All Courses

Literature as Resistance: The works of Rosario Castellanos — SPA4304.01

Fall 2019

Instructor: Rosario de Swanson

Credits: 4

Although Rosario Castellanos (1925-1974) is recognized as one of Mexico’s most important writers, she did not live to see the impact of her contributions to the feminist revolution of the latter half of the twentieth century, participate in the first Conferencia Mundial de la Mujer that took place in 1975 in Mexico City, or in the recent Encuentro Internacional de Mujeres que

Cultural Studies and Languages

Literature of Barcelona and Madrid — SPA4218.01

Spring 2016

Instructor: Sarah Harris

Credits: 4

Only two cities in Spain have over one million inhabitants, and these same two cities often seem at odds with each other. One city is geographically and politically central, the seat of the royal family, while the other is on the periphery. Architecturally, one is largely neoclassical and monumental, while the other can seem dreamlike and surreal. One speaks what Antonio

Languages

Literature of Barcelona and Madrid — SPA4806.01

Spring 2019

Instructor: Sarah Harris

Credits: 4

Only two cities in Spain have over one million inhabitants, and these same two cities often seem at odds with each other. One city is geographically and politically central, the seat of the royal family, while the other is on the periphery, with a government that is currently in exile. Architecturally, one is largely neoclassical and monumental, while the other can seem

Languages

Literature of the AIDS Pandemic — LIT2513.01

Fall 2022

Instructor: Michael Dumanis

Credits: 2

Literature

Literature of the AIDS Pandemic — LIT2513.02

Fall 2020

Instructor: Michael Dumanis

Credits: 2

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the AIDS epidemic was regarded as a global catastrophe with no hope of remedy. For many, the disease was an uncomfortable subject, one that some at first refused to address by name and others chose to ignore entirely, an illness intertwined in the collective imagination with mainstream culture’s perceptions of, and fears of, gay culture. In this

Literature

Literature of the Holocaust — LIT2526.01

Fall 2023

Instructor: Carly Rudzinski

Credits: 4

Philosopher Theodor Adorno famously claimed that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. Adorno didn’t write this statement to silence poets. Specifically referencing the poet Paul Celan, he meant that poetry after the Holocaust would need to be radically different to account for these historic atrocities. We will begin by reading Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel, The Castle,

Literature

Literature of the Renaissance — LIT2265.01

Spring 2015

Instructor: Brooke Allen

Credits: 4

The literature of the European Renaissance did much to help shape the modern mind and the modern world. In this class we will begin in Italy with Petrarch and Boccaccio, then go on to works by Pico della Mirandola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Erasmus, Wyatt, Sir Thomas More, Cervantes, Rabelais, Vasari, and Montaigne, discussing them in the context of their time and in terms of

Literature

Literature of the Spanish Civil War — LIT2396.01

Spring 2016

Instructor: Sarah Harris

Credits: 4

"Hitherto, the rights and wrongs had seemed so beautifully simple." (George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia) Technically a Civil War, the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) was also an intensely international conflict in a number of ways: though no other nations officially entered the war, German forces used it to rehearse the blitzkrieg tactics they would employ in World War II;

Society Culture and Thought Literature

Literature of Travel and Discovery — FRE4605.01

Spring 2019

Instructor: Stephen Shapiro

Credits: 4

In this course, we will explore the representation of travel and discovery in a variety of genres (essay, theatre, novel, poetry, film, bande dessinée). By examining both fictive and real travel narratives, we will look at how reality is transformed into a text and how fictions help us to imagine and discover new ways of thinking and living. Central themes will include exile

Languages

Literature of Travel and Discovery — FRE4222.01

Spring 2016

Instructor: Stephen Shapiro

Credits: 4

Languages

Literature of World War I — LIT2345.01

Fall 2015

Instructor: Brooke Allen

Days & Time: TBA

Credits: 4

The First World War, 1914-18, was a cataclysm that left ten million dead and created the modern world. It was also a period of tremendous artistic innovation and activity. In this class we will read the work of writers who fought the war, on both sides: soldier-poets like Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Edmund Blunden; novelists like Henri Barbusse, Ernest

Literature

Live Sound - Load In to Load Out — MSR4368.01

Fall 2024

Instructor: Carly Rudzinski

Credits: 2

Students will learn all the ways the audio travels through cables, into processing equipment, through amplification and out of speakers. Processors will include compression, EQ, delay, reverb, and crossovers. Students will learn about different live sound contexts, from the band gig to theater sound, and will be setting up and breaking down small sound systems. There will be

Music

Live Sound Technology — MSR2124.01

Fall 2019

Instructor: Curt Wells

Credits: 2

This will be a hands-on, bare-bones, system-focused class on audio electronics. We will explore the smallest inputs to the largest outputs that are used in artistic performance. The class will focus on the technical applications of microphones, mixers, speakers and software for live productions such as plays, concerts, Dance performances and installations. Students will use

Dance Drama Music

Lives of Quiet Desperation: the Transcendentalists vs. America — LIT2420.01

Fall 2025

Instructor: Benjamin Anastas

Days & Time: M/Tu 7:00PM-8:50PM

Credits: 4

In this course we will undertake a comprehensive survey of American Transcendentalism through a close examination of the major writings from this tumultuous period. We will read the major figures (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau), as well as a host of lesser known members of the Transcendental Club (Orestes Brownson, Ellery Channing, poet Jones Very

Literature

Lives of Quiet Desperation: the Transcendentalists vs. America — LIT2420.01

Fall 2021

Instructor: Benjamin Anastas

Credits: 4

In this course we will undertake a comprehensive survey of the Transcendentalist movement through a close examination of the major writings from this tumultuous time in America's intellectual life. We will read the major figures (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau), as well as a host of lesser known members of the Transcendental Club (Orestes Brownson,

Literature

Living in Translation: A Student-Run Literary and Cultural Publication — LIT2347.02

Fall 2019

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 2

This course, while rooted in Literature, is part of the Lexicons of Migration cluster. Taking as a point of departure Isabelle de Courtivron's touchstone Bilingual Lives: Writers and Identity, students will update, complicate, and enrich the binary orientation of this collection, originally published in 2003. We will delve into the personal, familial, communal, and political

CAPA Literature

Living to Learn, Learning to Live: Readings in Contemporary South American Fiction — LIT2255.01

Spring 2017

Instructor: Marguerite Feitlowitz

Credits: 4

Contemporary South American fiction is rife with urgency, politics, and history, as well as narrative mischief, layering and literary gamesmanship. In this course we will read a selection of novels and stories from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and El Salvador from such authors as Cesar Aira, Roberto Bolano, Alicia Borinsky, Sergio Chefec, Claudia Hernandez,

Literature Languages

Local Governance in Comparative Perspective — POL4239.01

Spring 2015

Instructor: Rotimi Suberu

Credits: 4

Around the world, there is renewed interest in empowering institutions of local governance (county, city, town/township, municipal, village, or special-purpose local government, and non-governmental local associations) in order to promote political democracy, enhance socio-economic welfare, and accommodate subnational identities, among other goals. This course will examine the

Social Science

Local Governance in Comparative Perspective — POL4239.01

Spring 2019

Instructor: Rotimi Suberu

Credits: 4

Society Culture and Thought

Local Land-use History and Landscape Ecology — BIO4113.01

Fall 2013

Instructor: Kerry Woods

Days & Time: TBA

Credits: 4

Landscape ecology works across multiple scales in space and time to understand the drivers of ecosystem function and pattern in broad context. Can diversity and productivity of particular pieces of the landscape be better predicted given knowledge of spatial and historical context? How do parts of the landscape interact as sources and sinks in population dynamics of plants and

Science Mathematics and Computing

Local Landscape A: Ecological Principles — BIO2127.01

Fall 2020

Instructor: KWoods@bennington.edu

Credits: 2

New England is one of the most heavily forested regions in the United States. 14,000 years ago it was covered by ice. When humans arrived about 11,000 years ago, they found extensive, well-established forests — and began reshaping the landscape through hunting and fire and, beginning about 2000 years ago, farming. European colonists caused further ecological change by expanding

Science and Mathematics Environment

Local Landscape B: Field Ecology and Natural History — BIO2126.01

Fall 2020

Instructor: KWoods@bennington.edu

Credits: 2

This is a companion course to the 'classroom' section, "Local Landscape A", and will take place entirely in lab and field (primarily the latter). The class has two main aims: to deepen and reinforce understanding of ecological principles through experience and systematic observation in the field (along with use of some of the tools and instruments of the field researcher), and

Science and Mathematics Environment

Logarithms — MAT2107.02

Spring 2020

Instructor: Andrew McIntyre

Credits: 1

Logarithms are one of the parts of mathematics that often remain a bit mysterious to people, even if they had no difficulty solving problems with them in school. In fact, logarithms are of far broader importance and interest than the narrow applications one usually sees; and seeing this broader picture helps in dispelling some of the mystery and in understanding what they are.

Science and Mathematics

Logic and Proof: The Art of Mathematics and the Limits of Knowledge — MAT2378.01

Fall 2024

Instructor: Andrew McIntyre

Credits: 4

How do we know something “beyond a reasonable doubt”? What is the relationship of insight to logical argument? How can we have certain knowledge about concepts which are infinite? These questions are at the core of mathematics, but also at the core of liberal arts. In mathematics, people have found rather detailed answers to how much certainty is possible, and have found

Science and Mathematics Society Culture and Thought

Logic and Proof: The Art of Mathematics and the Limits of Knowledge — MAT2378.01

Spring 2024

Instructor: Andrew McIntyre

Credits: 4

How do we know something "beyond a reasonable doubt"? What is the relationship of insight to logical argument? How can we have certain knowledge about concepts which are infinite? These questions are at the core of mathematics, but also at the core of liberal arts. In mathematics, people have found rather detailed answers to how much certainty is possible, and have found

Science and Mathematics