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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Students learn and practice various forms of rhetorical essay patterns needed to successfully compete in regular academic courses. Listening and public speaking skills are also addressed. The course culminates with a formal research paper and oral presentation. 4 hours weekly plus tutorials; 1credit
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4.00 Credits
In the first semester students practice summarizing, critique writing and persuasive writing. In the second semester, undergraduate students are introduced to reading and writing personal narratives as well as reading and responding to literature. ESL instructors coordinate with Liberal Arts faculty and divisional faculty in history and criticism courses to mentor students in specific writing problems. Graduate students focus on writing a personal biography and preparing a press packet for use upon graduation, while also working on papers for graduate seminars courses taken concurrently. 4 hours weekly plus tutorials; 1credit
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1.00 Credits
3 hours weekly; 3 credits
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2.00 Credits
3 hours weekly; 3 credits. Liberal Arts Core 1 and 2 focus on an analytical study of American Culture, providing the opportunity to explore the intersection of Literature, History, Art, Religion, Politics, Economics, and other factors in the development of various strands in the American national identity. Core 1 focuses thematically on overlapping and intertwined issues of class, money, education, gender, race, and codes of social stratification. The course studies how these factors affect the development of specifically American individuality and community. Using critical frameworks, students explore how, in a theoretically democratic nation, they may nevertheless see enormous divisions, inequalities, and conflicts that often generate intellectual and artistic innovation. Core I thus presents an overview of American Cultural Studies, through seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century authors and citizens who provide both foundationally normative and dissenting voices. In the second semester Core 2 proceeds into an era defined in many ways by conflict and violence, exploring how a number of surprisingly creative results come out of a crucible of contending forces and ideas. Students in Core 1 and 2 read a wide variety of texts from different disciplines and genres: in the Fall, they study histories, jeremiads, poems, autobiographies, visual art, essays, short stories, and novels representing the diversity of creators from John Winthrop to Phillis Wheatley to Henry James to E.L Doctrow; in the Spring students explore elements of modernism, metafiction, oral history, and the contemporary stage in the works of artists such as T.S. Eliot, Tim O'Brien, Tony Kushner, and Anna Deveare Smith. Students observe and analyze ideas in the authors' works and translate them into critical writing, performance, and oral history interviews and presentations. Both of these first year classes focus on the development of students' knowledge of American Culture. Through the reading of a variety of texts from both classical and contemporary American Literature, the study of critical and other non-fiction commentaries and critiques, and through films, art, and performance, students learn to develop a number of concurrent skill sets. The first year classes encourage the development of clear and appropriately sophisticated writing skills, foster the practice of critical and analytical thinking, and build knowledge of the broad sweep of American artistic expression. Students are taught to understand and recognize the multiple and multicultural components of the rich and unique American voice and idiom. This introduction to college liberal arts study familiarizes students with the practice and application of methods of public discourse that are key components to informed citizenship.
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2.00 Credits
An introduction to Italian pronunciation, grammar, conversation, and composition. Includes readings in modern Italian, as well as simple selections from opera libretti. 3 hours weekly; 3 credits
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2.00 Credits
The emphasis is on speaking elementary French correctly. Grammar, reading, and writing also receive intensive practice. Required of all Voice Performance majors. 3 hours weekly; 3 credits per semester
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2.00 Credits
A thorough study of the rudiments of German grammar and pronunciation, the reading of German texts, and oral and written translation and parsing. Required of all Voice Performance majors. 3 hours weekly; 3 credits per semester
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3.00 Credits
This elective is a study of the major joints of the body, and muscle location and action in their relationship to movement; the structure of organs and individual systems and their functions in the whole organism. Particular emphasis is given in this basic biological science course to issues crucial to the dancer. Required of all Dance majors. 3 hours weekly; 3 credits
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3.00 Credits
This course examines the way that other cultures are represented in visual genres such as movies, ethnographic films and documentaries. We will study the way that non-western or "primitive"cultures are constructed to fulfill preconceptions of these cultures as romantic or natural, threatening or familiar, exotic or universal. We will also question the status of film as a medium of unfiltered reality, and consider the strategies that different visual genres use to convey the truths of their representations. Finally, we will investigate some experimental pieces that seek to break down the boundaries between "scientific" vs. "fictional" representation, and we will debathe effectiveness of these "ethnofictions" in evading the ethnocentric pitfalls of earlier works.Ultimately, in questioning how we view other cultures such as the Inuik, the San, the Amish, or Native Americans, we will be asking questions about how we see ourselves. Required Texts: The Gods Must Be Crazy ( DVD); Witness ( DVD); Dead Man ( DVD); Selected readings (classroom handout)
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3.00 Credits
3 hours weekly; 3 credits This course explores ancient Greek culture from Homer to Plato using texts, film, and the collections of art and artifacts at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It develops a method of comparison and contrast between ancient and contemporary cultures and analyzes a set of themes directly relevant to contemporary culture and the role of the artist in society. The class emphasizes the ways in which myths, stories, and symbols encode cultural values, and draws from multiple explanatory models (from science-evolutionary biology, sociobiology, game theory etc, --as well as from social science-psychoanalysis, sociological theory, anthropology) to investigate central themes and their development in the texts we will cover. Several areas of exploration are pursued through examination of the history, anthropology, literature, philosophy, and art of ancient Greek Culture: The Nature and Origin of Human Aggression and Altruism Recent discussions from evolutionary biology, sociobiology, and primitology in writings of Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley, Richard Wrangham, Frans B.M. de Waal and others are drawn upon at the opening of the class to define and debate cultural origins of the primal themes of aggression and altruism. This opening debate and discussion is used to set the tone of Socratic questioning and skeptical appraisal. The nature of Oral Culture The epics of Homer are presented in the context of backgrounds on oral culture. This discussion introduces students to questions and theories of the function of media in cultures and begins a process of defining media. The Function of Myth in ancient Greek society We consider various anthropological and sociological theories and approaches to the function and meaning of myth, starting with Gregory Nagy's definition of myth as "the way a culture encodesits truth values in story telling patterns." We also examine the role of the artist in creating, shaping, and perpetuating cultural myths, including those of war. The Concept of the Hero We spend several weeks, throughout our study of the Homeric Epics, exploring the meaning and function of the hero concept in ancient Greek society. This study sets the ancient Greek concept off against our more modern conceptions and highlights similarities and differences in ways that illuminate strikingly different world views and value systems. We also explore the relationship between hero concept, memory, and media technology. Other central themes include: the concept and function of the gift and gift exchange; gender and sexuality; individuality and community; ? ?ros? ?and the nature of love, and the contrast ofApollonian and Dionysian impulses and sensibilities. The class operates by exploration and argument. Crucial issues and texts are presented in dialectical form with opposing sides. Students get credit for preparing and leading class debates and write three short essays, one of which is a 'Museum Essay' involving the discussions of anobject of the student's choice from the Museum of Fine Arts collections. Regular reading and dialectical quizzes are given on course texts. Texts include Richard Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Aggression; The Iliad of Homer; Aeschylus, The Oresteia; The Poems of Sappho; Euripides, Bacchae; Plato, The Symposium; Aristophanes, (either) The Clouds, Lysistrata, or The Frogs. The class also includes a course pack of supplemental readings and critical articles.
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