Visual Studies
Department Website:
https://www.haverford.edu/visual-studies-minor
The Interdisciplinary Visual Studies Minor invites students both to investigate their place in a global system of images and to make media of all kinds, from images and films to objects and performances. Additionally, the program trains students in interdisciplinary rigor and shows them how to examine the relationship between the visual and various structures of power.
Located in the Visual Culture, Arts and Media building (VCAM), Visual Studies links elements of the curriculum, campus, and broader community, highlighting the intersections between courses, faculty, students, departments, and programs engaging the visual.
Learning Goals
- To teach students visual literacy
Students of Visual Studies will investigate their place in the global system of images. Through a Visual Studies framework students have the ability to describe, analyze, and negotiate an increasingly complex world of information technologies; the impact of these technologies on art, culture, science, commerce, policy, society, and the environment; and the interrelationship of these technologies with historical and material forms. - To engage students in critical making
Visual Studies creates curricular opportunities for students to make images, objects, and digital artifacts with critical awareness of their powers and limitations. Critical making, or thinking with process, encourages students to develop production skills which, when coupled with theoretical training and analytical rigor, will broaden their ability to improvise and problem-solve in a variety of disciplinary contexts. - To train students in interdisciplinary rigor
Visual Studies encourages conversation between scholars working on the relationship between text and the visual, the nature of perception, cognition and attention, and the historical construction of looking. Visual Studies can help students perceive when disciplines are essential to understanding a subject, and when they can be combined for a more expansive or more precise critical engagement. - To guide students in an ethics of the visual
Visual Studies invites a return to the liberal arts as processes of creativity, critique, and reflection. It links creative expression to cultural analysis and social engagement, training a generation of theoretically informed makers, artists, innovators, teachers, and civic leaders. We invite students to examine the relationship between the visual and structures of power, to analyze the role of images in making and swaying consumers, and to attend to the role that images play in constructing “others” through race, gender, or disability.
Haverford’s Institutional Learning Goals are available on the President’s website, at http://hav.to/learninggoals.
Curriculum
The Visual Studies curriculum is organized to help students develop critical and creative engagement with visual experience across media, time, and cultures.
All students are required to take an introductory gateway course and a senior-level capstone course. The introductory course covers a variety of disciplinary approaches to the field of Visual Studies, and will often include guest lectures, field trips, and an introduction to some form of making. The capstone course consolidates the student experience of the interdisciplinary minor that integrates visual scholarship, making, and public engagement. Students will select their four elective courses from three of the Learning Goals: Visual Literacy, Critical Making, and Ethics of the Visual.
Students interested in the Interdisciplinary Visual Studies Minor should plan their course schedule in consultation with the Director of Visual Studies and with their major advisor. Please note: currently no more than one of the six minor credits may count towards the student’s major
Minor Requirements
The minor will include six courses:
- The Introduction to Visual Studies (VIST H142), the gateway course offered each fall
- Four elective courses that meet the following three learning goals (please find here a list of current courses approved for the minor):
- Visual Literacy
Courses that teach students how to describe and analyze the visual and the impact of digital and/or analogue technologies on art, culture, science, commerce, policy, society, and the environment. - Critical Making
Labs/Studio Courses that create curricular opportunities for students to make media of all kinds, from images and films to objects and performances, and to develop a critical awareness of the relationship between process, product, and reception. - Ethics of the Visual
Courses that invite students to examine the relationship between the visual and structures of power, analyzing the role of images in making and swaying consumers and attending to the role that images play in constructing “others” through such categories as race, gender, or disability.
- Visual Literacy
- A Senior Capstone Seminar (VIST H399) where students will work in small groups to research and propose projects that engage the larger campus community.
Both the Introduction and the Capstone courses must be taken at Haverford College. Additionally, at least two of the four elective courses must be taken at Haverford, Bryn Mawr, or Swarthmore in order to be counted for the Visual Studies Minor.
Faculty
Below are the core Visual Studies faculty. Many other faculty contribute courses to the program; see the Courses section for a full listing.
Core Faculty
Ronah Harris
Visiting Assistant Professor of Visual Studies
Emily Hong
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Visual Studies
Honglan Huang
Visiting Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures
John Muse
Assistant Professor and Director of Visual Studies; Director of VCAM
Swetha Regunathan
Assistant Professor of Visual Studies
Erin Schoneveld
Associate Professor and Chair of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Associate Professor of Visual Studies
Zeynep Sertbulut
Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Visual Studies
Courses
- Africana Studies Courses
- Anthropology Courses
- Fine Arts Courses
- Theater - Arts Program Courses
- Astronomy Courses
- Comparative Literature Courses
- Classical Studies Courses
- East Asian Languages and Cultures Courses
- English Courses
- French and French Studies Courses
- German Courses
- Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses
- History of Art Courses
- History Courses
- Health Studies Courses
- Independent College Programs Courses
- Mathematics Courses
- Music Courses
- Philosophy Courses
- Religion Courses
- Sociology Courses
- Spanish Courses
- Visual Studies Courses
- Writing Program Courses
NB: In addition to the following list, all courses in cognate departments (Fine Arts at Haverford, History of Art, Museum Studies, and Film Studies at Bryn Mawr) will count as electives in the Visual Studies Minor.
Africana Studies Courses
AFST H264 THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: ART TRAVERSING THE BINARY (1.0 Credit)
Qrescent Mali Mason
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Through a survey of visual, literary, and performance arts primarily by Black and Latina women (e.g., Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Christina Sharpe, Ana Victoria Jiménez) this course seeks to theorize the many dimensions of the oppositional gaze, with a focus on the ways these thinker-artists challenge, critique and disrupt various binaries that they identify with the history of western philosophy. Crosslisted: AFST,VIST.
AFST H361 TOPICS IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIT: THE NEW BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will begin with an exploration of the literary achievement of the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, engaging with its political and cultural context. We will then move into contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, theory and popular culture, articulating the relationship between mainstream artists of the late 20th and 21st century and the ideals of BAM. Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
(Offered: Spring 2026)
Anthropology Courses
ANTH H233 DECOLONIZING VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY: FIMMAKING WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This is a hybrid video production and theory course which grapples with the entanglements between ethnographic film/documentary and colonial structures of power. We will bring a decolonizing lens to explore—through texts, screenings, and making films—major modalities in the field including sensory ethnography, indigenous media, and feminist experimental film. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Anthropology Prerequisite(s): at least one course in Anthropology or Visual Studies
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ANTH H239 VISIONS OF JUSTICE: INTERSECTIONALITY AND LEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN ASIAN CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course aims to deepen understandings of Asian struggles for justice and representation through independent films by Asian (including diaspora) directors. We will analyze films that offer a window into legal and social movement struggles for gender justice, self-determination, and environmental justice. Crosslisted: Visual Studies; Anthropology; East Asian Languages & Cultures; Peace, Justice and Human Rights
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ANTH H266 SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Through this course, students will develop ethnographic research and writing skills using sensory detail (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell and feeling) to evoke people, places, and things. Assignments are primarily writing-intensive with additional fieldwork and multimodal (e.g. photography, film) exercises. Crosslisted: Anthropology, Visual Studies Prerequisite(s): Any Anthropology course
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ANTH H275 RACE AND REPRESENTATION IN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING (1.0 Credit)
Zeynep Sertbulut
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World
This is an introductory cross-listed (Visual Studies/Anthropology) production course on the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking through an exploration of race onscreen. The objective of the course is to enable students to build a critical awareness of the ways in which film and media in general perpetuate racist discourses and representations and explore how students can challenge such representations through their own filmmaking practices. As inspiration, we will watch and study a wide variety of innovative documentary films that bring alternative voices and histories to screen and read/watch filmmaker interviews. Classes will combine elements of a studio (sharing and critiquing filmmaking work in progress) and seminar (discussing weekly themes). Crosslisted: VIST. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors, then Anthropology majors/minors, then Film Studies minors
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ANTH H277 MEDIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST (1.0 Credit)
Zeynep Sertbulut
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
What can we learn about the Middle East by examining media? What can we about media by studying institutions of production and practices of consumption in the Middle East region? In this course, we will read ethnographies of media from the Middle East and look at and listen to media. We will explore cases from different countries, from Egypt to Syria, Turkey to Afghanistan, from Lebanon to Palestine/Israel. Crosslisted: VIST. Pre-requisite(s): 100-level course in social sciences, or humanities. Lottery Preference: Senior anthropology students have a priority to take the class.
Fine Arts Courses
ARTS H101 ARTS FOUNDATION-DRAWING (2-D) (0.5 Credit)
Jonathan Goodrich
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in drawing. Students will first learn how to see with a painter's eye. Composition, perspective, proportion, light, form, picture plane and other fundamentals will be studied. We will work from live models, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H101 ARTS FOUNDATION-DRAWING (2-D) (0.5 Credit)
Jonathan Goodrich
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in drawing. Students will first learn how to see with a painter's eye. Composition, perspective, proportion, light, form, picture plane and other fundamentals will be studied. We will work from live models, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H103 ARTS FOUNDATION-PHOTOGRAPHY (0.5 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the first quarter.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H103 ARTS FOUNDATION-PHOTOGRAPHY (0.5 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the first quarter.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H104 ARTS FOUNDATION - SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION: SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION-SCULPTURE (0.5 Credit)
Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H104 ARTS FOUNDATION - SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION: SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION-SCULPTURE (0.5 Credit)
Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H104 ARTS FOUNDATION - SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION: SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION-SCULPTURE (0.5 Credit)
Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H104 ARTS FOUNDATION - SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION: SCULPTURE,ARTS FOUNDATION-SCULPTURE (0.5 Credit)
Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a seven-week, half semester course designed to provide an introduction to three dimensional concepts and techniques. Skills associated with organizing and constructing three-dimensional form will be addressed through a series of projects within a contemporary context. The first projects will focus on basic three-dimensional concepts, while later projects will allow for greater individual self-expression and exploration. Various fabrication skills including construction, modeling, basic mold making, and casting will be demonstrated in class. All fabrication techniques will be covered in detail in class, and no prior experience is required to successfully complete this course
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H106 ARTS FOUNDATION - DRAWING (0.5 Credit)
Jonathan Goodrich
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week introductory level course designed to provide an overview of basic drawing techniques addressing line, form, perspective, and composition. Various drawing methods will be introduced in class, and students will gain experience in drawing by working from still life, models, and architecture. Preference to declared majors who need Foundations, and to students who have entered the lottery for the same Foundations course at least once without success. Enrollment Limit: 16,This is a seven-week introductory level course designed to provide an overview of basic drawing techniques addressing line, form, perspective, and composition. Various drawing methods will be introduced in class, and students will gain experience in drawing by working from still life, models, and architecture. Preference to declared majors who need Foundations, and to students who have entered the lottery for the same Foundations course at least once without success.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ARTS H106 ARTS FOUNDATION - DRAWING (0.5 Credit)
Jonathan Goodrich
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a seven-week introductory level course designed to provide an overview of basic drawing techniques addressing line, form, perspective, and composition. Various drawing methods will be introduced in class, and students will gain experience in drawing by working from still life, models, and architecture. Preference to declared majors who need Foundations, and to students who have entered the lottery for the same Foundations course at least once without success. Enrollment Limit: 16,This is a seven-week introductory level course designed to provide an overview of basic drawing techniques addressing line, form, perspective, and composition. Various drawing methods will be introduced in class, and students will gain experience in drawing by working from still life, models, and architecture. Preference to declared majors who need Foundations, and to students who have entered the lottery for the same Foundations course at least once without success.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ARTS H107 ARTS FOUNDATION-PAINTING (0.5 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study the color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.
(Offered: Spring 2026, Spring 2026)
ARTS H107 ARTS FOUNDATION-PAINTING (0.5 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study the color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.
(Offered: Spring 2026, Spring 2026)
ARTS H107 ARTS FOUNDATION-PAINTING (0.5 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, and surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork. Enrollment Limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,A seven-week introductory course for students with little or no experience in painting. Students will be first introduced to the handling of basic tools, materials and techniques. We will study the color theory such as interaction of color, value & color, warms & cools, complementary colors, optical mixture, texture, surface quality. We will work from live model, still life, landscape, imagination and masterwork.
(Offered: Spring 2026, Spring 2026)
ARTS H108 ARTS FOUNDATION-PHOTOGRAPHY (0.5 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the second quarter. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the second quarter.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H108 ARTS FOUNDATION-PHOTOGRAPHY (0.5 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the second quarter. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors,This is a half-semester course to introduce the craft and artistry of photography to students with some or no skills in photography. Students learn how to develop negatives, print enlargements, and printing techniques such as burning, dodging, and exposure time. This class also requires a two-hour workshop. The day and time of the workshop will be determined during the first class. Offered in the second quarter.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H121 FOUNDATION PRINTMAKING- RELIEF,FOUNDATION PRINTMAKING: RELIEF PRINTING (0.5 Credit)
Hee Sook Kim, William Pangburn
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
,A seven-week course covering various techniques and approaches to the art of the woodcut and the linocut, emphasizing the study of design principles and the expressive potential of the medium to create a personal visual statement. Enrollment limit -15
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H124 FOUNDATION PRINTMAKING: MONOTYPE (0.5 Credit)
Hee Sook Kim, William Pangburn
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Basic printmaking techniques in Monotype medium. Painterly methods, direct drawing, stencils, and brayer techniques for beginners in printmaking will be taught. Color, form, shape, and composition in 2-D format will be explored. Individual and group critiques will be employed. Enrollment Limit: 15,Basic printmaking techniques in Monotype medium. Painterly methods, direct drawing, stencils, brayer techniques for beginners in printmaking will be taught. Color, form, shape, and somposition in 2-D format will be explored. Individual and group critiques will be employed.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H124 FOUNDATION PRINTMAKING: MONOTYPE (0.5 Credit)
Hee Sook Kim, William Pangburn
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Basic printmaking techniques in Monotype medium. Painterly methods, direct drawing, stencils, and brayer techniques for beginners in printmaking will be taught. Color, form, shape, and composition in 2-D format will be explored. Individual and group critiques will be employed. Enrollment Limit: 15,Basic printmaking techniques in Monotype medium. Painterly methods, direct drawing, stencils, brayer techniques for beginners in printmaking will be taught. Color, form, shape, and somposition in 2-D format will be explored. Individual and group critiques will be employed.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H142 INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Swetha Regunathan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the trans-disciplinary field of Visual Studies, its methods of analysis and topical concerns. Traditional media and artifacts of art history and film theory, and also an examination of the ubiquity of images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H224 COMPUTER AND PRINTMAKING (1.0 Credit)
Hee Sook Kim
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Computer-generated images and printmaking techniques. Students will create photographic, computer processed, and directly drawn images on lithographic polyester plates and zinc etching plates. Classwork will be divided between the computer lab and the printmaking studio to create images using both image processing software and traditional printmaking methods, including lithography, etching, and silk-screen. Broad experimental approaches to printmaking and computer techniques will be encouraged. Individual and group critiques will be employed. enrollment limit: 12 Lottery Preference: Fine Arts Major and Minors
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ARTS H225 LITHOGRAPHY: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
Hee Sook Kim
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
An intermediate course covering B/W and Color Lithography in plates. Combined methods with other printmaking techniques such as Paper lithography and Monotype are explored during the course along with photographic approaches. Editioning of images is required along with experimental ones. Development of technical skills in traditional Lithography and personal visual study are necessary with successful creative solutions. A strong body of work following a specific theme is required. Individual discussions and group critiques are held periodically. Additional research on the history of printmaking is requested.
ARTS H231 DRAWING (2-D): ALL MEDIA (1.0 Credit)
Jonathan Goodrich
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students are encouraged to experiment with various drawing media and to explore the relationships between media, techniques and expression. Each student will strive to develop a personal approach to drawing while addressing fundamental issues of pictorial space, structure, scale, and rhythm. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits.
ARTS H233 PAINTING: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students are encouraged to experiment with various painting techniques and materials in order to develop a personal approach to self-expression. We will emphasize form, color, texture, and the relationship among them; influences of various techniques upon the expression of a work; the characteristics and limitations of different media. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits. Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors Enrollment Limit: 12,Students are encouraged to experiment with various painting techniques and materials in order to develop a personal approach to self-expression. We will emphasize form, color, texture, and the relationship among them; influences of various techniques upon the expression of a work; the characteristics and limitations of different media. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits. Prerequisite: Fine Arts Foundations or consent.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H233 PAINTING: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students are encouraged to experiment with various painting techniques and materials in order to develop a personal approach to self-expression. We will emphasize form, color, texture, and the relationship among them; influences of various techniques upon the expression of a work; the characteristics and limitations of different media. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits. Lottery Preference: Fine Arts majors and minors Enrollment Limit: 12,Students are encouraged to experiment with various painting techniques and materials in order to develop a personal approach to self-expression. We will emphasize form, color, texture, and the relationship among them; influences of various techniques upon the expression of a work; the characteristics and limitations of different media. Students will work from observation, conceptual ideas and imagination. Course includes drawing projects, individual and group crits, slide lectures, museum and gallery visits. Prerequisite: Fine Arts Foundations or consent.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H243 SCULPTURE: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
Markus Baenziger, Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course is designed to give students an in-depth introduction to a comprehensive range of three-dimensional concepts and fabrication techniques. Emphasis will be on wood and metal working, and additional processes such as casting procedures for a range of synthetic materials and working with digital tools including a laser cutter and CNC equipment will be introduced in class. Course may be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: ARTSH104 or permission from the instructor.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H243 SCULPTURE: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
Markus Baenziger, Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course is designed to give students an in-depth introduction to a comprehensive range of three-dimensional concepts and fabrication techniques. Emphasis will be on wood and metal working, and additional processes such as casting procedures for a range of synthetic materials and working with digital tools including a laser cutter and CNC equipment will be introduced in class. Course may be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: ARTSH104 or permission from the instructor.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H250 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EXHIBITION: OBJECTS, IMAGES, TEXTS, EVENTS (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the theory and practice of exhibition and display. This course will supply students with the analytic tools necessary to understand how exhibitions work and give them practical experience making arguments with objects, images, texts, and events.
ARTS H251 PHOTOGRAPHY: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students are encouraged to develop an individual approach to photography. Emphasis is placed on the creation of color photographic prints which express plastic form, emotions and ideas about the physical world. Work is critiqued weekly to give critical insights into editing of individual student work and the use of the appropriate black-and-white photographic materials in analog or digital formats necessary to give coherence to that work. Study of the photography collection, gallery and museum exhibitions, lectures and a critical analysis of photographic sequences in books and a research project supplement the weekly critiques. In addition students produce a handmade archival box to house their work, which is organized into a loose sequence and mounted to archival standards. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent.,Students are encouraged to develop an individual approach to photography. Emphasis is placed on the creation of color photographic prints which express plastic form, emotions and ideas about the physical world. Work is critiqued weekly to give critical insights into editing of individual student work and the use of the appropriate black-and-white photographic materials in analog or digital formats necessary to give coherence to that work. Study of the photography collection, gallery and museum exhibitions, lectures and a critical analysis of photographic sequences in books and a research project supplement the weekly critiques. In addition students produce a handmade archival box to house their work, which is organized into a loose sequence and mounted to archival standards. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H251 PHOTOGRAPHY: MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES (1.0 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students are encouraged to develop an individual approach to photography. Emphasis is placed on the creation of color photographic prints which express plastic form, emotions and ideas about the physical world. Work is critiqued weekly to give critical insights into editing of individual student work and the use of the appropriate black-and-white photographic materials in analog or digital formats necessary to give coherence to that work. Study of the photography collection, gallery and museum exhibitions, lectures and a critical analysis of photographic sequences in books and a research project supplement the weekly critiques. In addition students produce a handmade archival box to house their work, which is organized into a loose sequence and mounted to archival standards. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent.,Students are encouraged to develop an individual approach to photography. Emphasis is placed on the creation of color photographic prints which express plastic form, emotions and ideas about the physical world. Work is critiqued weekly to give critical insights into editing of individual student work and the use of the appropriate black-and-white photographic materials in analog or digital formats necessary to give coherence to that work. Study of the photography collection, gallery and museum exhibitions, lectures and a critical analysis of photographic sequences in books and a research project supplement the weekly critiques. In addition students produce a handmade archival box to house their work, which is organized into a loose sequence and mounted to archival standards. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 103 or equivalent.
(Offered: Fall 2025, Spring 2026)
ARTS H333 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO: PAINTING (1.0 Credit)
Ying Li
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students will build on the work done in 200 level courses to develop further their individual approach to painting. Students are expected to create projects that demonstrate the unique character of their chosen media in making their own art. Completed projects will be exhibited at the end of semester. Class will include weekly crits, museum visits, visiting artists' lecture and crits. Each student will present a 15- minute slide talk and discussion of either their own work or the work of artists who influenced them.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ARTS H343 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO: SCULPTURE (1.0 Credit)
Zachary Hill
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
In this studio course the student is encouraged to experiment with ideas and techniques with the purpose of developing a personal expression. It is expected that the student will already have a sound knowledge of the craft and aesthetics of sculpture and is at a stage where personal expression has become possible. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: Fine Arts 243A or B, or consent of instructor
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ARTS H351 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY,EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO: PHOTOGRAPHY (1.0 Credit)
William Williams
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students produce an extended sequence of their work in either book or exhibition format using black and white or color photographic materials. The sequence and scale of the photographic prints are determined by the nature of the student's work. Weekly classroom critiques, supplemented by an extensive investigation of classic photographic picture books and related critical texts guide students to the completion of their course work. This two semester course consists of the book project first semester and the exhibition project second semester. At the end of each semester the student may exhibit his/her project.,Students produce an extended sequence of their work in either book (ARTSH351A) or exhibition (ARTSH351B) format using black and white or color photographic materials. The sequence and scale of the photographic prints are determined by the nature of the student's work. Weekly classroom critiques, supplemented by an extensive investigation of classic photographic picture books and related critical texts guide students to the completion of their course work. This two semester course consists of the book project first semester (351A) and the exhibition project second semester (351B). At the end of each semester the student may exhibit his/her project.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ARTS H351 EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY,EXPERIMENTAL STUDIO: PHOTOGRAPHY (1.0 Credit)
William Williams, Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Students produce an extended sequence of their work in either book or exhibition format using black and white or color photographic materials. The sequence and scale of the photographic prints are determined by the nature of the student's work. Weekly classroom critiques, supplemented by an extensive investigation of classic photographic picture books and related critical texts guide students to the completion of their course work. This two semester course consists of the book project first semester and the exhibition project second semester. At the end of each semester the student may exhibit his/her project.,Students produce an extended sequence of their work in either book (ARTSH351A) or exhibition (ARTSH351B) format using black and white or color photographic materials. The sequence and scale of the photographic prints are determined by the nature of the student's work. Weekly classroom critiques, supplemented by an extensive investigation of classic photographic picture books and related critical texts guide students to the completion of their course work. This two semester course consists of the book project first semester (351A) and the exhibition project second semester (351B). At the end of each semester the student may exhibit his/her project.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
Theater - Arts Program Courses
ARTT B332 THE ACTOR CREATES: PERFORMANCE STUDIO IN GENERATING ORIGINAL WORK (1.0 Credit)
This course explores the actor as creator, inviting the performer to become a generative artist with agency to invent their own work. Building on skills introduced in Fundamentals of Acting, we will introduce new methodologies of training to construct a framework in which students can approach making original solo and group work. Students will use processes employing visual art, found dialogue, music, autobiography, and more. Emphasizing guided, individual, and group collaboration, we will examine the role of the actor/creator through exercises and readings that relate the actor’s creative process to an understanding of self and the artist’s role in communities. Prerequisite: ARTT B251 (Fundamentals of Acting)
ARTT H160 VISUAL STORYTELLING: AN ACTING AND FILMMAKING WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
John Muse, McKenna Kerrigan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course offers a unique collaborative approach to visual storytelling in narrative and fiction film, combining the technical and creative aspects of both acting and filmmaking. Co-taught by a filmmaker and an actor-director, students will gain foundational skills in acting and film production, focusing on the specific demands of narrative storytelling. Through hands-on projects, students will work on both sides of the camera, learning to act, direct, and contribute to the technical production process. Crosslisted: VIST, ARTT. Lottery Preference: VIST and ARTT students (when offered in Fall, 4 spaces reserved for first years)
Astronomy Courses
ASTR H341 ADVANCED TOPICS: OBSERVATIONAL ASTRONOMY (1.0 Credit)
Karen Masters
Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): C: Physical and Natural Processes
Observing projects that involve using a CCD camera on a 16-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Projects include spectroscopy; variable star photometry; H-alpha imaging; imaging and photometry of galaxies and star clusters; instruction in the use of image processing software and CCD camera operation. Students work in groups of two with minimal faculty supervision. Formal reports are required. Prerequisite(s): ASTR H204
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Comparative Literature Courses
COML H142 INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Swetha Regunathan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the trans-disciplinary field of Visual Studies, its methods of analysis and topical concerns. Traditional media and artifacts of art history and film theory, and also an examination of the ubiquity of images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Fall 2025)
COML H210 SPANISH AND SPANISH AMERICAN FILM STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Raquel Vieira Parrine Sant'Ana
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Exploration of Latin American film. The course will discuss approximately one movie per week. The class will focus on the analysis of cinematic discourses as well as the films’ cultural and historic background. The course will also provide advanced language training with particular emphasis in refining oral and writing skills. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, or placement, or instructor consent.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
COML H223 VISUALIZING NATIONS: AFRICA AND EUROPE (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course will explore ideas of nation-building in regard to the transnational relations between Europe and Africa. We will discuss African and European experiences of nation-creation to distinguish between exclusionary and inclusionary visions of nation states, and focus in particular on literary texts from Great Britain, Germany, and France in comparison with literary texts from Nigeria, South Africa, and Algeria.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
COML H245 PERFORMANCE, LITERATURE AND THE ARCHIVE (1.0 Credit)
Lindsay Reckson
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The ‘archive,’ as both an institutional and performance practice and a theoretical concept, has been one of the most studied sites in performance and literary studies. The hegemonic, patriarchal institution of the archive that constructs and perpetuates the canon and the master narratives of history while, marginalizing, silencing, and erasing the subaltern and the subcultural has been contested by the poststructuralist philosophers and critical theorists of the late 20 th and early 21 st century. A new concept of the archive transpired in the interdisciplinary fields of postcolonial, gender, cultural, and performance studies, one that is more utopian and more inclusive and is not limited by dominant repressive power structures and ideologies. This archive does not merely revisit the past to excavate the eradicated traces and silenced voices, but also, perhaps more importantly, opens the potential for a formerly unimaginable, and yet-to-be-imagined future.
COML H270 THE ART OF SPORTS: ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Ava Shirazi
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course explores the visual and poetic life of sports, ancient and modern. It brings together cultural criticism, visual analysis, and historical study to theorize the beauty of athletics. Concepts of the body, gender, race and performance, and tropes such as "for the love of the game," "feel for the game" and "poetry in motion" will organize our work on the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of sports. No prior expertise in classics, art or sports necessary. Crosslisted: COML,VIST.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Classical Studies Courses
CSTS H209 CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Farmer
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the primary characters and stories of Greek and Roman mythology including cosmic creation, Olympian and other deities, and heroes both as they appear in Greek and Roman literature and art and as they are later represented in modern art, music, and film. Crosslisted: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Religion
CSTS H222 CREATING CLASSICS: A VISUAL WORKSHOP ON PASOLINI & GREEK DRAMA (1.0 Credit)
Ava Shirazi
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Can our engagement with the past be a creative action? A reclaiming of ancient ideas and media? This seminar-workshop hybrid answers such questions through collaborative scholarship and experiments with Greek tragedy and its afterlife in cinema.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
CSTS H231 QUEER ROAD-TRIP FILMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The queer road-trip film has been gaining popularity as an outlet for exploring non-normative sexuality further marginalized on the road. We will examine the phenomenon of the queer road-trip narrative, approaching it from an unlikely starting point: the Ancient Mediterranean novels Satyrica and Leucippe and Clitophon. Both of these ancient novels dramatize road trips and travel narratives involving different combinations of queer characters; we'll pair them with a curated selection of contemporary queer road-trip films. Crosslisted: GSST,VIST.
CSTS H270 THE ART OF SPORTS: ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Ava Shirazi
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course explores the visual and poetic life of sports, ancient and modern. It brings together cultural criticism, visual analysis, and historical study to theorize the beauty of athletics. Concepts of the body, gender, race and performance, and tropes such as "for the love of the game," "feel for the game" and "poetry in motion" will organize our work on the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of sports. No prior expertise in classics, art or sports necessary. Crosslisted: COML,VIST.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
East Asian Languages and Cultures Courses
EALC B355 ANIMALS, VEGETABLES, MINERALS IN EAST ASIAN LITERATURE & FILM (1.0 Credit)
Shiamin Kwa
Division: Humanities
This semester, we will explore how artists question, explore, celebrate, and critique the relationships between humans and the environment. Through a topics-focused course, students will examine the ways that narratives about environment have shaped the way that humans have defined themselves. We will be reading novels and short stories and viewing films that contest conventional binaries of man and animal, civilization and nature, tradition and technology, and even truth and fiction. “Animals, Vegetables, Minerals” does not follow chronological or geographical frameworks, but chooses texts that engage the three categories enumerated as the major themes of our course. We will read and discuss animal theory, theories of place and landscape, and theories of modernization or mechanization; and there will be frequent (and intentional) overlap between these categories. We will also be watching films that extend our theoretical questions of thes e themes beyond national, linguistic, and generic borders. You are expected to view this course as a collaborative process in which you share responsibility for leading discussion. There are no prerequisites or language expectations, but students should have some basic knowledge of East Asian, especially Sinophone, history and culture, or be willing to do some additional reading (suggested by the instructor) to achieve an adequate contextual background for exploring these texts.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
EALC H112 MYTH, FOLKLORE, AND LEGEND IN JAPAN (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
An introduction to stories of the weird and supernatural in Japan and a reflection on genre and the scholarly enterprise of taxonomy-making. Readings from Buddhist miracle plays, early modern puppet drama, etc., supplemented by scholarly secondary sources.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
EALC H132 JAPANESE CIVILIZATION (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
A broad chronological survey of Japanese culture and society from the earliest times to the present, with special reference to such topics as belief, family, language, the arts, and sociopolitical organization. Readings include primary sources in English translation and secondary studies.
EALC H201 INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Focusing on the East Asian Buddhist tradition, the course examines Buddhist philosophy, doctrine and practice as textual traditions and as lived religion. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, Religion
EALC H204 JAPANESE POETRY AND POETICS (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
In this course, we investigate texts central to the traditions of classical Japanese poetry before the nineteenth-century. While most of the time we will engage directly with poetry anthologies and treatises, we will also analyze narrative fiction that feature poems, looking at social and performative contexts. Through assignments and hands-on activities, students will gain familiarity with key critical and aesthetic concepts, using these analytical tools to more fully experience art and literature. Lottery Preference: EALC, Majors, Minors, Senior, Junior in that order
EALC H205 EAST ASIAN PUPPETRY AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
In this course, we investigate the history and practice of traditional puppetry forms in East Asia and bring them into conversation with contemporary performance genres. While puppets are often considered as subject to total control by their manipulators, we will question this perceived assumption. In each unit, critical discussion of a text or performance is paired with a practical component that invites students to think about puppets by performing with them. Lottery Preference: EALC Major, EALC Minor, VIST Junior, VIST Senior
(Offered: Spring 2026)
EALC H231 PRE-MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This is a course introducing classical and medieval Japanese literature, and also related performance traditions. No background in either East Asian culture or in the study of literature is required; all works will be read in English translation. (Advanced Japanese language students are invited to speak with the instructor about arranging to read some of the works in the original or in translation into modern Japanese.) The course is a chronological survey of Japanese literature from the tenth century to the fifteenth. It will focus on well-known texts like the Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book, both written by women, and the ballad-form Tale of the Heike.
EALC H239 VISIONS OF JUSTICE: INTERSECTIONALITY AND LEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN ASIAN CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course aims to deepen understandings of Asian struggles for justice and representation through independent films by Asian (including diaspora) directors. We will analyze films that offer a window into legal and social movement struggles for gender justice, self-determination, and environmental justice. Crosslisted: Visual Studies; Anthropology; East Asian Languages & Cultures; Peace, Justice and Human Rights
(Offered: Spring 2026)
EALC H247 DEATH AND THE AFTERLIFE IN EAST ASIAN RELIGIONS (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course engages the rich textual and visual traditions of China, Korea, and Japan to illuminate funerary and memorial practices and explore the terrain of the next world. Students will learn about the culturally constructed nature of religious belief and come to see the complexity and diversity of the influences on understandings of life and death. The course is not a chronological survey, but rather alternates between modern and ancient narratives and practices to draw a picture of the relationship between the living and the dead as conceived in East Asian religions.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
EALC H306 JAPANESE BOOK ART AND PRINTING (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
We will focus on Japanese book art from early illustrated scrolls to contemporary artists' books and explore a range of printmaking processes. Each unit is paired with a hands-on exercise that introduces a printmaking or bookmaking technique. Through readings, discussions, and hands-on activities, students will gain vocabulary to describe the materiality of printed books and contemplate their social and conceptual implications, discovering how books and printing can challenge perceived assumptions about art and reading. Lottery Preference: EALC and VIST students
(Offered: Fall 2025)
EALC H335 JAPANESE MODERNISM ACROSS MEDIA (1.0 Credit)
Erin Schoneveld
Division: Humanities
This curatorial seminar examines the technological shifts and cultural transformations that have shaped Japanese artistic production and practice from the early 20th-century through the present day. Readings from pre-modern through contemporary sources, film screenings, and museum field trips, will be included. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or higher. Enrollment limited to 15 students.
EALC H370 ADVANCED TOPICS IN BUDDHIST STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Advanced course on a topic chosen annually by instructor. The purpose of this course is to give students with a basic background in Buddhist Studies deeper conversancy with a particular textual, thematic, or practice tradition in the history of Buddhism. Prerequisite(s): EALC 201 or instructor consent
(Offered: Spring 2026)
English Courses
ENGL B205 INTRODUCTION TO FILM (1.0 Credit)
Pardis Dabashi
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is intended to provide students with the tools of critical film analysis. Through readings of images and sounds, sections of films and entire narratives, students will cultivate the habits of critical viewing and establish a foundation for focused work in film studies. The course introduces formal and technical units of cinematic meaning and categories of genre and history that add up to the experiences and meanings we call cinema. Although much of the course material will focus on the Hollywood style of film, examples will be drawn from the history of cinema. Attendance at weekly screenings is mandatory.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
ENGL B267 THEORIES OF THE IMAGE (1.0 Credit)
Devin Daniels
Our contemporary world contains a seemingly endless amount of images, from television and cinema to the jpegs, gifs, and memes of social media and the internet, but this was not always the case. This class will consider how theorists and philosophers reckoned with the rise of the image and the birth of “image culture.” What exactly is an image? What happens when an image can be reproduced and disseminated at unimagined speeds? What happens when that image moves? What sort of gazes does the image produce, and what are the social and political power of such gazes? We will pay particular attention to how the invention of cinema changed the meaning of the image at the end of the 19th century and how, in turn, the end of World War II (with the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the discovery of the Nazi’s extermination camps) challenged the meaning of cinema, undermining its supposed ability to show us what was “real.” In asking these and related questions, this course will provide students with a robust understanding of film theory and of different theoretical and historical approaches to the image. We will consider a wide range of methods—including Marxism, critical race theory, feminist theory, and psychoanalysis—and view a number of photographic, cinematic, and digital images against which we can test these theories. Fulfills Film Studies Theory course requirement
(Offered: Fall 2025)
ENGL H225 SHAKESPEARE: THE TRAGIC AND BEYOND (1.0 Credit)
Kimberly Benston
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An "introductory emphasis" study of the major tragedies and related histories, comedies, and romances, with special reference to the evolution of dramatic form, poetic style, characterization, and ideology as they are shaped by Shakespeare's persistent experimentation with dramas of extravagant will, desire, tyranny, skepticism, and death. Particular attention will be paid to key scenes in an effort to assess both Shakespeare's response to contemporary literary and cultural concerns and the internal reformation of his own craft. Prerequisite(s): First Year Writing
ENGL H232 THE GRAPHIC NOVEL: NARRATIVES IN LONG-FORM COMICS (1.0 Credit)
Joshua Kopin
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will explore narrative representation in the comics medium, particularly the way graphic narratives accommodate multiple literary genres such as fiction, fantasy, memoir, biography, and history. By examining the interplay between image and text in graphic novels, it will consider the aesthetics and politics of visual literacy and multi-modality in relation to representations of history, memory, cultural difference, mental illness, gender, sexuality, political struggle, and trauma.
ENGL H245 PERFORMANCE, LITERATURE AND THE ARCHIVE (1.0 Credit)
Lindsay Reckson
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The ‘archive,’ as both an institutional and performance practice and a theoretical concept, has been one of the most studied sites in performance and literary studies. The hegemonic, patriarchal institution of the archive that constructs and perpetuates the canon and the master narratives of history while, marginalizing, silencing, and erasing the subaltern and the subcultural has been contested by the poststructuralist philosophers and critical theorists of the late 20 th and early 21 st century. A new concept of the archive transpired in the interdisciplinary fields of postcolonial, gender, cultural, and performance studies, one that is more utopian and more inclusive and is not limited by dominant repressive power structures and ideologies. This archive does not merely revisit the past to excavate the eradicated traces and silenced voices, but also, perhaps more importantly, opens the potential for a formerly unimaginable, and yet-to-be-imagined future.
ENGL H295 NEW MEDIA PERFORMANCE PROJECT (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
New Media Performance Project (NMPP) incorporates processes of devised and experimental theatre with the creative use of digital media technologies for the realization of an evening-length performance. In response to topical cultural issues, students will engage with a variety of audio-visual media and interactive systems through sessions of improvisation, theatre games, and other creative research. Acting experience is not required, but students should be comfortable with public speaking at a minimum.
ENGL H361 TOPICS IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN LIT: THE NEW BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will begin with an exploration of the literary achievement of the Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, engaging with its political and cultural context. We will then move into contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, theory and popular culture, articulating the relationship between mainstream artists of the late 20th and 21st century and the ideals of BAM. Prerequisite(s): Two 200-level English courses or instructor consent
(Offered: Spring 2026)
French and French Studies Courses
FREN B105 DIRECTIONS DE LA FRANCE CONTEMPORAINE (1.0 Credit)
Camille Leclère-Gregory, Corine Ragueneau
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Ce cours se donne pour but de vous faire goûter à la culture française actuelle, mais aussi de vous donner une idée claire de la société où elle naît. Nous en aborderons des aspects très variés en nous concentrant sur ces institutions dont le fonctionnement la distingue d’autres pays (école, hôpital, etc.). Les films que nous allons voir nous permettront d'analyser ces particularités françaises. Il s’agit également de vous encourager à vous exprimer aisément en français : les discussions seront privilégiées et nous réviserons régulièrement des points de grammaire afin d’améliorer votre expression tant écrite qu’orale. Au terme de ce cours, vous pourrez vivre en France sans vous sentir sur une planète étrangère. Prerequisite: FREN 005 or 101.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
German Courses
GERM H223 VISUALIZING NATIONS: AFRICA AND EUROPE (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course will explore ideas of nation-building in regard to the transnational relations between Europe and Africa. We will discuss African and European experiences of nation-creation to distinguish between exclusionary and inclusionary visions of nation states, and focus in particular on literary texts from Great Britain, Germany, and France in comparison with literary texts from Nigeria, South Africa, and Algeria.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Gender and Sexuality Studies Courses
GSST H202 QUEER OF COLOR VISUAL CULTURE (1.0 Credit)
Gina Velasco
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course explores the representation of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality within multiple forms of visual culture, including film, video, and mass media. In particular, we will examine the politics of representation in visual culture produced by and about queer communities of color. Drawing on queer studies, feminist studies, ethnic studies, visual culture studies, and film studies, this course will introduce students to the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of queer of color studies. Throughout the course, students will develop their skills of visual analysis, which they will integrate with their analysis of written texts. Lottery Preference: Gender and Sexuality concentrators
(Offered: Fall 2025)
GSST H231 QUEER ROAD-TRIP FILMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The queer road-trip film has been gaining popularity as an outlet for exploring non-normative sexuality further marginalized on the road. We will examine the phenomenon of the queer road-trip narrative, approaching it from an unlikely starting point: the Ancient Mediterranean novels Satyrica and Leucippe and Clitophon. Both of these ancient novels dramatize road trips and travel narratives involving different combinations of queer characters; we'll pair them with a curated selection of contemporary queer road-trip films. Crosslisted: GSST,VIST.
History of Art Courses
HART B235 CRITICAL APPROACHES TO VISUAL REPRESENTATION: IDENTIFICATION IN THE CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Feliz
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is writing intensive. An introduction to the analysis of film and other lensed, time-based media through particular attention to the role of the spectator. Why do moving images compel our fascination? How exactly do spectators relate to the people, objects, and places that appear on the screen? Wherein lies the power of images to move, attract, repel, persuade, or transform their viewers? Students will be introduced to film theory through the rich and complex topic of identification. We will explore how points of view are framed by the camera in still photography, film, television, video games, and other media. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. Fulfills Film Studies Introductory or Theory course requirement. This course was formerly numbered HART B110; students who previously completed HART B110 may not repeat this course.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HART B275 MUSEUM STUDIES: HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE (1.0 Credit)
Monique Scott
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Using the museums of Philadelphia as field sites, this course provides an introduction to the theoretical and practical aspects of museum studies and the important synergies between theory and practice. Students will learn: the history of museums as institutions of recreation, education and leisure; how the museum itself became a symbol of power, prestige and sometimes alienation; debates around the ethics and politics of collecting objects of art, culture and nature; and the qualities that make an exhibition effective (or not). By visiting exhibitions and meeting with a range of museum professionals in art, anthropology and science museums, this course offers a critical perspective on the inner workings of the museum as well as insights into the “new museology.” Not open to first-year students. Enrollment preference given to minors in Museum Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B281; students who previously completed HART B281 may not repeat this course.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
HART B365 EXHIBITING AFRICA: ART, ARTIFACT AND NEW ARTICULATIONS (1.0 Credit)
At the turn of the 20th century, the Victorian natural history museum played an important role in constructing and disseminating images of Africa to the Western public. The history of museum representations of Africa and Africans reveals that exhibitions—both museum exhibitions and “living” World’s Fair exhibitions— has long been deeply embedded in politics, including the persistent “othering” of African people as savages or primitives. While paying attention to stereotypical exhibition tropes about Africa, we will also consider how art museums are creating new constructions of Africa and how contemporary curators and conceptual artists are creating complex, challenging new ways of understanding African identities.This course was formerly numbered HART B279; students who previously completed HART B279 may not repeat this course.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HART B380 TOPICS IN FILM STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Homay King, Matthew Feliz
Division: Humanities
This is a topics course. Course content varies. Prerequisite: one course in History of Art at the 100- or 200-level or permission of the instructor. Enrollment preference given to majors and minors in History of Art and Film Studies. This course was formerly numbered HART B334.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
History Courses
HIST H256 ZEN THOUGHT, ZEN CULTURE, ZEN HISTORY (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
What are we talking about when we talk about Zen? This course is an introduction to the intellectual and cultural history of the style of Buddhism known as Zen in Japanese. We will examine the development and expression of this religious movement in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, History, Religion
(Offered: Spring 2026)
HIST H317 TOPICS IN LATIN AMERICAN HISTORY: RIO DE JANEIRO, PAST AND PRESENT (1.0 Credit)
James Krippner
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This research-oriented seminar invites you to analyze the fascinating history of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as it is transformed over the centuries by an intricate mixture of local and global histories. This geographic space has been a zone of indigenous settlement from antiquity through the formation of a hybrid colonial culture into the present; a sixteenth and seventeenth century frontier outpost blessed with a beautiful natural harbor utilized by early modern religious dissidents, pirates, smugglers, and adventurers seeking their fortunes; the home of an important whaling industry as the colony matured; a vibrant port city and increasingly massive human trafficking center during the era of mass enslavement beginning in the sixteenth and extending through most of the nineteenth century; the seat of colonial and national governments from the mid- eighteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries; a transregional trade center linking the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia from the sixteenth century through the present; a site of conflictive labor, ethnic, racial, gender and sexual politics for several centuries; and since the end of WWII a cosmopolitan global tourist destination renowned for its multi-faceted popular culture, especially its beaches, music, dance, carnival, soccer and religious traditions. As we shall see, Rio de Janeiro has been all these things and more since its founding on March 1, 1565.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Health Studies Courses
HLTH H304 CRITICAL DISABILITY STUDIES: THEORY AND PRACTICE (1.0 Credit)
Kristin Lindgren
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An examination of work in critical disability studies across a range of humanistic disciplines and an exploration of how disability theory and engaged community practice inform and shape one another. The course includes a weekly praxis partnership with the Center for Creative Works, a community artspace for artists with intellectual disabilities. Enrollment Limit: 15 Lottery Preference: Health Studies seniors
(Offered: Spring 2026)
Independent College Programs Courses
ICPR H250 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EXHIBITION: OBJECTS, IMAGES, TEXTS, EVENTS (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the theory and practice of exhibition and display. This course will supply students with the analytic tools necessary to understand how exhibitions work and give them practical experience making arguments with objects, images, texts, and events.
Mathematics Courses
MATH H337 DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY (1.0 Credit)
Samuel Pérez-Ayala
Division: Natural Science
Domain(s): C: Physical and Natural Processes
A study of the differential geometry of curves and surfaces. Concepts covered include both the local theory (including metrics, curvature, and geodesics) and the global theory, including the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. Prerequisite(s): MATH 317 or MATH 216 with special permission, or instructor consent
Music Courses
MUSC H251 STRANGE MUSIC: MONSTERS, GHOSTS, AND ALIENS ON STAGE AND SCREEN (1.0 Credit)
Richard Freedman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Scholars of film often speak of the camera as an “all-seeing eye.” But what role does the ear play in cinematic experience? This course will explore the history, character, and function of music (and sound) in the first half of the twentieth century (and beyond): how they worked with (and against) the camera’s gaze to complicate narratives, to articulate time, and more generally to represent feeling and identity. This term will put special focus on the non-human: monsters, ghosts, aliens, and more generally the idea of the magical or supernatural. What does such radical Otherness sound like? How has it been represented musically? And how have composers and sound designers put such conventions to work in films of the last 100 years, from Metropolis and Nosferatu to Dune and Arrival? To answer these questions we’ll explore the silents, the early sound film and (especially) the long arc of composers (from Eric Korngold to Bernard Herrmann and from John Williams to Hans Zimmer. We’ll consider the legacy of Romanticism, the possibilities of Modernism, and even the Avant Garde, and learn about orchestration, harmony and thematic process as they contribute to cinematic narrative. We will also consider various theories of sound, music, and film staked out by film and operatic composers themselves, as well as critical and scholarly essays by leading writers on the monstrous, the alien, and the supernatural. Crosslisted: VIST Prerequisite(s): No formal prerequisite, but some previous study of either music or visual media would be helpful
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Philosophy Courses
PHIL H119 WHAT DOES PHILOSOPHY HAVE TO DO WITH SOCIAL MEDIA? (1.0 Credit)
Qrescent Mali Mason
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
What relationship does philosophy have to issues arising in the contemporary world? What relationship does philosophy have to our experiences with and usages of digital social media? What sorts of digital humanities projects might be born of the intersection of philosophy and digital social media? Through a survey of answers to these questions in the history of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to contemporary thinkers, students in this course will be asked to think critically about the significance of difference to their relationship with others and their experience of their horizons.
PHIL H264 THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: ART TRAVERSING THE BINARY (1.0 Credit)
Qrescent Mali Mason
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Through a survey of visual, literary, and performance arts primarily by Black and Latina women (e.g., Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Christina Sharpe, Ana Victoria Jiménez) this course seeks to theorize the many dimensions of the oppositional gaze, with a focus on the ways these thinker-artists challenge, critique and disrupt various binaries that they identify with the history of western philosophy. Crosslisted: AFST,VIST.
Religion Courses
RELG H106 INTRODUCTION TO ISLAM (1.0 Credit)
GT H
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course is a general survey of the religion of Islam, encompassing history, beliefs, sacred texts (Qur'an and ?adith) and their interpretation, religious law, Sufism, philosophy, art, and science. Particular attention is given to Muslim practice and to Islam as a total way of life. Salient topics include modernity and modernism; statism, nationalism and imperialism; as well as gender, sexuality, marriage, and the family.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
RELG H112 MYTH, FOLKLORE, AND LEGEND IN JAPAN (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
An introduction to stories of the weird and supernatural in Japan and a reflection on genre and the scholarly enterprise of taxonomy-making. Readings from Buddhist miracle plays, early modern puppet drama, etc., supplemented by scholarly secondary sources.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
RELG H131 THE LURE OF IMAGES: RELIGION AND VISUAL MEDIA (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course examines representations from figural forms to abstractions, found objects and beautiful writing to understand the power of sacred imagery. We will examine formats from medieval manuscripts and painted walls to films, panoramas and comic books to observe the dynamics that emerge among viewers and images in spatial contexts ranging from altar pieces, sculpture, stained glass and painting in neo-Gothic churches, calligraphy in mosque and shrine interiors, deity icons in Hindu temples and potent fabrics in Buddhist monastic complexes. Crosslisted: VIST.
RELG H201 INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHISM (1.0 Credit)
Hank Glassman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
Focusing on the East Asian Buddhist tradition, the course examines Buddhist philosophy, doctrine and practice as textual traditions and as lived religion. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, Religion
RELG H208 SACRED MATTERS: MATERIAL DIMENSIONS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
An examination of the bodily, sensorial and emotional experience of things, substances, architecture, sculpture, landscape, textiles, and texts, the aesthetics of epic poetry, drama, song, dance in South Asian religious cultures. Topics may include how such practices inscribe religious experience, provide parameters for social organization, and offer religious critique. Prerequisite(s): One course in Religion or Visual Studies
RELG H209 CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Farmer
Division: ,Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the primary characters and stories of Greek and Roman mythology including cosmic creation, Olympian and other deities, and heroes both as they appear in Greek and Roman literature and art and as they are later represented in modern art, music, and film. Crosslisted: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Religion
RELG H209 CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY (1.0 Credit)
Matthew Farmer
Division: ,Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the primary characters and stories of Greek and Roman mythology including cosmic creation, Olympian and other deities, and heroes both as they appear in Greek and Roman literature and art and as they are later represented in modern art, music, and film. Crosslisted: Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Religion
RELG H303 RELIGION, LITERATURE AND REPRESENTATION: THE PARABLES OF JESUS (1.0 Credit)
Anne McGuire
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This seminar offers close reading and analysis of the parables of Jesus in the New Testament gospels and the Gospel of Thomas. The class will consider various modes of interpretation, including comparative study, redaction criticism, theological interpretation, and literary analysis of the parables as extended metaphors or allegories.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Sociology Courses
SOCL H221 SOCIOLOGY OF ART (1.0 Credit)
Elise Herrala
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
The aim of the course is to introduce the relationship between art, culture, and society. Prerequisite(s): SOCL 155A, or SOCL 155B, or permission of instructor
Spanish Courses
SPAN H210 SPANISH AND SPANISH AMERICAN FILM STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Raquel Vieira Parrine Sant'Ana
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Exploration of Latin American film. The course will discuss approximately one movie per week. The class will focus on the analysis of cinematic discourses as well as the films’ cultural and historic background. The course will also provide advanced language training with particular emphasis in refining oral and writing skills. This course is conducted in Spanish. Crosslisted: Spanish, Comparative Literature. Prerequisite(s): SPAN 102, or placement, or instructor consent.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Visual Studies Courses
VIST H105 INTRODUCTION TO THEATER & PERFORMANCE STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course introduces students to foundational concepts and embodied practices relevant to the study of theater and performance. We will focus on the intersection between dramatic texts and performance and approach textual analysis and performance through parallel methodologies: as scholars, we will read, reflect on, and write critically about texts and performances; as performers, we will explore a variety of techniques to create “applied interpretations,” interpretations that take form in performance. Lottery Preference: First Year Students and VIST Minors
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H108 REAL WORK & DREAM JOBS: VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THEORIES OF WORK (1.0 Credit)
Division: First Year Writing
An entry into theories of work, thinking critically and historically about the role of work in society, the promise of art as an ideal form of work, and the structural persistence of gendered, classed, and racial divisions of labor. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.
VIST H110 FOUNDATIONS IN FILM PRODUCTION (1.0 Credit)
Swetha Regunathan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
The fundamentals of digital film production. Students will learn the grammar of key film genres and basic filmmaking craft, including cameras, lighting, sound techniques, and nonlinear editing, creating four short films in the genres of animation, experimental, documentary, and fiction.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H113 BLACK VISUAL CULTURE: AN INADEQUATE SURVEY OF THE LATE 19TH TO 20TH CENTURIES (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course seeks to ask the question: How do we see blackness? How have we learned to see the thing we’re always surrounded by and have so many questions of? How do we know blackness through the visual and/as the racial? What if blackness uses the racial-visual to be known but refuses to be seen and represented so easily? What do we do then? Lottery Preference: 5 slots for first year students; preferences for VIST Minors
VIST H131 THE LURE OF IMAGES: RELIGION AND VISUAL MEDIA (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course examines representations from figural forms to abstractions, found objects and beautiful writing to understand the power of sacred imagery. We will examine formats from medieval manuscripts and painted walls to films, panoramas and comic books to observe the dynamics that emerge among viewers and images in spatial contexts ranging from altar pieces, sculpture, stained glass and painting in neo-Gothic churches, calligraphy in mosque and shrine interiors, deity icons in Hindu temples and potent fabrics in Buddhist monastic complexes. Crosslisted: VIST.
VIST H141 DIGITAL MEDIA PRE-PRODUCTION (0.5 Credit)
Charles Woodard
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course will teach students the fundamentals of putting together a pre-production package for a digital media production project. This includes: screenwriting; storyboarding; budgets; shot lists; prop lists; and all necessary components for planning a major video project.
VIST H142 INTRODUCTION TO VISUAL STUDIES (1.0 Credit)
Swetha Regunathan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the trans-disciplinary field of Visual Studies, its methods of analysis and topical concerns. Traditional media and artifacts of art history and film theory, and also an examination of the ubiquity of images of all kinds, their systems of transmission, their points of consumption, and the very limits of visuality itself. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Fine Arts, Comparative Literature
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H145 SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: DESIGNING OBJECTS OF PLAY (0.5 Credit)
Kent Watson
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Emphasizing digital design and remote digital fabrication, this course invites students to think critically about objects of play. What materials are used in toy design? What are the environmental implications of mass production? How can thinking about communities of play help us imagine solutions to problems of isolation? Crosslisted: Independent College Programs, Visual Studies
VIST H160 VISUAL STORYTELLING: AN ACTING AND FILMMAKING WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
John Muse, McKenna Kerrigan
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course offers a unique collaborative approach to visual storytelling in narrative and fiction film, combining the technical and creative aspects of both acting and filmmaking. Co-taught by a filmmaker and an actor-director, students will gain foundational skills in acting and film production, focusing on the specific demands of narrative storytelling. Through hands-on projects, students will work on both sides of the camera, learning to act, direct, and contribute to the technical production process. Crosslisted: VIST, ARTT. Lottery Preference: VIST and ARTT students (when offered in Fall, 4 spaces reserved for first years)
VIST H203 UKIYO-E: THE ART OF JAPANESE PRINTS (1.0 Credit)
Erin Schoneveld
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course explores the evolution of Japanese woodblock prints, artists, collectors, and exhibition practices from the 17th century through the present day. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, Visual Studies
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H218 REALTIME INTERFACES FOR CREATIVE EXPRESSION (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; C: Physical and Natural Processes
Realtime Interfaces for Creative Expression is a 200-level course for artists, performers, and computer science students with an interest in developing novel interactive software applications for the creation of digital art, responsive environments, and new media performance. Students will use the graphical programming environment Max to dynamically control, process, and generate digital audio and video content. Assignments will touch upon a number of related disciplines including interactive computer music, algorithmic and generative art, and video synthesis. Prior experience with coding and/or digital art-making is recommended. Pre-requisite(s): None Lottery Preference: VIST Minors
VIST H226 IMAGING PUBLIC SEX UTOPIAS: A PRODUCTION WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This praxis course examines the tension between art and that which is considered obscene: queer porn, public shamelessness, and deviant sexualities such as kink and sex work. We will develop projects that explore the powerful potential of the utopian imagination using techniques of GIF animation, self portraiture, and video. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies Minors
VIST H227 GAME DESIGN FOR EDUCATION & RESEARCH (1.0 Credit)
Ronah Harris
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This course provides students with the tools needed to understand, analyze and build games. During the semester we will take a close look at games and how our understanding of human psychology influences the design of games for education and research. We will consider ways that games teach, and how we learn using games. We will also consider how the current and future technologies that support gaming can improve and maximize learning and performance. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies Minors have preference; reserve 4 slots for first year students.
VIST H228 EXPERIMENTS WITH 60S PERFORMANCE: A FLUXUS ARTS WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
In this workshop course, we will reenact event scores from performance artists of the 1960s, including primary sources from Yoko Ono, Adrian Piper, Alison Knowles, and George Brecht. Akin to a theatrical script or a musical score, an event score, a poetic script for performance, questions whether the performance is its documentation, the textual-visual component, or its restaging and activation with the body. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors
VIST H230 POSTWAR JAPANESE CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Erin Schoneveld
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course provides an introduction to Japanese cinema from the immediate Postwar period of 1945 to the present day. Focusing on films by influential directors including Ozu Yasujiro, Kurosawa Akira, and Mizoguchi Kenji among others we will consider how Japanese filmmakers use cinema to investigate issues of truth, beauty, identity, and nationhood in an attempt to answer fundamental questions regarding life and death in Japan’s Postwar period. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, Visual Studies, Environmental Studies
VIST H231 QUEER ROAD-TRIP FILMS, ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
The queer road-trip film has been gaining popularity as an outlet for exploring non-normative sexuality further marginalized on the road. We will examine the phenomenon of the queer road-trip narrative, approaching it from an unlikely starting point: the Ancient Mediterranean novels Satyrica and Leucippe and Clitophon. Both of these ancient novels dramatize road trips and travel narratives involving different combinations of queer characters; we'll pair them with a curated selection of contemporary queer road-trip films. Crosslisted: GSST,VIST.
VIST H232 BLAQUEER EYE: THE LOOK AND FEEL OF REAL (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Beginning with behind-the-scenes documentary of a female illusionist pageant The Queen (1968) and ending with the cancellation of HBO’s ballroom reality television competition show Legendary (2021), this course finds interest in the textured lives of gender and sexually creative African descendants in the U.S. and how their lives have been translated into the terms black, queer, and trans in public imagination. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors, then Film Studies minors
VIST H233 DECOLONIZING VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY: FIMMAKING WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This is a hybrid video production and theory course which grapples with the entanglements between ethnographic film/documentary and colonial structures of power. We will bring a decolonizing lens to explore—through texts, screenings, and making films—major modalities in the field including sensory ethnography, indigenous media, and feminist experimental film. Crosslisted: Visual Studies, Anthropology Prerequisite(s): at least one course in Anthropology or Visual Studies
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H234 DOCUMENTING PERFORMANCE, PERFORMING DOCUMENTS (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
Performance documentation, performing documents, and documentary performance is the name of our game. How does one document live performance and maintain its active presence or is it something else entirely? How do we perform toward documentation? How do we make performances of documents—historical, cultural, theoretical, personal? In attempting to answer these questions, we will focus on film/cinema studies and a strain of performance studies pertaining to performance’s capacity for reproduction. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors
VIST H235 NARRATIVE DIGITAL PRODUCTION - FROM SCREENPLAY TO FINISHED VIDEO (1.0 Credit)
Charles Woodard
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
In this course will learn the technical fundamentals of planning and creating narrative videos, from concept to finished product. We will focus on creating screenplays and storyboards; planning around bringing the pre-production materials to life, and editing footage into a finished video to share. We will be utilizing screenplay applications and editing software found in VCAM while discussing how to streamline video production logistics surrounding fictional or narrative work. Lottery Preference: VIST minors first, second year students second.
VIST H236 PRISON MEMORY AND CARCERAL IDENTITY: A FILM PRODUCTION WORKSHOP (1.0 Credit)
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
This oral history, interviewing, and filmmaking course focuses on carceral narratives and prison memory, particularly those of the Graterford Diaspora. The course will develop students' film production literacy when engaging carceral narratives and prison memory on film. Additionally, students will learn how to collect oral history interviews from members of the Graterford Diaspora, preserving and amplifying their stories while fostering collaborative, constructive feedback. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors
VIST H237 VIRTUAL THEATERS: FROM CLOSET DRAMA TO PANDEMIC THEATER (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course probes the nature and limits of theater by exploring a range of theatrical texts from various centuries whose relation to performance is either partially or fully virtual, including philosophical dialogues, closet dramas, radio drama, novel chapters in dramatic form, artists’ books that mix page and stage, drama about internet and social media, and remote online theater on platforms like Zoom. Lottery Preference: VIST Minors
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H239 VISIONS OF JUSTICE: INTERSECTIONALITY AND LEGAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN ASIAN CINEMA (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course aims to deepen understandings of Asian struggles for justice and representation through independent films by Asian (including diaspora) directors. We will analyze films that offer a window into legal and social movement struggles for gender justice, self-determination, and environmental justice. Crosslisted: Visual Studies; Anthropology; East Asian Languages & Cultures; Peace, Justice and Human Rights
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H241 FILM AND DIGITAL MEDIA EDITING (0.5 Credit)
Charles Woodard
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression
In this course students will learn the technical fundamentals of film and video editing, as well as theoretical modes of montage. This course will train students in Adobe Premiere Pro which is the primary editing software and platform for video and digital media production in VCAM.
VIST H250 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF EXHIBITION: OBJECTS, IMAGES, TEXTS, EVENTS (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
An introduction to the theory and practice of exhibition and display. This course will supply students with the analytic tools necessary to understand how exhibitions work and give them practical experience making arguments with objects, images, texts, and events.
VIST H251 STRANGE MUSIC: MONSTERS, GHOSTS, AND ALIENS ON STAGE AND SCREEN (1.0 Credit)
Richard Freedman
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Scholars of film often speak of the camera as an “all-seeing eye.” But what role does the ear play in cinematic experience? This course will explore the history, character, and function of music (and sound) in the first half of the twentieth century (and beyond): how they worked with (and against) the camera’s gaze to complicate narratives, to articulate time, and more generally to represent feeling and identity. This term will put special focus on the non-human: monsters, ghosts, aliens, and more generally the idea of the magical or supernatural. What does such radical Otherness sound like? How has it been represented musically? And how have composers and sound designers put such conventions to work in films of the last 100 years, from Metropolis and Nosferatu to Dune and Arrival? To answer these questions we’ll explore the silents, the early sound film and (especially) the long arc of composers (from Eric Korngold to Bernard Herrmann and from John Williams to Hans Zimmer. We’ll consider the legacy of Romanticism, the possibilities of Modernism, and even the Avant Garde, and learn about orchestration, harmony and thematic process as they contribute to cinematic narrative. We will also consider various theories of sound, music, and film staked out by film and operatic composers themselves, as well as critical and scholarly essays by leading writers on the monstrous, the alien, and the supernatural. Crosslisted: VIST Prerequisite(s): No formal prerequisite, but some previous study of either music or visual media would be helpful
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H253 THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CONCEPTUAL ART (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
In this course, the specific mid-20th C movement called Conceptual Art will be explored, as will its progenitors and its progeny. Students will study the founding manifestos, the canonical works and their critical appraisals, as well as develop tightly structured studio practica to embody the former research. The course invites artists, writers, activists, & cultural thinkers, those who want to know what it is to make things, spaces, situations, communities, allies, & trouble--without necessarily knowing how to draw, paint, sculpt, photograph, videotape, or film.
VIST H264 THE OPPOSITIONAL GAZE: ART TRAVERSING THE BINARY (1.0 Credit)
Qrescent Mali Mason
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Through a survey of visual, literary, and performance arts primarily by Black and Latina women (e.g., Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Christina Sharpe, Ana Victoria Jiménez) this course seeks to theorize the many dimensions of the oppositional gaze, with a focus on the ways these thinker-artists challenge, critique and disrupt various binaries that they identify with the history of western philosophy. Crosslisted: AFST,VIST.
VIST H266 SENSORY ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS (1.0 Credit)
Emily Hong
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
Through this course, students will develop ethnographic research and writing skills using sensory detail (taste, touch, sight, sound, smell and feeling) to evoke people, places, and things. Assignments are primarily writing-intensive with additional fieldwork and multimodal (e.g. photography, film) exercises. Crosslisted: Anthropology, Visual Studies Prerequisite(s): Any Anthropology course
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H267 BEAUTY PROBLEMS: RHETORIC, AESTHETICS, PHILOSOPHY (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course will examine a series of problems that beauty and other sensuous pleasures make for philosophy, film, and contemporary art. Works will include those of Plato, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Isaac Julien, Elaine Scarry, Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Fred Moten and others.
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H270 THE ART OF SPORTS: ANCIENT AND MODERN (1.0 Credit)
Ava Shirazi
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course explores the visual and poetic life of sports, ancient and modern. It brings together cultural criticism, visual analysis, and historical study to theorize the beauty of athletics. Concepts of the body, gender, race and performance, and tropes such as "for the love of the game," "feel for the game" and "poetry in motion" will organize our work on the sensory and aesthetic dimensions of sports. No prior expertise in classics, art or sports necessary. Crosslisted: COML,VIST.
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H275 RACE AND REPRESENTATION IN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING (1.0 Credit)
Zeynep Sertbulut
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): A: Creative Expression; B: Analysis of the Social World
This is an introductory cross-listed (Visual Studies/Anthropology) production course on the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking through an exploration of race onscreen. The objective of the course is to enable students to build a critical awareness of the ways in which film and media in general perpetuate racist discourses and representations and explore how students can challenge such representations through their own filmmaking practices. As inspiration, we will watch and study a wide variety of innovative documentary films that bring alternative voices and histories to screen and read/watch filmmaker interviews. Classes will combine elements of a studio (sharing and critiquing filmmaking work in progress) and seminar (discussing weekly themes). Crosslisted: VIST. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors, then Anthropology majors/minors, then Film Studies minors
(Offered: Fall 2025)
VIST H277 MEDIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST (1.0 Credit)
Zeynep Sertbulut
Division: Social Science
Domain(s): B: Analysis of the Social World
What can we learn about the Middle East by examining media? What can we about media by studying institutions of production and practices of consumption in the Middle East region? In this course, we will read ethnographies of media from the Middle East and look at and listen to media. We will explore cases from different countries, from Egypt to Syria, Turkey to Afghanistan, from Lebanon to Palestine/Israel. Crosslisted: VIST. Pre-requisite(s): 100-level course in social sciences, or humanities. Lottery Preference: Senior anthropology students have a priority to take the class.
VIST H305 ART AND THE ENVIRONMENT IN EAST ASIA (1.0 Credit)
Erin Schoneveld
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts); B: Analysis of the Social World
This course examines the relationship between environment and the arts in China and Japan. In particular, how artists engage with and respond to nature through varied modes of artistic production and exhibition. Crosslisted: East Asian Languages & Cultures, Environmental Studies, Visual Studies
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H308 HOW TO READ BLACK FEMME AVATARS (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course is an in-depth and engaged study of Uri McMillian’s book Embodied Avatars: Genealogies of Black Feminist Art and Performance (NYU Press, 2015). In it, McMillian presents a history of visual and performance artists like Ellen Craft, Lorraine O’Grady, Adrian Piper, Nicki Minaj, whose oeuvres can be understood through the lens of black feminist study and theory. Lottery Preference: Visual Studies minors
VIST H309 THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ARDMORE (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
Through close looking, performance experiments, and scholarship on reality television in general and the Housewives franchise in particular, this course will investigate the way that the production of reality in these shows—the very visual quality of film, filter, and light dependent on revenue dictated by viewership—changes along lines of identity causing us to wonder if the Housewives not only change our culture, but also our (view of our) lives. We will tinker around with performance and production work inside and outside the classroom to question the fabric of our own realities and how we can share in its weaving. Lottery Preference: VIST minors, GSST concentrators, AFST concentrators
VIST H310 ILLNESS AND DISABILITY IN ART AND PERFORMANCE (1.0 Credit)
Honglan Huang
Division: Humanities
Domain(s): A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts)
This course introduces students to important concepts and practices relevant to the study of illness and disability in art and performance. We will approach illness and disability through parallel methodologies: as scholars, we will read, reflect on, and write critically about how art and performance help us understand illness and disability as embodied experiences, and as makers, we will try a variety of hands-on activities to explore illness/disability as forms of resourcefulness and experimental thinking. Lottery Preference: VIST minors
(Offered: Spring 2026)
VIST H399 CAPSTONE FOR VISUAL STUDIES MINORS (1.0 Credit)
John Muse
Division: Humanities
Examines art, writing and exhibition practices centering in particular cultural contexts. Explores artists and curators who link art, identity, and politics, and the environment in their practice. Focuses on developing practical skills related to archival research, analysis of visual material and critical making. To be taken in fall semester of senior year. Prerequisite(s): Visual Studies minor
(Offered: Fall 2025)
Writing Program Courses
WRPR H108 REAL WORK & DREAM JOBS: VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS AND THEORIES OF WORK (1.0 Credit)
Staff
Division: First Year Writing
An entry into theories of work, thinking critically and historically about the role of work in society, the promise of art as an ideal form of work, and the structural persistence of gendered, classed, and racial divisions of labor. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.
WRPR H111 POWER, PLACE, AND FILM (1.0 Credit)
Division: First Year Writing
This writing seminar introduces students to film analysis through the themes of power and place and covers topics such as colonialism and imperialism, immigration, inequality, etc. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.
WRPR H138 RACE AND GENDER IN AMERICAN HORROR FILM AND FICTION (1.0 Credit)
Division: First Year Writing
This course unravels various tropes that haunt the horror genre, exploring how horror film and fiction reflect the values, mores and fears of a collective unconscious, with special emphasis on the ways in which racial stereotyping and gender violence are often deployed as horror tropes. We look closely at portrayals of violence, shock, resistance and power, asking how race and gender play central roles in the production of fear, terror, monstrosity and its subversion. Pre-requisite(s): Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing. Lottery Preference: Only first year students are eligible for these seminars.
WRPR H169 WRITING VISUAL CULTURE: ART, CINEMA, AND GRAPHIC NARRATIVE (1.0 Credit)
Joshua Kopin
Division: First Year Writing
In an age where our interactions with images have both proliferated and been made shallow by social media and generative AI, deep encounters with images are increasingly rare and valuable. This course deals with the reading and writing of visual culture, focusing on both literary and critical modes of writing about art. Open only to first-year students as assigned by the Director of College Writing.
(Offered: Spring 2026)