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Academic Catalog 2016-2017 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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Illustration |
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CDIL304 Advanced Drawing Projects for Illustrators 3 cr. The course is a continuing deep investigation into informed drawing. Focus is on drawing as a way of understanding objects, figures, animals, and place in terms of physicality, substance, and subjective response. The practice of drawing is explored as means for research, inspiration, and expression. A series of open-ended topics will be approached individually and idiosyncratically, with the goal of producing a series of rendered essays which inform, reveal, report, and narrate.
Prerequisites: CDIL205, CDIL208, CDIL211,CDIL214, CDIL215, CDIL216
Critique Departmental Requirement Fall & Spring |
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CDIL305 Word and Image 3 cr. Exploration of letterforms as pictures and pictures as symbols. Typography, the language of designers and art directors, is examined by studying the history and development of fonts and letterforms. Progressively challenging assignments use words and text as pictorial elements in illustrations to strengthen and reinforce concepts.
Prerequisites: CDIL205, CDIL208, CDIL211,CDIL214, CDIL215, CDIL216
Critique Culturally Diverse Content Departmental Requirement Fall & Spring |
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CDIL308 Painting for Illustrators 3 cr. This studio course explores various techniques using watercolor, gouache, acrylics, oil and mixed media in the development of advanced drawing and painting skills as they apply to illustration. The effective use of color will be a primary consideration in all assignments and exercises. Students work in class on painting and drawing skills through still life, landscape and figure studies.
Prerequisites: CDIL215 or Permission of Instructor
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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CDIL309 Digital Painting and Techniques 3 cr. This class will use software to apply traditional painting and drawing techniques in a digital format. The students will also have the opportunity to reinforce certain traditional aesthetic values in the creation of a digital painting. Students are encouraged to work as much as possible with their own images and references and to use traditional drawings and utilize found textures. They will be encouraged to use the program to experiment stylistically. This is an advanced course and a basic knowledge of Photoshop and its tools are required.
Prerequisites: Take CDIL-205 CDIL-208 CDIL-211 CDIL-214 CDIL-215 CDIL-216
Critique Departmental Elective
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CDIL313 Experimental Illustration Techniques 3 cr. Students explore a variety of experimental techniques that push the boundaries of the 2D/3D plane. By looking at the work of mixed media artists of the past and present this class will investigate the possibilities of alternative image making. As the semester progresses these experiments develop into more advanced conceptual pieces over multiple weeks. Some of the techniques covered in the course: various media transfers, collage and layering techniques, various distressing techniques, screen printing, working with found objects, working with 3D objects and photographing your 3D pieces. Basic drawing skills and being open to experimentation are required.
Prerequisites: Take CDIL-205 CDIL-208 CDIL-211 CDIL-214 CDIL-215 CDIL-216
Critique Departmental Elective
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CDIL314 Book Arts 3 cr. Students will explore bookbinding techniques for various adhesive and non-adhesive book structures, as well as a range of spine structures: sewn, concertina, leperello, wrapped, stabbed, coptic. Methods for creating the student’s own cover papers will be demonstrated and explored. Students will design and create an illuminated trilogy using three different book structures, and design and build a container to hold these. Illumination media may be simple relief printing, painting, drawing, collage, stenciling, or photography, and incorporated text may be self generated or borrowed prose, poetry, lyrics, or dialog. Graphic design and printmaking majors welcome. Students should be at junior or senior levels.
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors
Hybrid Studio/Critique Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective Fall & Spring |
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CDIL319 Illustrative Mask-Making 3 cr. In this course students will create three-dimensional painted masks as mixed-media solutions to illustration assignments. Projects will focus on 2D and 3D character design, the history of masks in various world cultures, and puppets. Students will experiment with various traditional and non-traditional materials in making a series of masks, simple costuming and puppets, with a strong focus on research, sketching, painting and personal voice.
Prerequisites: CDIL215 or Permission of Instructor
Undergraduate Elective Fall & Spring |
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CDIL326 Junior Illustration 3 cr. This course explores various areas of professional illustration. Assignments address book, editorial, product and advertising illustration and emphasize working with color as
a precise visual language.
Prerequisites: CDIL-205,CDIL-208, CDIL-211, CDIL-214, CDIL-215, CDIL216
Departmental Requirement Fall & Spring |
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CDIL327 Technical Illustration 3 cr. This course includes an introduction to the laws of linear perspective,–an exploration of how three-dimensional reality is depicted on a two-dimensional surface. Additional course content includes tools of the trade, various techniques for producing technical illustrations, informational art and instructional illustrations in sequential series.
Prerequisites: CDIL205, CDIL208, CDIL211, CDIL214, CDIL215, CDIL216
Hybrid Studio/Critique Culturally Diverse Content Departmental Requirement Fall/Spring |
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CDIL333 Illustrating Graphic Novels 3cr. Students participate in a range of exercises designed to inform and create visual strategies
for telling stories via the graphic novel format. Emphasis on character design, story arc and
drawing techniques to accompany a broad spectrum of narrative content choices.
Prerequisites: CDIL-215
Spring Only |
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CDIL392 IL Course Assistantship A course assistantship allows qualified
sophomores, juniors, and seniors to assist a
faculty member with whom they have studied
previously. Duties may include set up, assisting
with demonstrations and critiques during class
meetings. Course assistants may not grade
students. Students may register for only one
3-credit course assistantship each semester, and
no more than two such assistantships may count
toward degree requirements.
Students selected by faculty to be course
assistants submit a Course Assistantship form
with the faculty and chair’s signatures to the
Registrar during registration and no later than
the end of the Add/Drop period. Students who are
performing a Teaching Assistantship should follow
Independent Study procedures
Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor
Fall & Spring |
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CDIL398 IL Internship An internship is a supervised professional
experience that allows you to use classroom
training in a real work environment, develop your
skills, focus your career goals, and make
professional contacts.
MassArt offers students enrolled in a degree
program the opportunity to register an internship
for credit. An internship counts as 3 studio
elective credits. To receive credit, the
internship must meet our basic internship
requirements, be approved by a faculty advisor,
and registered before you start the internship.
Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor
Fall and Spring |
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CDIL399 IL Independent Study Juniors and seniors who have a specific studio
project which cannot be accomplished within the
structure of a course may arrange to work with a
faculty member on an independent basis. The
Independent Study form (available in the
Registrar’s Office) includes a description of the
project. Students may take only one 3-credit
independent study each semester, and no more than
four independent studies will count toward the
degree.
Independent Study forms, with faculty and the
chair’s signatures, should be submitted to the
Registrar during registration and not later than
the Add/Drop deadline.
Prerequisites: Permission of Instructor
Fall and Spring |
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CDIL400 Professional Freelance Studio 3 cr. A course designed for highly motivated students interested in freelance illustration. Assignments, developed in conjunction with publishers, corporations, and small businesses, focus on illustration for publication and the experience of taking an actual commission from concept to completion.
Prerequisites: Seniors Only
Critique Departmental Elective Spring |
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CDIL401 Black and White Illustration 3 cr. Students will explore various dry and wet black and white illustration media and techniques, both additive and subtractive, including some experimental printmaking. Course will include working with brush and ink, pen and Ink, gouache and acrylic paint, stipple with technical pen, pencil on toned paper, block prints, monoprints with emphasis on the power of creating dynamic value as a means to communicate ideas. Students will complete a series of assignments designed to showcase each media’s distinctive strengths.
Prerequisites: Open to Juniors and Seniors
Critique Departmental Elective Fall & Spring |
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CDIL403 Thesis Project I: Research 3 cr. The first of two semesters involving investigations of a topic of personal interest to
each student which is relevant to illustration. This course demands far-reaching scholarly
research and extensive comprehensive drawings in preparation for a finished body of work.
Prerequisites: CDIL-304, CDIL-305, CDIL-327 or
CDIL-210, CDIL-350, CDIL-326 or
CDIL-310
Runs concurrenlty with CDIL-404 Co-requisites: CDIL404
Critique Departmental Requirement Fall |
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CDIL404 Thesis Project II: Imagery 3 cr. This course is the second of two semesters in
which students continue to produce finished
illustrations/animations and prepare a bound
graphic summary for the degree project
exhibitions. (Previoulsy Illustration Thesis
Project II)
Prerequisites: CDIL-304, CDIL-305, CDIL-327 or
CDIL-210, CDIL-350, CDIL-326 or
CDIL-310
Runs concurrenlty with CDIL-403 Co-requisites: CDIL403
Critique Culturally Diverse Content Departmental Requirement Fall |
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CDIL420 Illustration Portfolio 3 cr. Development of portfolio material based on the student’s professional focus. Through a series of discussions with the instructor and presentations by illustrators/animators in the field, students develop professional standards and produce finished portfolio pieces.
Prerequisites: CDIL-403 & CDIL-404 Co-requisites: CDIL419
Critique Departmental Requirement Spring |
Industrial Design |
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EDID3X8 Ethnography and Culture 3 cr. This course explores methods of observing activities of human interaction within cultural context, and focuses on the applied use of these methods and observation activities to product development. The class looks at user culture within specific identifiable groups to aid in the development of design solutions for the needs of the end user.
Prerequisites: EDID245, EDID315
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID205 Drawing for Designers 3 cr. The documentation and communication of ideas require fluency with symbolic and illustrative methods; a language. This course develops and refines the basis of this language, the “alphabet and grammar” used to communicate the characteristic of objects and systems. Through the exploration of various media using architectural or industrial design contexts, this language will be applied to objects and systems allowing them to be easily understood and reproduced.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective Fall/Spring |
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EDID215 Industrial Design Principles 3 cr. An introduction to processes used in all areas of design and illustration, this course provides a foundation in the methods of concept, image, and form development. Using initial techniques such as brainstorming, mind-mapping, and researching, ideas are developed for a variety of 2D and 3D solutions to applied projects. Tackling common issues of personal engagement, collaboration, and client interaction, students express a personal voice within the specific parameters of each assigned problem.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID216 Introduction to CAD/Solid Modeling for ID 3 cr. This course focuses on introducing (industrial) designers to the basics of solid modeling. Aside from basic software familiarization, concepts for 2D and 3D visualization will be introduced. CAD modeling techniques, including surface modeling and plastic design best practices are highlighted with emphasis on the role CAD plays within the design process. Various examples of how CAD can be used; from creating underlays and final mechanical drawings, to exporting files for photorealistic renderings and 3D printing, are explored. Basic familiarity with computers is a must.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective Fall & Spring |
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EDID218 Product Rendering 3 cr. An in-depth study of several product illustration and presentation styles. Many different drawing and rendering media are used to develop skills in product design presentation.
Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID220 Joinery 3 cr. Students will develop and refine craftsmanship and design process in the context of furniture design and the construction of two or more furniture pieces. There will be lectures and student research on the history of furniture design, modern movements and techniques.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID224 Conceptual Drawing 3 cr. The course stresses the process of working with dry media techniques (graphite, charcoal, pastel, colored pencil, scratchboard), basic drawing skills, and 2D principles to render concepts. Visual metaphors are explored by manipulating the contexts and relationships of objects and figures.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID225 Industrial Design Form 3 cr. The purpose of this course is to endow students with a vocabulary of form with which to express the function and meaning of their ideas. This will be achieved through the exploration of the objects and object vocabulary, which surround us, and the development of the students’ skills to express ideas visually. The students will be required to develop their communication skills as well as refine their two and three dimensional conceptualization and actualization of projects.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID235 Manufacturing Process I 3 cr. A materials and manufacturing awareness production course in two parts. Part one includes casting, fabrication, and molding techniques for metals and plastics. Students discuss production techniques, selection and use of modern machine tools, dies, jigs, and fixtures. Part two includes product development documentation (three-view preliminary design layout drawings) for manufacturing processes such as sheet metal, casting, extrusion plastics, injection molding, vacuum form, blow molding, and fiberglass.
Prerequisites: EDID215, EDID225
Lecture/Seminar Departmental Requirement Spring |
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EDID245 Human Factors Seminar I - Ergonomics 3 cr. Review of current theory and practice in issues related to human/machine interface, ergonomics, universal design, etc. Methods and practice of human factors research applied to the re-definition of a product idea.
Prerequisites: EDID215
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Spring |
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EDID302 Packaging and the P.O.P. 3 cr. This course is an examination of 3D packaging design covering branding, graphics and the development of a P.O.P. “point of purchase” display. This studio course focuses on design phases from concept, design development to the three-dimensional actualization of a point of purchase display. The goal of this class is to develop a user-centered consumer experience with product/packaging that creates a memorable experience that resonates with the consumer. Open to Industrial Design, Graphic Design and Architectural Design juniors and seniors.
Hybrid Studio/Critique All College Elective
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EDID314 Rapid Visualization and Perspective 3 cr. Course focuses on sketching as the fundamental tool for communication for designers. Students will be required to maintain a sketchbook as well as complete various weekly sketching assignments. Fundamentals of perspective will be introduced and practiced throughout the class. Examples of how rapid viz techniques fit into the design process as a whole will be illustrated.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID315 Industrial Design I 3 cr. An introduction to the design process and problem solving techniques used in industrial design. The course presents the tasks required for research, preliminary concept sketching, design refinement, presentation, and fabrication possibilities. It also introduces the use of media and drawing techniques and basic scale model-making.
Prerequisites: EDID235, EDID245
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID318 Branding - Product 3 cr. This course examines issues around industrial design in brand development, through applied problems. There is a focus on the relationship of telling compelling stories to connecting a brand with people.
Prerequisites: EDID245, EDID315
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective
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EDID325 Manufacturing Process II 3 cr. An investigation of specific problems in the manufacturing development of a product. The course uses a detailed case study of a new product from its inception to its completion. Topics include cost analysis and research into the technical problems of competitive manufacturing and marketing.
Prerequisites: EDID235
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID335 CAID Surface Modeling 3 cr. The course explores the use of 3D surface-modeling programs as visual communication, design exploration, and a tool for production within the design industry and to communicate intent with clients, modelers, engineers, and manufacturers.
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Elective / Undergraduate Elective Spring |
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EDID345 Industrial Design II 3 cr. Integration of creative concepts with the development of visual communication skills, such as rendering and model-making.
Prerequisites: EDID315
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Spring |
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EDID355 Portfolio and Presentation 3 cr. Directing of students through the process of developing a professional portfolio. Basic elements of Illustrator, Photoshop, PowerPoint, Acrobat, web-based. Students required to present complete portfolio piece at reviews.
Prerequisites: EDID315
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Spring |
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EDID365 Product Development Laboratory 3 cr. Explores the process of bringing a product to fruition with special emphasis on the role of the industrial designer in new product development. The course will deal with the design and development of real products. Students work with local manufacturers and their product development groups.
Prerequisites: EDID215, EDID225, EDID235, EDID315
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Fall/Spring |
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EDID392 ID Course Assistantship |
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EDID399 ID Independent Study |
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EDID402 Design for Social Impact 3cr. The first project is constructed to give students the broad understanding of SDI and includes
precedent studies, product/service development, research, synthesis and a final presentation.
Students work closely with a chosen non-profit or social enterprise as a means for deconstructing
and understanding as well as first hand insights into the complicated system. For the second
project, students follow the design process from inception to finalization with the end
deliverable as a presentation to pitch to venture capitalist, non-profits, endowments or community
leaders to incite traction, funding or future collaboration.
Prerequisites: Open to Seniors only
Undergraduate Elective Fall Only |
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EDID415 Industrial Design III 3 cr. Design projects developed in full four-phase programs: Analysis and Conceptual Refinement;Final Design and Documentations; Model and Presentation.
Prerequisites: EDID345
Studio Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID425 Degree Project I - Research 3 cr. A student selected and faculty approved project of significance.
Prerequisites: EDID345
Critique Culturally Diverse Content Departmental Requirement Fall |
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EDID435 Degree Project II- Development 3 cr. A student selected and faculty approved project of significance.
Prerequisites: EDID425
Hybrid Studio/Critique Departmental Requirement Spring |
Liberal Arts: Freshman Seminar |
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FRSM100 Freshman Seminar 3 cr. A freshman seminar is a course for first year students that seeks to develop reading & thinking skills. It is a skills-development course designed to complement LALW100 Written Communication. It seeks to teach students to read written texts with college-level comprehension skills and to think analytically. Freshman seminar topics vary by section. Educating students in a particular subject or discipline is a by-product, not an objective, of a freshman seminar.
Lecture/Seminar All College Required Fall/Spring |
Liberal Arts: Literature, Writing, and Film |
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LALW100 Thinking, Making, Writing: Using Words with Clarity and Flair 3 cr. An introduction to writing for today’s global communication. Six to eight writing assignments
designed to develop deep thinking skills. Course includes expository and critical essays, with
some requiring research. Students also practice close reading skills with outstanding pieces of
prose, poetry, fiction, and nonfiction selected for the artist. [Formerly known as Written
Communication]
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Required Fall/Spring |
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LALW200 Literary Traditions 3 cr. An exploration of the sources of culture through a survey of literary masterpieces from the ancient world to the seventeenth century.
Prerequisites: LALW100; FRSM100 (Freshman Seminar
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Required Fall/Spring |
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LALW201 Men, Women, and the Myth of Masculinity 3 cr. The course examines the idea of masculinity and how it is portrayed in literature from ancient times to the twenty-first century. In addition to studying traditional views of manhood, we will also look at men’s attitudes towards women, since “masculinity” is usually defined in opposition to “femininity.” There will be many opportunities to discuss perceptions of what it means to be a man or a woman, and to explore the elusive concept of gender identity. The syllabus will include works by Shakespeare, Ovid, Ibsen, and Hemingway, among others. We will also watch and listen to selected films and operas.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW205 Children’s Literature 3 cr. What makes a children’s book a classic? We’ll find out as we read, analyze, and enjoy the best of the field–fantasies from Peter Pan to Harry Potter, realistic novels from Anne of Green Gables to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and stories falling somewhere in between, like The Secret Garden. Though our emphasis will be on longer books for older children, we’ll also consider fairy tales and picture books. Final project: writing a “classic” children’s book, illustrating one, or both.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW206 Graphic Novels 3 cr. The course explores the art and composition of the graphic novel and examines its many sub-genres, from superhero tales to memoirs to manga. The textbook is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. Other texts include Watchmen, Contract With God, Sandman, Maus, and Persepolis. For the final project, students create and make preliminary sketches for an original graphic novel.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar All College Elective
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LALW210 Famous Writers & their Celebrated Illustrators 3 cr. Famous Writers and their Celebrated Illustrators combines literature and art. Discussed are great works of literature and the visual images they inspired. Writers include Dante and Cervantes. Pushkin, Gogol, Corneille, Swift, Defoe and Wilde, among others, are discussed. Illustrators include Botticelli, Dore, Delacroix, Beardsley, Picasso, Pasternak (the father), Favorsky, Baskin, and numerous contemporary illustrators.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW214 History and Issues of Documentary Films 3cr Documentary, as defined by John Grierson, is the
creative treatment of actuality. Grierson coined
the term in his review of Robert Flahertys Moana
(1926). Contemporary culture expands on classical
rhetorical and observational forms to include
docusoaps, agitprop, advocacy, animation, sensory
ethnography, mockumentary, first-person, and more.
In this course we will explore the origins of
documentary, discuss the central issues of the
field, examine historical and contemporary trends,
and identify the aesthetic strategies and
techniques used by documentary makers along with
their rhetorical effects.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Spring |
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LALW220 Creative Nonfiction 3cr This course introduces students to the history and practices of creative nonfiction writing.
Here our connections to people, places, and things are expressed through nature and
environmental writing, travel and adventure too. In creative nonfiction, both memoir and narrative
nonfiction include the “I,” because direct experience is an important part of this genre.
Creative nonfiction writing gives us the space we need to reflect and give meaning to moments in
our lives. Creative nonfiction writing is an experimental art because meaning is discovered in
the act of creating; playing with form is part of the process. Students develop six essays of their
own that concentrate on one form: flash nonfiction. No prior writing experience required.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Fall |
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LALW221 Writing Climate Change: Stories of Apocalyptic Weather 3cr. Devastating weather events have created a new genre of environmental writing. In May of 2013 an
Oklahoma tornado was 2.6 miles wide, the widest in history, devastating an entire section of the
city. Another tornado had winds of 301 mph, the highest ever recorded for any weather event.
Stories of disappearing glaciers and vanishing rivers do not f t easily into the tradition of
nature writing. The contemporary environmental essay combines personal narrative, research
(and/or reportage), and concepts from philosophy or science. At the same time, climate deniers
ignore the scientif c consensus that human activities are indeed the source of these
disparate weather-related events and disappearing species. Through readings and f lms students will
explore the tradition of environmental writing and how storytelling has changed during the
climate change debate of the last two decades. Among other assignments students will write two
essays in the form of the contemporary environmental essay, which will integrate
storytelling, personal ref ection, and concepts from philosophy or science. Students will also
debate both sides of the polarized climate debate. {Formerly titled Environmental
Writing:Era of Climate Change]
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Sustainabilty Content Spring |
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LALW222 Fantasy Worlds 3cr Modern fantasy literature consists of fantastic
stories set in imagined worlds. It features
characterscreated by the author rather than drawn
directly from traditional myths and legends. The
course examines the origins of the genre, which
emerged during the nineteenth century, and which
has taken both epic and satiric forms. Although
some attention is given to the legends,
folktales, and romances that provided models and
inspiration to fantasy authors, the main focus is
on the classic works of the genre.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Spring |
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LALW223 American Literature Mid-20th Century Masterpieces 3cr A critical survey of American writings (novels and shorter works of fiction, essays, journalism, poetry) from WWII through the 1960s-a range including Baldwin, Bellow, Cheever, Ellison, Kerouac, Mailer, Nabokov, O’Connor, Salinger, Updike (and their critics)-amid other aesthetic ferment in the aural/visual arts during a quiet (increasingly noisy) crisis in America’s cultural history.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Spring |
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LALW225 Media Flux 3cr. This course surveys the modern history of publishing, examines the transition into digital
media, and looks forward to a (hopefully more perfect) convergence of audio/visual/textual
modes of communication. It also provides a grounding in the editorial conventions of the
major media. The course is thus designed to provide both a general education in literary
culture and a specific set of tools currently in use by writers, editors, designers, and other
media professionals.
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Spring Only |
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LALW300 Playwriting 3 cr. A course that teaches the fundamentals of writing drama for the stage. Students study the craft of successful plays by Edward Albee, August Wilson, Paula Vogel and others, applying what they learn to writing their own scenes and plays. The course culminates in a public developmental reading of some of the best one-act plays written by the students.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW301 Monster Madness 3 cr. We round up the usual suspects: the appalling and tragic monster and his equally tragic and appalling creator; the charismatic vampire and his bevy of vamps; the traveling salesman who finds himself transformed into a giant dung-beetle. More broadly, the course studies the idea of monstrosity and the ways in which monsters represent the shadowy side of human nature: what people fear and what they desire. The syllabus includes Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and Nabokov’s Lolita.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective Summer (PCE) |
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LALW305 Russian Short Story 3 cr. Russian literature burst on to world stage suddenly and unexpectedly in the early nineteenth century and almost immediately gained tremendous worldwide influence. Everyone knows the names of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Pasternak, Nabokov and Solzhenitsyn. Great Russian literature is also uniquely connected to Russian philosophy and politics. Reading and studying these works helps students to better understand the trials and tribulations of modern times.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective Fall and Spring |
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LALW306 Modernist Word and Image 3 cr. Nearly 100 years on, the visual and verbal experiments of high Modernism still have the
power to arrest our gaze and our attention. In this course, we explore the unique conversation between word and image that occurred between approximately 1910 and 1945. How did visual artists respond to innovations in poetic form? What does literature look like when it aspires to be pictorial or visual? Do artists and writers actually practice the principles laid out in their manifestos? Questions like these-and many others- guide our investigation and analysis. Texts include seminal writings from Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism; avant-garde poetry by Apollinaire, Pound, Stein, Williams, and others; Wyndham Lewis’ periodical Blast; Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and other readings that complicate the boundaries between mediums, genres, and forms of
expression.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective Fall/Spring |
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LALW308 Lyric Poetry 3 cr. Literary analysis and oral readings of lyric poems from several eras and cultures. Particular attention is given to subtle interactions between linguistic and structural elements such as rhythm, meter, stanza form, syntax, diction, and imagery.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW309 Twentieth Century American Literature 3 cr. A focus on major writers who emerged in the twentieth century. The course concentrates on late twentieth century figures and earlier modernist writers.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW312 Creative Writing: The Essay 3 cr. This course, conducted as a workshop with essays read aloud and critiqued in class, provides students with an opportunity to explore through their own writing the power and variety of the essay form. From memoir to observation, personal profile to political observation, this course encourages students to transmit interior reflection and external observation into essay form. Assigned reading of essays. Grade based on 25-page portfolio (usually five essays).
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW313 Caribbean Diaspora Literature: Beyond the ‘Tropical Paradise’ 3 cr. This course explores the concept of ‘border’ as a geographic and symbolic space by focusing on the work of contemporary writers from the Caribbean region, many of whom reside in the USA and Europe. The course provides students with an overview of the histories, cultural identities, literary and creative expressions of the Caribbean archipelago. Students consider the role that Caribbean diaspora fiction, poetry, and critical theory play in contemporary North American and European societies. Readings are in English or translated into English.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW317 Literature from Immigrants in America 3 cr. This course focuses on literary texts and films that examine the experience of immigrants in the USA from the 1950s to today. Through the reading of excerpts of novels, short stories and critical essays, and the viewing of feature films and documentaries, the course treats issues that have affected successive generations of Irish, Jewish, Italian, Japanese, Indian and more recently Hispanic/Caribbean immigrants in the USA. The course devotes special attention to the experience of marginalization of the immigrants, changes in their family structure, the process of ‘becoming American,’ and the social and cultural impact these communities have had on US national identity. The course also considers ways in which immigrant writers both adopt and adapt the English language, while changing and often enriching it, and how they work against conventional cultural and visual representations of immigrants in US media. [Formerly Immigrants in America]
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective Fall/Spring |
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LALW318 Word and Image in the 19th Century: The Romantic Tradition 3cr This course investigates the connections between poetry, painting, and the graphic arts in the nineteenth century. The course treats how writers and artists shared a series of similar concerns over revolution, nature, and the individual and how these concerns combined to shape the development of a specifically romantic tradition within the literary and visual arts. Writers and artists include Blake, Wordsworth, Byron, Rossetti, Goya, Constable, Turner, Delacroix and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective
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LALW320 Poetry Workshop 3 cr. In this course, students write, revise, and share poems as a community, experimenting with new subjects and new forms and responding attentively to poems written by other class members. Additionally, they consider published poetry to learn key elements of poetic craft. Students assemble their original poems into portfolios to demonstrate their command of imagery, diction, stanza, line, voice, form, prosody (sound and rhythm), and other aspects of richly dynamic poetry.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW322 Shakespeare: On Film and In Print, Part 1 3 cr. A study of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Henry V, Hamlet, and King Lear, using a genre approach. Emphasis is on reading and understanding Shakespeare. The films are studied as contemporary realizations and interpretations of the plays.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW323 Nationalism in Music & Literature 3cr This course focuses on the interplay of folk and sacred music and idioms, language and dialect, and regionalist and nationalist literature in the evolution of 19th-century musical regionalist and nationalist expression. It treats the confluence of history and geography, the significance of minority-language rights and expression, and the development of human rights and religious freedoms as central to understanding artists’, composers’ and authors’ motivations.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Spring |
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LALW326 Asian Cinema: Postwar India, Japan & China 3cr This course looks at the development of Asian cinema through the lens of three of the most important national film industries: India, Japan, and China. How do the films from these countries reflect diverse but interrelated cultural traditions? How is the cinematic representation of these traditions shaped by a dialogue with Hollywood and European film? How does the development of post-war Asian cinema reflect the shift from a national to a more global film market? This course explores these and other related questions though a combination of weekly film screenings, lecture, and class discussion. Directors include Satyajit Ray, Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, John Woo, and Wong Kar-Wai.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Fall & Spring |
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LALW328 Contemporary Italian Literature and Film: Myths, Identity and the “Mirage of America” 3cr This course introduces students to significant Italian literature of the second half of the 20th century. These novels and short stories provide a variety of perspectives and insights into Italy as a country, with its complex history, rich culture, and changing values (e.g. the role of the Catholic Church in a secular society, recent immigration from Africa and Asia, North-South regional conflict, and recent national debates on gender equality, on politics, and on the Mafia).
The course also treats significant post-1960 feature films by Italian directors and actors. These Italian authors, intellectuals and artists influence contemporary American literary and culture. In this respect, novels and films treated in this course reflect the “mirage of America” in Italian culture and also reveal contemporary Italian representations of Italian-Americans. Students analyze these representations of America in Italian culture and compare them with the images of present-day Italy in American media, arts and popular culture.
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Lecture Elective Fall and Spring |
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LALW329 Literature & Culture of the Great War 3 cr The Great War (1914-1918) altered global politics, national cultures, language, consciousness, and aesthetics in ways that the world is still processing. This course explores the culture into which the war exploded; the lived and written experience of soldiers and civilians alike; and hallmarks of the diverse body of literary and artistic output that responded to the horrors of mechanized trench warfare, shellshock, and massive loss. The reading list includes works by Robert Graves, David Jones, Guillaume Apollinaire, Virginia Woolf, Erich Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen, and others.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Elective Fall/Spring |
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LALW332 The End is Near! Envisioning the Apocalypse 3cr. The course introduces apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic literary texts. Readings include eighteen and nineteen century end-of-days texts by Daniel Defoe, Anita Letita Barbauld, Edgar Allen Poe, and present-day manifestations of this idea (among others, Cormac McCarthy, The Road, Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore, The Walking Dead). The course treats the concept of “dystopia” as an expression of recurring and contemporary anxieties.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Sustainabilty Content Spring |
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LALW333 Silent Film Miracles 3cr. This course introduces students to masterpieces
of silent cinema, the now lost art form that
predates the widespread adoption of sound-on-disc
and sound-on-film recording technology in the
late 1920s. Students undertake research on
aspects of silent cinema. Readings include Silent
Stars (Jeanine Basinger), Silent Players (Anthony
Slide), Hollywood: The Pioneers (Kevin Brownlow &
John Kobal), and others. The viewing list
includes Battleship Potemkin, Beau Geste, Ben
Hur, Broken Blossoms, Cabinet of Dr. Cagliari,
City Lights, He Who Gets Slapped, Hell’s Angels,
Hunchback of Notre Dame, It, Man With Movie
Camera, Metropolis, My Best Girl, Passion of Joan
of Arc, Peter Pan, Prix de Beauté, Rain, Seventh
Heaven, Show People, Son of the Sheik, Speedy,
Stella Dallas, The Big Parade, The Crowd, The
Great White Silence, Thief of Bagdad, Trip to the
Moon.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Spring |
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LALW336 Masters of Film 3cr An examination of the contributions that distinguished filmmakers, including directors, editors, and cinematographers, have made to the art of motion pictures.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Undergraduate Elective Fall |
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LALW338 Film Script Writing 3cr. This course will introduce students to the many facets of writing screenplays for short films.
Designed as a writing workshop, students will develop scripts, from idea to end product,
through individual and collaborative exercises, rewriting, and hearing your scripts read aloud
and discussed. Readings and screenings will supplement our course.
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Fall Only |
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LALW340 Black Cinema:American Myth, Racial Ideology and Hollywood 3cr. “What is “”Black Cinema”“? How did “”Black Cinema”” originate? What gives “”Black Cinema”” a
distinct voice of its own? Must “”Black Cinema”” only be directed by African Americans, feature an
all Black cast, or only address a Black audience and “”Black issues”” in order to qualify as
“”Black Cinema”“? Should we differentiate between “”Black Cinema”” and “”Cinema”“? What are the
ethical, social and political implications central to making these distinctions? This course
examines those questions while chronicling the history and present state of “”Black
Cinema”“(from the early 20th century filmmaking of Oscar Micheaux; Blaxploitation films of Gordon
Parks and Melvin Van Peebles; fiction films by Charles Burnett, Spike Lee, Lee Daniels, Steve
McQueen and Dee Rees; documentaries by Marlon Riggs, Stanley Nelson and June Cross; as well as
animation films made for TV and media streamed online). Despite the contributions to cinema by
these distinguished people of African descent, there remains a significant need for Black cinema
studies within the broader areas of Africana Studies in the US and abroad. For these reasons,
this course explores how Black authorship, content and reception have been defined and
reconsidered in relation to dominant American myths, racial ideology and film industry
practices, that have long presented limited and distorted social and political constructs of
African Americans and the African Diaspora in cinema. This course challenges those portrayals
and assumptions through thoughtful inquiries into the intricate modes of racial coding of moving
images.
Prerequisites: LALW-100 & FRSM-100
Fall Only |
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LALW346 Camelot: Tales of King Arthur 3 cr. A study of the literary epics of the legends surrounding Camelot and King Arthur, their origins in the middle ages and subsequent variations.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW349 History of Film 3 cr. This course surveys film history from the 1890s to the present. Students use a history of film textbook and general history readings to study films demonstrating the evolving development of motion picture art and the motion picture industry. Students undertake film making exercises and produce written research treating trends and questions in motion picture history.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LALW362 Twenty-first Century Novel 3 cr. This course examines developing trends and standards for English-language novels in the twenty first century. It treats nine geographically and stylistically varied permutations of this long-fiction art form (including literary prize-winners and bestsellers) while attempting to place them in the web of literary tradition. Touchstone text and beginning book is the acclaimed 20th century novel Howard’s End, in which author E.M Forster famously exhorts his readers to “only connect.” In this spirit, the course seeks to connect the best of what authors are writing now with traditions of literary practice, always looking ahead to probable evolutions in the twenty first century.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar All College Elective
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LALW365 Women’s Literature in Comparative Perspective 3cr. In this course we read and discuss twentieth century and contemporary women writers and
critical thinkers who traverse more than one culture, nationality, and geography. Their
writings focus on women’s identity, experiences and creative practice in response to colonial and
post-colonial histories, sexism, racism, and various forms of inequity and oppression. The
course invites students to reflect on equity, cultural competence, inclusion and empathy in the
readings and class discussion. In line with its comparative perspective, the course places in
dialogue writers from the Americas and the Caribbean, the Middle-East and West Africa, in a
dynamic play of resonance and dissonance, similarities and differences. The weekly classes
allow for the integration of in-depth discussions, close reading of the texts,
presentations, and critiques of visual arts. You are invited to think transversally across these
texts, and to forge connections between the themes of the class, the reality you know, and
your creative process. [Formerly Women’s Literature in International Perspective,
Women’s Literature in Global Perspective]
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture Culturally Diverse and Sustainabilty Content Fall & Spring |
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LALW400 Directed Study 3 cr. A Liberal Arts directed study is a research project selected by a student in a Liberal Arts discipline. Typically, the study results in a research paper of thirty plus pages or the equivalent, as agreed upon by the faculty member supervising the project. Because of its advanced nature, a Liberal Arts LALW directed study is open only to seniors and is limited to one per semester. No more than two Liberal Arts directed studies may be counted toward Liberal Arts degree requirements. Students seeking to register for a LALW directed study must execute a directed study proposal form that describes the proposed project, includes a bibliography, and describes the final project. Liberal Arts directed studies proposals require the approval of the Liberal Arts Department chair.
Prerequisites: LALW200 enrollment senior elective, and consent of the instructor.
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content
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LALW402 Advanced Poetry Workshop 3cr. In this workshop, students write, revise, and discuss their own poetry in peer critique
workshops as they sharpen their poetry writing skills beyond an introductory level and examine
how their own poetry is situated in the context of contemporary poetry. Guided by peer critique
and the instructor’s feedback, they assemble a final collection of poetry, possibly
demonstrating how their poems intersect with their own major. Students also delve into a wide
array of published poetry to deepen their understanding of poetry, compose a statement of
their aesthetics, gain experience as editors, and write a critical study of some poets in relation
to their own aesthetics. Finally, as a collective, students read their poems in public
and/or publish a compilation of selected poems and artwork.
Prerequisites: LALW-320 or LALW-308 or by permission of instructor.
For permission, please email Cheryl Clark
(cclark@massart.edu) a sample of 5 poems in one document
with a brief explanation of why you would like to take this
workshop. Include a list of relevant courses you have
taken. If I find that this sample is not sufficiently
strong, indicating that your command of poetry writing is
insufficient for success in the class, I will let you know
by e-mail as soon as I can. Send the sample as soon as
possible.
Spring Only |
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LALW403 Writing an Artist’s Statement 3 cr. A workshop in which initial drafts and subsequent revisions of students’ writings are photocopied, distributed to all members of the class, and critiqued. The objective is to help students develop artist’s statements that: (a) are appropriate to the purposes for which they are written; (b) articulate what the student wants to say about their art; and (c) communicate clearly to the intended audiences.
Prerequisites: Seniors Only
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content Senior Elective
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LALW406 Friday Night Lights:An American Mirror 3cr. This interdisciplinary course addresses the American television drama series, Friday
Night Lights (2006-2011), a show that treats beliefs,behaviors, and values common to many 21st
century Americans. In consultation with the professor, each student proposes, develops,and
completes a semester-long research or creative project that considers an aspect of this
award-winning television series (for instance, theshow’s worldview, or its writing, acting,
editing, directing). Approved student projects manifest the perspective of two or more
Liberal Arts disciplines.
In class meetings, students view or review Season One of Friday Nights Lights (all
episodes) and related material. They exchange responses to the screened material. They
present original scholarlyor creative projects in preliminary, intermediate, and final stages. Presenters furnish ancillary readings that contextualize their presentations. Class
members peer review all projects. Class members publish their completed scholarly project,
creative project, or scholarly/creative project on a dedicated class website
class.”
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Spring Only |
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LALW407 Literature & Culture of the Great War 3cr. The Great War (1914-1918) altered global politics, national cultures, language,
consciousness, and aesthetics in ways that the world is still processing. Planned for the
centenary of the beginning of Great War hostilities, this course will explore the culture
into which the war exploded; the lived and written experience of soldiers and civilians
alike; and hallmarks of the diverse body of literary and artistic output that responded to
the horrors of mechanized trench warfare, shellshock, and massive loss. The reading list
includes works by Robert Graves, David Jones, Guillaume Apollinaire, Virginia Woolf, Erich
Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen, and others.
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Spring Only |
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LALW408 Imagining Others: From Strangers to Cyborgs 3cr. This course invites students to forge connections between the ways in which literature, critical
theory, visual arts, and contemporary media have imagined “others”, from foreigners and
(post)colonial “others”, to post-human “others”, including cyborgs and AI.
Prerequisites: LALW-200
Fall Only |
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LALW410 Opera and the fusion of the Arts 3 cr. What is opera? German composer Richard Wagner described it as a “total art work,” combining music, drama, singing, and scenic design. This course encourages new ways of thinking about the relationships between different artistic disciplines and forms. Students view and discuss a selection of operas from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. No classical music background is required, and no one is expected to sing. In a final project combining artwork and critical writing, students imagine and design a production for an opera of their choice.
Prerequisites: LALW200
Lecture/Seminar All College Elective
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LASS243 Planet Earth: A User’s Guide 3 cr. This course examines the Earth’s landforms,
oceans, atmosphere and major physical processes.
It considers how natural systems and historic
natural processes influence human societies and
individual humans. It investigates the extent to
which past and present human activities may or
may not influence natural systems of the planet.
Students utilize Google Earth, in-class
activities, maps, and associated tools and
documents to investigate the Earth’s physical
geography.
Prerequisites: LALW100 and FRSM100
Lecture Sustainability Content Undergraduate Elective Fall |
Liberal Arts: Mathematics and Science |
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LAMS200 The Universe 3 cr. A study of how the basic laws of physics and astronomical observations lead to an understanding of the universe as a whole.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LAMS203 Physics of Music 3 cr. This course uses principles of physics to understand musical instruments, scales, and chords. Required background: students must be able to find notes from written music on an instrument of their choice. The course draws upon algebra.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LAMS205 Mathematics, Logic, and Knowledge 3 cr. A study of the veracity of mathematics and mathematical thought. Axioms of mathematics, elements of formal logic, and Gödel’s proof and its philosophical consequences are covered.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LAMS206 Biomimicry 3cr Biomimicry is the study of the structure and function of biological systems as models for the design and engineering of materials. In this course, students become acquainted with basic concepts in biology, physics and engineering. Building upon this foundation, the course treats how designers solve design problems by mimicking nature.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture Sustainability Content Undergraduate Elective Fall & Spring |
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LAMS208 Bacteria Assassins 3cr. Almost everyone has taken antibiotics at some point during their lives and we read every day about deadly “superbugs” that are resistant to antibiotics. But what does this resistance mean and how did we get here? The course examines the antibiotic resistance problem and an often-touted possible alternative, bacteriophages. Bacteriophages are viruses of bacteria and were discovered exactly 100 years ago during the First World War. Students examine and synthesize the biology, history, ecology, and applications of these two types of bacteria killers to better understand the treatment of bacterial infections today and what may come in the future. This course helps students understand current events and science relevant to their lives - such as on antibiotics and antibiotic resistance, emerging diseases (such as Ebola), and the human microbiome. No laboratory experience is required.
Prerequisites: FRSM-100
Lecture Sustainability Content Undergraduate Elective Fall & Spring |
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LAMS240 Biological Form and Function 3 cr. An examination of the importance of shape, or form, to biological function. Students explore selected examples at several levels of organization (molecule, cell, individual, community) in a variety of organisms (viruses, bacteria, plants, fungi, invertebrate and vertebrate animals, embryos and mature forms). The course teaches fundamental concepts of biology and prepares students to compare biological and artistic form and function.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse Content All College Elective
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LAMS320 Environmental Science 3 cr. A study of the principles of ecology, a science intertwining many biological and physical science disciplines. The course distinguishes the scientific, technological, and social domains. It treats complex human impacts and environmental concerns (such as biodiversity, population size, food and energy resources, air and water pollution, waste management, recycling, and sustainability) and raises issues of environmental ethics, risk assessment, and policy planning.
Prerequisites: FRSM100
Lecture/Seminar Culturally Diverse and Sustainability Content All College Elective
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