Description:
Performance art pieces have demonstrated the form's ability to challenge the boundary between art and life, safety and danger, individualism and industry. This class will examine the works of Tehching Hsieh, Okwui Okpokwasili, Marina Abramovic, Ai Wei Wei, Laurie Anderson, Genesis Bryer P-Orridge, Trenton Doyle Hancock and many others from the past to cutting-edge contemporaries. We will look at the evolution of performance art and its intersection with politics, social norms, dissent and rebellion, and psychology.

Description:
Latin American cinema seems to be having a moment in the United States. In 2018 the Los Angeles Times published an article with the headline: "Latin American cinema offers untapped riches just south of the North American border." The success of films like Guillermo del Toro’s Best Picture-winning "The Shape of Water" has brought such heightened recent attention to cinema produced by, about, and (to an extent) for Latin Americans. Moving images, however, have a long and meaningful history within the region as both reflections of the times and as agents shaping social, political and cultural change. This course is a history of contemporary Latin America through cinematic representation, spanning from the first moving images projected in the region in 1896 through the present. The course will follow films that represent the region’s history beginning with the late abolition of slavery in Brazil (just seven years before films were first projected in the Americas), to revolution in Cuba, a coup in Chile, and the contemporary regional resistance movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Proceeding through films that capture monumental events and everyday moments alike, students will grapple with major themes of the region’s past: slavery and colonialism, informal urbanization, socialist revolution, shape-shifting empire, inequality and environmental devastation. The course will privilege representations of peoples of Indigenous and African descent and emphasize films produced primarily by filmmakers from Latin America.

Description:
An in-depth examination of some of the fundamental texts that contribute to the conversation about the essentials of the human condition. Readings will include texts from a variety of traditions and disciplines, including philosophy, literature, the social sciences, the natural sciences, and the arts. 

Prerequisite(s): ENG 1200 or equivalent.

Description:
In this course, we study the historical emergence and transformation of sexual identities, their cultures, and LGBTQ political movements within the broader context of changes in social constructions of sexuality, as well as cultural, social, political, and economic transformations. We pay particular attention to the ways in which gender, race, ethnicity, class, and disability have shaped sexuality in different historical periods. We also discuss questions of sexuality and history in relation to artistic practice and representation.

Prerequisite(s): HUM 2101.

Description:
In this course, we’ll take a close look at texts that fall into a genre called “magical realism.” These texts incorporate fantastical or supernatural elements into narratives rendered using the tenets of literary realism—tenets that include centralization of character interiority, portrayal of the mundane, and a tendency to account for the social and structural forces that affect human lives. In magical realist texts, the extraordinary is made ordinary, often as a means of bringing into relief some social reality or human truth. These texts will bring into question our own rationalistic modes of understanding reality and contrast them with the ideologies and belief systems of other cultures.  Our texts will include one novel and several short stories, as well as works of visual art, including paintings and film. We will also make use of critical and theoretical readings that will help us understand how our texts function aesthetically and will also shed light on the historical and sociopolitical forces to which the texts respond. Though magical realism is often associated with the Latin American Literary Boom, we will read texts by authors from around the world, including North and South America, Japan, Russia and Continental Europe.

Prerequisite(s):  ENG 1200 or equivalents

Description:
"Spring Awakening," the musical. "The Visit," the musical. And Kubrick’s last film "Eyes Wide Shut." Each is based on a famous central European German-language play (or in the case of Kubrick’s film, a novella by the playwright Arthur Schintzler). Why, then, does each of these big-budget, more or less mainstream American productions look and feel so different - and depend on such a different style of production design, acting and audience response - from its original German-language sources? This dramatic literature elective explores this question by examining these recent American adaptations (of one of Schnitzler’s plays as well) alongside their original German, Swiss and Austrian sources (in English translation – no German required or expected!).

Course requirements: Reading and preparation of texts in English translation, active participation in online postings and discussions, written analyses & responses/reactions.

Prerequisite(s): ENG 1200 or equivalents

Description:
According to the Dramatists Guild of America, only 28% of new play productions are written by women (The Count, 2017). Considering the movements of #MeToo, #TimesUp, the Women’s March, and more women rising up to leadership roles, what messages have female-identifying playwrights been trying to tell us that in majority are suppressed due to gender disparity? From explorations of female identity amid patriarchic conditions to the complexities of girlhood, motherhood, relationships, sexuality, success, and aging, female-identifying playwrights paint a clear picture of the unique trials of being female-identifying. We will also discuss how these trials parallel, differ, or intersect with race-related and non-binary experiences. This class will examine plays by Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, MJ Kaufman, Taylor Mac, Sarah DeLappe, Paula Vogel, and Madeleine George, as well as one-woman shows by Anna Deavere Smith and Okwui Okpokwasili.

Prerequisite(s): ENG 1200 or equivalent.

Description:
A study of the normal nutritional requirements of the human body, the relationship of diet to health, and the impact of behavior and cultural influences on food choices. Students will analyze their own diet relative to recommended standards for young adults. Whenever available, community resources will be utilized for content enrichment. 

Description:
This is an introductory poetry workshop which will explore the basics of both how to write poetry and how to talk about it. So, the course will involve reading, writing, and conversation. We will operate on a workshop model.  This means that you will be expected to both produce work and comment on the work of your colleagues.