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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

The Modal Concept — MUS2150.01

Fall 2016
Instructor: Nicholas Brooke
Credits: 2
In this class, we’ll listen to the classical musical systems of the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, while looking at the basic scales of dastgah, maqam, raga, and pathet. We’ll unpack the concept of mode in cross-cultural perspective, looking at how a simple series of notes can have myriad meanings. Through examining performances, improvisations, venues, historical
Music

The Modern Chinese Family — CHI2113.01

Fall 2015
Instructor: Ginger Lin
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
All the children of one’s parent’s siblings are all just called cousin in English. However in Chinese there is a different word for each particular relationship. This stems from how in traditional Chinese Confucian culture each individual’s duties and obligations towards others are dictated by their relationships, with family relationships being the most important. But then in
Languages

The Music of Beethoven — MHI2241.01

Fall 2016
Instructor: Allen Shawn
Credits: 4
This course will be a group exploration of the extraordinary music of Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827). Approaching his music chronologically, we will attempt to become acquainted with some of his major works, including his String Quartets, Piano Sonatas, Symphonies, his opera Fidelio, the Missa Solemnis, and others less well known, while also becoming familiar with his life
Music

The Music of J.S. Bach — MHI2177.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Allen Shawn
Credits: 4
A group exploration of some of the high points in the glorious music of Johann Sebastian Bach, including the Mass in B minor, the Saint Matthew Passion, the Magnificat, the Brandenburg Concertos, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musical Offering, and the unaccompanied Suites for Cello. We will also consider Bach's continuing influence on the music of the twentieth and twenty
Music

The Music of J.S.Bach — MHI2177.01

Spring 2025
Instructor: Allen Shawn
Credits: 4
This course is intended for those who want to learn about Bach's music, whether or not they read music or have studied music before. Those who can study the musical and theoretical aspects of Bach's beautiful work will be encouraged to do so, and those who can approach it from historical, philosophical, scientific, or poetic point of view will be encouraged to do that.
Music

The Musical "Other": Exoticism, Appropriation, and Multiculturalism — MHI4131.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Joseph Alpar
Credits: 4
This seminar examines how the cultural “Other” has been represented in Western music. We will study a large repertory of orchestral, operatic, chamber, and solo works from the early Baroque period through the twenty-first century, investigating the uses and abuses of non-Western musical sources by composers and centering how politics and ideology inform the creation of these
Music Society Culture and Thought

The Musical “Other”: Exoticism, Appropriation, and Multiculturalism — MHI4131.01

Spring 2020
Instructor: Kerry Ryer-Parke
Credits: 4
How has the cultural "Other” been represented in Western music? How can composers and performers create with a clear conscience and use source material ethically? We will examine a large repertory of works from the early Baroque period through the Twenty-first century, investigating the uses and abuses of non-Western musical sources. Beyond the classics, we'll talk about mid
Music

The Muslim World from the Rise of Islam to the Present — HIS2116.01

Spring 2017
Instructor:
Credits: 4
How can Rumi’s belief in loving all existence stem from the same religious tradition as ISIS’s jihadist ideology calling for unrestricted violence against everything considered “un-Islamic”? In this course, we examine changing interpretations of Islam across time and space. We study religious, intellectual, cultural, and socio-political developments in the societies of the
Society Culture and Thought

The Mystery that Keeps Us Humble: St. Augustine, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton — LIT2539.01) (day/time updated as of 10/17/2023

Spring 2024
Instructor: Benjamin Anastas
Credits: 4
"Late have I loved you," St. Augustine wrote in one of the many direct appeals to God in his Confessions. "O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you." With these lines, the confessional impulse in the early Christian tradition makes the jump into spiritual autobiography, and a new genre of literature is born. In this class, we'll pair the discussion of faith and
Literature

The New Hampshire Primary — POP2266.04

Fall 2019
Instructor: Brian Campion
Credits: 1
What is it like to be a part of a massive effort to win the office of the President of the United States? Focusing on the New Hampshire primary, this class will let you explore the process that is currently underway by candidates to win the Presidency. The class will comprise two field trips to New Hampshire (Saturday, November 16 and Saturday, December 7) where you’ll choose
CAPA

The New York School of Poetry — LIT2198.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Michael Dumanis
Credits: 4
This course will serve as an immersion in the work of the New York School of poetry: successive generations of imaginative American poets noted for their humor, irreverence, disjunctive experimentation, charm, and wildness. Significant attention will be paid to the effect of close friendship and community, homosexuality, painting and other visual arts, and New York City urban
Literature

The New York School of Poetry — LIT2198.01

Spring 2017
Instructor: Michael Dumanis
Credits: 4
This course will serve as an immersion in the work of several major American poets of the 1950s and 1960s, noted for their humor, irreverence, disjunctive experimentation, charm, and wildness, and collectively known as the New York School. We will begin by focusing on the original generation of New York School poets: John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and
Literature

The New York School of Poetry — LIT2198.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Michael Dumanis
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
This course will serve as an immersion in the work of several major American poets of the 1950s and 1960s, noted for their humor, irreverence, disjunctive experimentation, charm, and wildness, and collectively known as the New York School. We will begin by focusing on the original generation of New York School poets: John Ashbery, Frank OHara, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and
Literature

The New York School of Poetry — LIT2198.01

Fall 2019
Instructor: Michael Dumanis
Credits: 4
This course will serve as an immersion in the work of several major American poets of the 1950s and 1960s, noted for their humor, irreverence, disjunctive experimentation, charm, and wildness, and collectively known as the New York School. We will begin by focusing on the original generation of New York School poets: John Ashbery, Frank OHara, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and
Literature

The Nouveau Roman — LIT4181.01

Fall 2017
Instructor: Annie Dewitt
Credits: 4
This course will examine the emergence of the "new" avant-garde French novel which came to prominence in the 1950's. We will investigate how these novels questioned the role of literary realism and narrative authority, often subverting traditional elements of fiction including: plot, character, and the all-knowing intelligence of the omniscient narrator. We will also consider
Literature

The Novels of Kazuo Ishiguro — LIT4291.01

Spring 2020
Instructor: Stuart Nadler
Credits: 4
In the inscription for Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, the committee announced it had chosen to give him the award because his novels had “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” In this class, we will read nearly all of these novels, beginning with Ishiguro’s first, A Pale View of These Hills, and including An Artist of
Literature

The Ocean, The Creek, The Lake: Writing Water — LIT2405.02

Spring 2020
Instructor: Akiko Busch
Credits: 2
As water—through floods and droughts alike—continues to reshape the geography of the world around us, this course will look at waterscapes as written by women: Rachel Carson’s The Edge of the Sea, Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, and Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge. Science, poetry, and ideas of conservation converge here. As a marine biologist, Carson wrote with
Environment Literature

The Perfect Chorale — MTH4149.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: Nicholas Brooke
Credits: 2
In this class we’ll set hymn tunes for four voices, SATB ‐ one of the classic methods of studying harmony. We’ll look at the virtuosic chorales of Bach--arranging, reharmonizing, and revoicing each one--while singing everything we write. Emphasis will be on choosing idiomatic chords and creating elegant and singable counterpoint. Towards the end, we’ll look at more contemporary
Music

The Perfect Gesture — DAN2148.02

Spring 2016
Instructor: Dana Reitz
Credits: 1
Creative gestures possess a cultural DNA.  This lab explores the physical and performative relationship of the body to a student’s cultural whole.  Students will study, explore and negotiate what a perfect gesture might be by viewing (watching video examples), improvising and thinking with their particular body politics.  A primary question holding this lab
Dance

The Personal and Political — PSY2213.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Özge Savas
Credits: 4
What is political? How do we acquire political knowledge? How is political understanding shaped across generations? What is the relationship between power, gender, race, and politics? Why do people participate in social movements? What is a “peaceful protest”? In this course we will examine the interplay between people, power, and politics. We will consider participation in
Music Society Culture and Thought

The Personal and Political — PSY2213.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Özge Savaş
Credits: 4
What is political? How do we acquire political knowledge? How is political understanding shaped across generations? What is the relationship between power, gender, race, and politics? Why do people participate in social movements? What is a “peaceful protest”? In this course, we will examine the interplay between people, power, and politics. We will consider participation in
Society Culture and Thought

The Personal Learning Plan and After-School Workshop: Vermont Act 77 Educational Reform — APA2169.02

Spring 2019
Instructor: Susan Sgorbati
Credits: 1
Vermont Act 77 is a recent bill passed in the Vermont Legislature to enact educational reform. It includes implementing a Personal Learning Plan for all Middle and High School students in public education in Vermont. It is a radical new vision of public education and shares many of the same goals as the Bennington College Plan Process. This Module will introduce Bennington
CAPA

The Personal Learning Plan: Vermont Act 77 Education Reform —

Fall 2015
Instructor: Susan Sgorbati
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 1
Vermont Act 77 is a recent bill passed in the Vermont Legislature to enact educational reform. It includes implementing a Personal Learning Plan for all Middle and High School students in public education in Vermont.  It is a radical new vision of public education and shares many of the same goals as a Bennington College Plan Process.  This Module will introduce