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In this course we will engage drawing’s portable and responsive nature by working outside of the studio art classroom, opening the possibility of encounters that influence your subject matter and approaches to drawing. Students will practice and expand their skills of drawing from direct observation (not from photographs or other images) by working on-site in different indoor (non-classroom) locations on campus and working outdoors, or plein air. 

This course will look into the use of the kiln as an integral tool and part of the creative process in ceramic art. We will explore various different kilns and firing techniques, learning the roles of fire and atmosphere in transforming glaze components into desired surfaces. We will also discuss the history of kiln technology and how it has influenced the development of wares, kiln building, and the theoretical basis for kiln design and firing. Students will be expected to develop and produce work independently outside of class time for use in the firings.

Sculpture and vessels are realized through an exchange between the medium and the self. The class will begin with the question:

What is Sculpture?

What is a Vessel?

Students in this class will read a weekly selection of Pulitzer Prize winning plays and be required to analyze and explore these plays beat by beat in class discussion and weekly critical writing exercises. This is an in-depth script interpretation class in which theme, dramatic structure, arc, character development, tone, style and extensive study of the given playwrights and their influences will be explored in detail and in a way that centers the questions one would need to interrogate in order to bring these diverse and extraordinary pieces of work to life.

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

Lighting design has the powerful ability to shape the experience of an audience. Its practice incorporates elements of artistry and craft, and should interest those working in all aspects of visual and performing arts. In addition to hands-on work with theatrical lighting equipment in and outside of class, awareness of light, play analysis and conceptualization, color, angle, composition and focus are explored in class demonstrations and in a series of individual and group projects.

As a follow-up to the course Working With Light, participants in this class will learn how to adapt lighting design ideas to work within the common constraints of theater architecture and scenery. We will take a deep dive into the process of choosing lighting equipment and figuring out where it needs to be, in relation to everything else in the theater space. Beginning with basic drafting techniques, the course will move ahead to planning lighting coverage with scaled drawings, and then to the creation of a light plot and other supporting paperwork.

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

This is an introductory course of basic mold making and slip casting techniques for producing components to create a series of functional ware. This course focuses on the development of design concepts through exploration of slip casting methods, application of alteration and assemblage techniques and experimentation of prototype makings to produce ceramic multiples (cups).

Errol Morris is a filmmaker who is obsessed with his obsessions: his cinematic essays veer towards subjects who themselves are consumed by their own fanaticism. In this class, we will study several films and series that center on what others may simply refer to as “eccentrics,” subjects who, despite knowing that their obsessions may ultimately lead to devastation, continue nonetheless to pursue their fixations. Through viewing such works as Gates of Heaven, Tabloid, First Person, Vernon, Florida, Mr.

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

This studio/ seminar invites students to engage both creatively and critically, by making work and through readings and discussions. Throughout the course, students will consider the social life of photographs, with particular emphasis on past and present ways of making and sharing vernacular images.

This intermediate level painting course will take as its platform the investigation of writing by artists about art and artists. While developing their own self-defined studio practices, students will engage with primary documents of art history - artists' essays, letters and sketchbooks.

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

William Wordsworth said that “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Emily Dickinson said, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” Allen Ginsberg said: “Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!”  This is a poetry workshop about subverting expectations, breaking patterns, being drama queens, and generally doing too much. How do we write poems that crack through the haze of decorum? How do we say it like it is, but without being plain or cliche?

This class is for seniors writing extended manuscripts in a unified genre: literary criticism, fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, drama, screenwriting, or a hybrid form that combines genres. We welcome entirely hybrid-form manuscripts, but mixed collections, i.e. some poems with some prose, are not acceptable in this class, for we privilege extended immersion in a single genre. Think of your work as having two, equally important parts: The steady development and drafting of your own project; and sustained engagement with the work of your peers.

Intermediate Video builds on the concepts and technical skills introduced in Intro to Video, and has a different theme each term. This semester of Intermediate Video will be focused on the following thematic, conceptual and formal questions.

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

This Reading & Writing Fiction course focuses on the novel, and in particular on reading and writing the body, with an emphasis on femininity. We will look at both the construction of and conspicuous erasure of the femme/feminine body. We will treat gender as a construct, discussing gender normativity, ciswomanhood, transness, and other related subjects and subjectivities.

Research questions in cell biology and biochemistry often require the ability to study the proteins at the heart of the inquiry.  This course will give students hands-on experience quantifying proteins, detecting protein expression, measuring enzymatic activity, assessing protein-protein interactions, purifying proteins, and visualizing fluorescently-labeled proteins in vivo.

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

How can we be together, interact with each other, create something together, share physical experiences….when we are physically not in the same space and time?

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

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) describes his own work in metaphysics by analogy with Copernicus’s revolution in astronomy. He constructs a system of thought that attempts to move beyond the empiricism of Hume and the rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff. His method – critique – and his theory – transcendental idealism – have profoundly influenced all subsequent philosophy.

Against a background of what is often described as a worldwide democratic recession or regression, this advanced seminar surveys current theoretical debates, empirical analyses, and policy conversations on the emergence, survival, challenges, breakdowns, and prospects of global democratization.

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Fall ‘25

Working in collaboration with the local Park-McCullough Historic Governor’s Mansion, students will create a new archive of the historic dress collection.

This course is for experienced student artists with a firm commitment to serious work in the studio. Students will work primarily on self-directed projects in an effort to refine individual concerns and subject matter. Students will present work regularly for critique in class as well as for individual studio meetings with the instructor. Development of a strong work ethic will be crucial.

This production course is designed to get students producing video immediately: we will look at basic techniques with an emphasis on simple and self-devised methods of media production, efficient approaches to lighting and sound, and emphasize quick turnover time to create a great amount of work in a relatively short period of time.

How does love emerge under conditions of war? This seminar explores what it means to sustain intimate relations in the face of overwhelming violence. Through the Anthropology of Kinship, as well as through methods developed across the fields of Queer Studies, Black Studies, and Postcolonial Studies, this course considers how intimacy and love figure in the production and maintenance of racialized, classed, and gendered difference.