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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

Literary Bennington — LIT2390.01

Fall 2015
Instructor: Benjamin Anastas
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 2
We all know the literary generation that Bennington produced in the 1980s and early 90s: Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Lethem and Kiran Desai. But how seriously have we read their work? And what about the illustrious faculty who prepared the literary ground for those who came after: Bernard Malamud, Kenneth Burke, Stanley Edgar Hyman (and his wife the novelist
Literature

Literature and History of the Holocaust — LIT2582.01

Spring 2026
Instructor: Michael Dumanis
Days & Time: MO,TH 1:40pm-3:30pm
Credits: 4

The Holocaust is one of the most ethically challenging, traumatic, and consequential occurrences in modern history. This seminar aims to give students a granular understanding of the mass oppression, enslavement, and genocide that occurred in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, in order to then consider how it has been represented in poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction both by

Literature History

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 — 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 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 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 — FRE4222.01

Spring 2016
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 — 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 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

Little Theater, Big Ideas. A studio course for collaborators — DRA4350.01

Spring 2027
Instructor: Jean Randich
Days & Time: M 7:00PM-10:00PM, W 2:10PM-5:50PM
Credits: 4

This new course centers the development and performance of smaller scale original student work in a repertory theater ensemble environment. It is open to those interested in plays, but also screenplays, pilots, solo pieces, devised pieces, clown shows, even songwriting or short form videos. It is especially valuable to anyone who wishes to

Drama

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 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

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

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 2019
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
Society Culture and Thought

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 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