attitudes towards America, and Germany and Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Credits: 4

Examines the founding and development of the British colonies in North America and the causes of the American Revolution. The course considers the political, social, religious, and institutional history of colonial America through 1783.

Credits: 4

In recent years, a growing number of cultural historians have taken inspiration from psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists and explored whether emotions have a history and, in turn, make history. Studying diaries, memoirs, and personal letters alongside normative and public texts such as advice literature, scientific works, and court cases, students assess how shifting ideas and experiences of emotions have affected individuals¹ self-understandings and provoked wider social change.

Credits: 4

Focuses on the relationship between cities, urban life, and form, and the construction of social and political rights in the Americas. The emphasis is on how cities and citizenship are mutually constituted historically, looking at ideas and policies that regulate the city, and how urbanites produce and consume urban space and claim their rights as citizens and urban residents.

Credits: 4

Is the United States now, or has it ever been, an empire? Students explore this question and others as they examine diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural aspects of U.S. foreign relations since the Spanish American War in 1898. The lecture/discussion format draws upon fiction, films, and other images, as well as traditional historical writing.

Credits: 4

Explore the history of poverty and informality in Latin American cities since the late 19th century to the present. Explore the social, economic, and political circumstances through which cities become spaces of difference. Focus on the history of housing, shantytowns, and slums and popular mobilizations that claimed for citizenship and the right to the city.

Credits: 4

A narrative survey of U.S. history from the colonial period to the present through an exploration of its musical history. The course investigates America’s fundamental principles of politics, its primary social issues, and its wealth of aesthetic musical initiatives. Students examine the unity, diversity, originality, and adaptability of significant political, social, and musical institutions.

Credits: 4

An overview of the development and tradition of Chinese cinema through representative screenings of important films from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Students gain a comprehensive understanding of the historical and political context(s) that informed the creation and reception of these films and learn critical scholarly terminology and historical issues related to the analysis of Chinese film.

Credits: 4

Examines the main historical events in the Mediterranean area from late antiquity through the Renaissance. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were born here, and the diverse peoples and cultures around its shores competed for intellectual and political dominance. These interactions resulted in the legacy of beliefs and institutions at the core of Western culture, including some issues still unresolved today.

Credits: 4

Examines the relationships among Jews, Muslims and Christians in North Africa and the Middle East in the period of British and French colonialism. From Morocco to Egypt to Lebanon, explore first-person memories of shared food, music, languages, and religious practices that emerged from centuries of migration. The course also examines the conclusion of the colonial era.

Credits: 4

An exploration of the relationships between orthodox religions and heretical sects in the medieval West and how heterodoxy evolved into the witch-craze of the early modern period. Questions of gender, spirituality, repression, and interpretation are examined in light of their effects on society and established religion. Focuses are on Islamic, Jewish, and Christian relations in medieval Europe; the development and perception of certain heretical sects; the discernment of saints and spirits; Protestant and Catholic Reformations; and the persecution of witches.

Credits: 4

Examines how war changed gender relations in 20th-century Europe. For instance, how did mobilization reinforce or undermine masculine and feminine norms? How did total wars that blurred the line between fighting front and home front challenge notions of chivalry and turn noncombatants into warriors of sorts? Did new job opportunities outweigh the trauma and grief suffered by women during wartime?

Credits: 4

Examine the history of American capitalism from the nation’s founding through the present; treating capitalism as a historical construct, examining how it has changed over time. Moreover, we define capitalism as more than the "economy." Rather, students analyze how economic activity has shaped and been shaped by political, cultural, and social developments.

Credits: 4

Explores the history of American Jewry from its beginnings to the present, touching on such topics as integration into American society, formation of Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, evolving religious traditions, cultural clashes, cultural issues involving various waves of immigration, the evolving role of women, Jews and entertainment, and economic and political issues.

Credits: 4

Survey the approaches to various important religious questions and practices within Ancient Judaism and Christianity. Particular attention devoted to the Jewish roots of Christianity and the assimilation of Jewish faith practice into the Early Christian movement. We also examine the historical and ongoing relationship between the two faith systems.

Credits: 4

Introduces systems of health and medicine in the European Middle Ages, elite learned traditions taught in universities, and everyday approaches to wellness. Sources for medieval medicine include religious and academic texts, household accounts and even charms, and are used to explore how people managed their health, practiced medicine, and dealt with challenges ranging from treatments to bubonic plague.

Credits: 4

Explore urban life in early modern Europe focusing on social history and how people of different backgrounds (e.g., gender, religion, and class) experienced urban life. Themes include community politics, women and work, family life, migration, culture and festivals, crime and punishment, and universities. Case studies include Venice, Rome, London, Amsterdam, Prague and Geneva.

Credits: 4

An exploration of the peoples, religions, cultures, places, and monuments of the land of Israel. Home to three major world religions, the land has been embraced, fought over, and conquered repeatedly throughout history. Why? Students explore the reasons for Israel’s prominence and discover how its position and importance in the worldview is constantly being reinvented.

Credits: 4

The historicity of the Hebrew Bible is explored, from the protohistory of the Israelites as related through the Pentateuch and early prophetic works, through the period of the Monarchies, to the 6th-century B.C. exile, the birth of early Judaism, and the books of prophets and writings. Issues relating to historiography and biblical criticism are essential elements in this course.

Credits: 4

Explores important works of ancient literature in conversation with important Enlightenment texts and ideas. Students will read selections from the Bible and Greek literature and study the reception of their ideas and ideals in the work and thought of prominent Enlightenment authors.

Credits: 4

Major trends in the intellectual history of Europe from the latter part of the 17th century through the end of the 18th century, including changing perceptions of the relationship of the individual (male and female) to society, in the context of social change.

Credits: 4

An introduction to the history and culture of New York City. New York’s colonial origins, its critical role in the American Revolution, and its 19th-century ethnic and social conflicts are studied. Secondly, the evolution of the city’s dynamic growth in the 20th century and the impact of 9/11 are examined. Lastly, the image of New York City as portrayed in literature and film is explored.

Credits: 4

Decades after its end, the legacy of the Vietnam war—America’s second longest war and a defining episode in its history—is still felt and hotly debated. Using documents, memoirs, fiction, poetry, song, and film, this course explores the war’s origins, development, ultimate conclusion, and aftermath, while paying special attention to those who experienced it both “in country” and at home.

Credits: 4

Explore the vast experiences of women in medieval Western Europe from the end of the Roman Empire (500) to the beginning of the Early Modern Era (1500). Students will analyze both societal expectations and the daily realities of what it meant to be a woman in rural villages, larger towns, in religious and secular spheres, in the home and outside it, as marginalized members of society and as major political actors. Sources of study will include recent historiography on women’s history in medieval Europe, modern feminist theory, and primary source materials such as legal and religious writings, literature, and proscriptive manuals on running a household.

Credits: 4

Examines the role of Chinese literature in relation to politics. Readings include masterpieces of modern Chinese literature in translation and a couple of typical “propaganda pieces.” The class also sees, discusses, and compares several Chinese films.

Credits: 4

A general historical survey of the relations between the United States and East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) from the mid-19th century to the present. The course examines the roots of the diplomatic, political, and cultural interactions and conflicts across the Pacific Ocean.

Credits: 4

The historical relationship of Judaism and Christianity and the encounter of the Jewish and Christian communities from ancient to contemporary times are examined. Topics include the split between the two religions in late antiquity, medieval disputations, and the challenges of the modern period. Students also examine the varying ways in which texts can be interpreted.

Credits: 4

Explores the relationship between politics and archaeology. Topics include who owns antiquities; fakes, forgeries, and the manipulating of history; presentations of archaeology to the public; buying, selling, and auctioning of antiquities; and archaeology in wartime. The geographic range of topics includes Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Syria, and other countries in region, as well as Greece and Rome.

Credits: 4

Students explore the underlying historical narratives of films from 1930 to 1960 that address topics from early America. These narratives are compared to the ways Hollywood recast historical lessons to suit modern circumstances and to promote “American values” challenged by economic depression and the rise of fascism and communism. Special emphasis is on the works of Ford and Capra.

Credits: 4

History of U.S.–Latin American relations from the mid-19th century to the present day. It explores how Latin America and the Caribbean became the object of US intervention into the region’s realities and how Latin American societies involved into nationalist, anti-imperialist, class, racial, and gender struggles that shaped policy outcomes in ways unanticipated by the US.

Credits: 4

European cultural and intellectual history are examined by focusing on three “storm centers of modern culture”: Paris in the 1860s and 1870s, fin de siècle Vienna, and Berlin in the 1920s. Topics include representations of bourgeois society in art and literature; psychoanalysis; and the auditory and visual revolution in mass culture produced by film, radio, photography, and recorded sound.

Credits: 4

An exploration of Native American life before 1492, using books, documentaries, and films. Topics include the rise and fall of native cultures in the Americas, commerce, politics, economics, agriculture, and urbanization. The focus is on institutions, values, and interrelationships among people across the Americas, and the accomplishments and influences of individual civilizations on the history of the Americas.

Credits: 4

This course will explore German politics, society, and culture from the 18th century to the present. Through history and literature, the course examines themes like the creation of a unified state, the two world wars unleashed from German soil, the rise and fall of Nazism, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, the division into two states during the Cold War, and the role of reunified Germany in today’s Europe.

Credits: 4

Explores the political and cultural history of modern Italy, charting Italy’s emergence as a modern nation and its subsequent reinvention as a fascist society. The rise and fall of Christian democracy, the building of the European Union and the impact of Americanization feature in the second half of the course. Another prominent theme is Italian migrations across Europe and the Americas.

Credits: 4

Explores the global and historical dimensions of the black freedom struggle. Students are challenged to reflect on the contingent nature of identity and power by historicizing self-proclaimed black movements on five continents. Assignments move students to practice civic and scholarly engagement around past silences through research and multimedia history-telling.

Credits: 4

Examines some of the political, social, and economic transformations in the United States between 1877 and 1945. Topics include immigration, the expanding international role of the U.S., reform movements, urbanization, and technological change. Analysis of a range of primary sources, from paintings to film, is emphasized.

Credits: 4

The meaning of freedom and citizenship is a central theme in this examination of the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped the lives of African Americans since the end of the Civil War. Topics include Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights and black power movements.

Credits: 4

The social, political, economic, and cultural development of Ireland from 1610 to the present is examined. Topics include the effects of conquest and land confiscation, survival techniques, the creation of Anglo-Irish society, the rise of nationalism, the legacy of the Great Famine, the Celtic cultural revival, the cost of Irish independence, and the emergence of the “Celtic Tiger.”

Credits: 4

Examines transformations of Chinese society and culture since the early 19th century. Themes include the impact of the West; the rise of Chinese nationalism; modernization, reforms, and revolution; and rapid economic growth in the 1990s.

Credits: 4

The Civil War was arguably the most controversial and traumatic event in American history. This course considers how and why the war developed, its long-term results, and why it is such an important part of America’s cultural heritage. Through an examination of novels, films, diaries, and letters written by Civil War participants, students analyze the impact of this war and our continuing fascination with it.

Credits: 4

Explore the natural world, in the form of plants, animals, microbes, minerals, climates, and topographical features, and its connection to an influence on historical events. Case studies will explore migrations, innovations, risks, and ecological disasters.

Credits: 4

The influence of warfare is arguably the least understood aspect of human history; too often, war is considered like a sporting event—teams, winners, and losers. Students critically examine the effects of warfare on U.S. history in the 20th century. Topics include how militarization and “modern” warfare influence American society and shape its history.

Credits: 4

Examines crucial factors that shaped the U.S. from the ratification of the Constitution to the Compromise of 1850, a period that witnessed the spread of democracy, the development of capitalism, and the expansion and consolidation of slavery in the South. Special emphasis is placed on race and class, technological developments, and the period’s influential movements and personalities.

Credits: 4

Examines the development of popular culture and the major cultural industries in the U.S. from the early 19th century to the present. Students are also introduced to theoretical approaches to popular culture and learn how to apply these tools to selected texts from various periods and media.

Credits: 4

Introduces the largest unit of political organization, the empire, and its early appearances in various regions of the world. The focus is on Akkadia in Mesopotamia, Egypt’s New Kingdom, the Qin Dynasty in China, and the Inca Empire in South America (also known as the Inka Empire). The course reviews theories of sociopolitical organization and development drawn from anthropological archaeology, economics, ecology, and political science.

Credits: 4

This study of African history addresses the continent’s geography and how it has affected Africa’s place in history, the rise and fall of civilizations, Islamic/Arab influences, European colonization, independence movements, and current challenges. In particular, students examine the slave trade and its effects on African societies, colonial domination, and the rise of nationalist movements.

Credits: 4

Examines conflicts and controversies over the issue of American identity from the early 19th century to the present, emphasizing the links between Americanism and “whiteness.” Students explore how immigrants and people of color contested their exclusion from the symbolic national community, and how these groups have been incorporated into a larger national community during the last century.

Credits: 4

The history of the American West is surveyed from its beginnings to the present. The focus is interdisciplinary: art, the popular novel, film, and historical documents are examined as a way of understanding the role of the West in the American mind. Writing is an integral part of the course.

Credits: 4

Examines the responses of European intellectuals to the Russian Revolution, Great Depression, spread of fascism, two world wars, and genocide. Themes include: the ideological conflict between communism, fascism, and democracy; race and empire; attempts to rethink socialist and capitalist economics; and reappraisals of human nature and modern progress in the light of the savageries unleashed in these decades.

Credits: 4

An examination of American society, culture, and politics from World War II to the present. Topics include the Cold War, Vietnam, and the rise of a global order dominated by America; economic development and its social and cultural consequences; movements of the 1960s and their legacy in American politics; and the triumph of conservatism and emergence of a “postliberal” era.

Credits: 4

Examines the new historiography on gender and sexuality in Latin America. It is organized around the themes of changing gender roles and shifting constructions of masculinity, femininity, and honor, with particular attention to issues of sexuality, sexual preferences, constraints, and transgressions.

Credits: 4

Jews, Christians, and Muslims each have their own scriptures, but also share stories, traditions, and ideas in common. Students explore this relationship through examination of important examples of biblical commentary and interreligious dialogue in the late ancient and early medieval periods.

Credits: 4

Explores the place of women in Western society, from ancient Greece to the 17th century. The roles covered range from the prescribed (wife and mother) to the actual (intellectual and worker). Lectures are supplemented by discussion of primary sources.

Credits: 4

Explores the place of women in European society, from the Enlightenment through the 20th century. Topics include the emergence of a women’s movement, the effects of industrialization on women, and the impact of both democratic and totalitarian regimes on women. Lectures are supplemented by discussion of primary sources.

Credits: 4

Explores traditional Chinese civilization, including the shaping of the strong imperial tradition; Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism; arts and literature; and China’s relations with other Asian countries before the modern age.

Credits: 4

Develops students’ interviewing and interpretive skills in the field of oral history. Students learn the theory and methodology and work on a final research project that seeks to bring forward the voices of those frequently excluded from more typical historical sources. Students also learn to produce archival quality interviews, and the final project includes some form of public presentation.

Credits: 4

Students read selections from the works of major historians and examine new techniques and methodologies. Designed to help juniors prepare proposals for their senior projects. Required for junior history majors and intended exclusively for them.

Credits: 4

Through studying modern Chinese literature, this course offers students an opportunity to approach China in depth in its social, historical, cultural, and political aspects. The stories of people and land, revolutions and traumas, and dream and utopia make it possible to comprehend this vast and seemingly impenetrable entity in an intimate and critical way.

Credits: 4

Meeting at the Academy of Drama in Prague, students study and perform plays by Václav Havel, the dissident playwright imprisoned during the Communist era who became president of the Czech Republic. Students explore political and cultural contexts of theatrical performance, enhanced by meetings with theatre professionals and visits to sites relevant to the intersection of artistic creation and political revolution.

Credits: 6

Students will learn different styles of podcasting, best practices for developing and pitching a show, how to use professional audio recorders, basic audio editing techniques with Adobe Audition and how to build an audience and distribute a podcast once it's complete.

Credits: 3

An exploration of journalism through famous films. Students screen a variety of films that investigate different aspects of journalistic practice—from classic shoe-leather reporting to high-stakes investigations aimed at uncovering political malfeasance and corruption. The course also covers everyday challenges of the craft, from developing sources to navigating ethical dilemmas and the ever-increasing demand to meet deadlines and make headlines.

Credits: 4

Today’s media are placed in historical, cultural, and economic context. Students explore the concept of media literacy, and then delve into specific media platforms, including newspapers, magazines, the Internet, radio, TV, and movies. The class also examines the spin-off industries of advertising and public relations.

Credits: 3

Covers the history of journalism with an emphasis on American journalism after 1900. Students examine the objectives of journalism, styles of writing and coverage, and the shape and impact of the industry in various periods. Recent developments are studied with an eye toward how they fit into historical contexts.

Credits: 3

In this introductory course, students learn the fundamentals of reporting and writing news stories, focusing on the skills that form the basis for newspaper, magazines, broadcast, and Web-based journalism. Students also learn AP (Associated Press) style and proofreading and examine broader issues, such as ethics, the impact of the media, and libel.

Credits: 4

Students build on skills developed in JOU 2515 and delve into more specific areas of coverage called “beats.” Students who complete JOU 2515 and 2915 may be eligible for semester-long internships at local publications.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515

Students explore the region to produce journalistic reports that include writing and photography. Assignments include stories on challenges facing a French family, implications of a French political issue, a social issue, and a travel piece. The goal is for students to write as a foreign correspondent, conveying the community’s views, struggles, sights, and sensations to an audience back home. (offered in France, Summer)

Credits: 4

Examines the relationship between the media and social constructions of race, gender, and class, both in the U.S. and within a global context. Topics include biases and assumptions in print and visual media; representations of masculinity and femininity; and the media’s role in creating and reinforcing ideas, symbols, and ideologies within cultures. Text analysis includes newspapers, magazine articles, cartoons, television, movies, and advertising.

Credits: 4

Examines the historical, philosophical, and legal bases for freedom of speech and of the press in the U.S. and the practical application of these principles to print, broadcast, and online media today. Topics include the First Amendment, libel, privacy, government regulation, news gathering, and journalism ethics. Not recommended for freshmen or sophomores.

Credits: 4

Students build on skills acquired in previous journalism classes as they explore in depth the various interviewing techniques for print, broadcast, and online media. Students critique each other’s work and critically dissect published articles and broadcast interviews. They report and write their own in-depth profiles with an eye toward publication in professional or student publications or broadcast outlets.

Credits: 4

A basic course in the use of photography for journalistic purposes. Topics include how to shoot news events, feature photo shoots, cropping, and the use of computer technology.

Credits: 4

Students build on the skills acquired in JOU 2515 and 2915 as they discuss, critique, write, revise, and edit first-person reporting. This is a writing-intensive course; students work on developing a point of view and voice and craft material that resonates with the reader. They are also expected to be active peer-editors of their classmates’ work.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Documentaries are supposed to provide a factual record, but do they? In this course, students analyze, critique, and deconstruct documentary films, and discuss the evolution of the genre. Historical context, aesthetics, and ethics are examined. Students look at the emerging fault lines in the documentary format, where it has become increasingly difficult to tell the difference between news and entertainment.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Students learn about business and economic news through reporting, writing, and reading, and establish an understanding of the four core elements of business journalism: the economy; the financial world; the consumer; and government regulation/policy. Students familiarize themselves with the language of corporations and the financial markets, and learn how to write clearly for any audience.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Building on the foundations of JOU 2515 and 2915, this hands-on course enables students to make the transition from reporting for print and online publications to reporting for radio and television news broadcasts. Students gain experience shooting, writing, and editing television news stories and are introduced to the basics of live television studio production. Recommended prior course: JOU 3500.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515

Students further their development as broadcast journalists through class exercises, field assignments, and in-studio productions, serving as reporters, anchors, producers, and directors for a campus television news and feature program. Strengthening broadcast writing skills and polishing on-air delivery are emphasized.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU3160 Or JOU3150

An advanced course focusing on longer and more complex reporting and writing techniques for newspapers, magazines, and other types of publications.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515 And JOU2915

In this overview of national sports journalism, the craft is explored through extensive reading of eminent sports writers and the history of the art, as well as intensive writing. Special emphasis is placed on thorough reporting, the craft of interviewing, writing on deadline, and producing prose written in a distinctive voice.

Credits: 4

Explores the craft of journalistic writing about various musical genres, including rock, hip-hop, punk, heavy metal, classical, R&B, and jazz. Readings include notable works of music journalism in print and on the web. Students write articles on the genres of particular interest to them. This course is suitable for both specialized (journalism and music) and general audiences.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Students report on communities surrounding the college, with an emphasis on Port Chester, in collaboration with Casa Purchase. Includes résumé-building opportunities to get work published in local news outlets on such topics as immigration, social justice, public safety, sports, housing, education, politics, business, volunteerism, lifestyles, and college issues.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Building on skills developed in COM3375 Podcasting and Audio Storytelling, students will create longer audio reporting projects with more complex structures. Focus will be on audio documentary and nonfiction narrative storytelling and production.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: COM3375

Students look at the evolution of long-form journalism of postwar America, roughly defined as 1946–1980. Works include Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, John Hersey’s Hiroshima, and the magazine writing of Lillian Ross, Alex Haley, Joan Didion, and Gay Talese. The class also explores more recent authors, such as Isabel Wilkerson and Rachel Aviv, and the influences of the digital age.

Credits: 4

An introduction to issues and developments in multimedia journalism. Students critique and create stories for publication online, learning how to assemble story packages that combine media elements, including text, video, audio, and images. Includes some exploration of the use of social media and other techniques to promote stories. May be taken concurrently with JOU 2515 or 2915. Completion of JOU 3500 is strongly recommended before taking JOU 3160.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515

Covers the art of editing, from breaking news to features in special styles. Students work intensively on improving writing, expanding knowledge of word crafting, and producing tight prose. The relationship between reporters, editors, and decisions about news judgment is examined. An essential course for writing-based careers.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515

Putting a range of journalism skills into practice, students produce a finished, arts-based magazine. Students will utilize their reporting and writing talents and develop other ones: editing; writing headlines and captions; layout and design; and finer points of news judgment. Passion for journalism and the ability to work independently, and with peers, are a must.

Credits: 2

An introduction to styles of criticism and a practical course in writing short, critical essays (reviews) on the performing and visual arts. On-campus plays and films are assigned; students write about theatre, film, music, dance, painting, and other art forms.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515

The goal of this seminar is to equip students with the skills needed to complete a successful senior project, and guide them in choosing a topic and format to research and report in depth. Students look at career options in journalism, do a résumé and job-hunting workshop, and discuss internships. Required for journalism majors.

Credits: 2

PREREQ: JOU2915

Using the college’s wide array of cultural activities as material, students learn to bring immediacy and depth to their reporting on entertainment and the arts. The course begins with a study of the form and function of various disciplines as a basis for this reporting.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2515 Or JOU3700

Examines the methods of international affairs journalism, how international issues and organizations are covered, and the innovative ways in which local reporters can reach out to bring the world closer to their readers. Students produce stories that illuminate connections between nearby neighborhoods and faraway lands.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Choose a local social issue and produce multimedia reporting projects with that focus. Emphasis on sustained connection with communities and producing impactful journalism. Includes history of independent media and case studies of advocacy journalism.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915 And (JOU3500 Or JOU3160 )

Building on skills from Multimedia Tools, students approach video in a photojournalistic style. They learn to identify interesting characters with remarkable stories. In nonnarrative video storytelling—where students capture vérité scenes and create cinematic sequences—the focus is on having people tell their stories in their own words. This personal approach allows the viewer to relate and to emotionally engage.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU3500 Or JOU3160

Student reporters learn to develop the investigative state of mind needed to change public opinion and influence policy making. Working individually and in teams, students use documents, databases, official records, and human sources to probe social justice issues, expose official hypocrisy, and ferret out corruption, waste, and inefficiency in government and other institutions.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: JOU2915

Explore the sociopolitical dimensions of the arts across diverse creative outlets. Students examine art in relation to the politics of power in society, and engage the activist dynamics of artistic expression with regards to persistent forms of inequality and oppression.

Credits: 4

An introduction to the contemporary novel and the art and practice of book reviewing. Students read exemplary novels (e.g., Cloud Atlas and Netherland); they read exemplary book critics (e.g., Zadie Smith and James Wood); and they write their own exemplary reviews of contemporary fiction. Writing assignments range from blog posts to newspaper-style reviews and magazine-style essays.

Credits: 4

Is there such a thing as objectivity, journalistic or otherwise? How do accounts of reality in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities differ, and is any account more objective than the others? How do narratives tell the truth, and how do they lie? What might people mean by the term “truth,” anyway? Course readings are interdisciplinary; the course style is philosophical.

Credits: 4

How do we create meaningful writing for an online readership that scrolls quickly and relies less on the printed page than any other generation? Students will write essays, features, and criticism and identify online publications that suit each project, while guest lecturers offer insight on engaging social media to share reported stories. Students co-edit Expose, Purchase's online expository writing magazine.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI1110

Though often seen as simply a test of students’ knowledge and ideas, essays go far beyond what is generally required in courses. Students in this course read and experiment with a wide variety of critical, journalistic, academic, personal, and experimental essay forms. In the process, they further develop their skills as critical thinkers and writers.

Credits: 4

PREREQ: WRI1110 Or WRI2110