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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

Volatile Futures/Earthly Matters — APA2275.01

Spring 2017
Instructor:
Credits: 2
Where and when does the Anthropocene come to matter? Looking at inundated low-lying islands, the melting Arctic, or the coastal wrath of super storms, many suggest such contemporary moments prophesy the future that awaits us all. Others, returning to the ecological fallout of the colonial plantation, hydrocarbon imperialism, or nuclear weapons, suggest our impending unraveling
CAPA Society Culture and Thought Environment

Voltaire and Rousseau — LIT4143.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Brooke Allen
Credits: 4
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were towering figures not only of the age of Enlightenment but of all Western intellectual history. Their subjects ranged from philosophy to politics to religion to history to education; their works remain as readable and provocative as they were 250 years ago. Great radicals in their time who are still politically
Literature

Walking and Writing — LIT2398.01

Fall 2017
Instructor: Akiko Busch
Credits: 4
The workshop will examine the literary traditions of walking and writing, focusing on how the first can assist the second. Themes will include walking as a passage; walking as escape; walking as a meditation; walking towards something; walking away from something; and those times when walking manages to be both of these things. Of his outings in Concord, Henry Thoreau said
Environment Literature

Walls — VA2236.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Farhad Mirza
Credits: 2
In this course we will study what the wall does literally and symbolically. In architecture, walls are expected to delimit space and to support the roof. The built wall is where two diverse areas meet—one might say that the wall expresses the relationship between them. Walls make the existential struggle between an exterior and an interior tangible. We will discuss work by
Visual Arts

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson — LIT2199.01

Spring 2020
Instructor: Mark Wunderlich
Credits: 4
In this course we will examine the work and worlds of these two canonical American poets. We will read the poems and letters of Dickinson and the poems and prose of Whitman, paying special attention to his lifelong masterwork, Leaves of Grass. We will also dip into the biographies of these authors and attempt to place them within the context of 19th century literature and
Literature

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson — LIT2199.01

Spring 2014
Instructor: Mark Wunderlich
Credits: 4
In this course we will examine the work and worlds of these two canonical American poets. We will read the poems and letters of Dickinson and the poems and prose of Whitman, paying special attention to his lifelong masterwork, Leaves of Grass. We will also dip into the biographies of these authors and attempt to place them within the context of 19th century literature and
Literature

War and Peace — LIT4108.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Annabel Davis-Goff
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
War and Peace, Vanity Fair, and Shirley are novels that are set during the Napoleonic Wars. Charlotte Bronte's novel is set in a Yorkshire deeply affected by the Peninsular wars, Tolstoy describes both Napoleon's Russian campaign and the domestic and social life of a huge range of characters, and Thackeray's greatest novel reaches its climax with the Battle of Waterloo.
Literature

War in the 21st Century — ANT2112.01) (cancelled 10/17/2023

Spring 2024
Instructor: Noah Coburn
Credits: 4
This course explores the ways in which war has (or has not) changed over the past two decades. Using anthropological tools we will ask questions about: the role of drones and other new technologies, the changing nature of the American Empire, strategic approaches to warfare including counterinsurgency and nuclear deterrence, the economic impact of global economies and migration
Society Culture and Thought

War in the 21st Century — ANT4124.01

Fall 2018
Instructor: Noah Coburn
Credits: 4
This seminar explores the ways in which war has (or has not) changed over the past two decades. Using anthropological tools we will ask questions about: the role of drones and other new technologies, the changing nature of the American Empire, strategic approaches to warfare including counterinsurgency and nuclear deterrence, the economic impact of global economies and
Society Culture and Thought

War/Disaster: The Ethics of the Photographer — PHO2109.01

Spring 2017
Instructor: Jonathan Kline
Credits: 4
This course will explore the role photography has played in representing recent conflicts, disasters, and social upheaval from around the world.  As a class, we will read and view essays and films that articulate a wide range of perspectives.  Students will be expected to use their smartphones/camera phones off campus and develop a visual inquiry into our surrounding
Visual Arts

War/Disaster: The Ethics of the Photographer — PHO2109.01

Spring 2019
Instructor: Jonathan Kline
Credits: 4
This course will explore the role photography has played in representing recent conflicts, disasters, and social upheaval from around the world. As a class, we will read and view essays and films that articulate a wide range of perspectives. Students will be expected to use their smartphones/camera phones off campus and develop a visual inquiry into our surrounding community.
Visual Arts

Waste, Disgust, and the Body: Thinking in Social Science — PSY2110.01

Spring 2015
Instructor: Ronald Cohen; Karen Gover
Credits: 4
We all do it multiple times a day without giving it a second thought. Everyone has to go. But while easy access to a private, safe toilet is simply taken for granted in our part of the world, two-thirds of the world's population do not have adequate sanitation. 2.6 billion people living today do not have access to a toilet. As a result, millions of people die every year because
Social Science

Watchmen: Watch US now — AH2287.01

Fall 2020
Instructor: Vanessa Lyon
Credits: 2
The first and only season of Watchmen, HBO’s “alternate history” (based on the graphic novel that posited a real-life global crisis that, what?, perversely unites humanity) drives a broadly-conceived visual culture/cultural studies course in which we identify and analyze various themes, tropes, genres, histories, prophecies, and allegories on screen and off; both inside and
Visual Arts

Water Dialogues: Conflicts Over Our Most Valuable Resource — APA2220.01

Spring 2016
Instructor: Susan Sgorbati
Credits: 2
Water is our most important resource in the world. Without it, human, animal and plant life cannot exist for very long. Where we live in the eastern United States,  water is plentiful.  We take it for granted that we can drink it freely, wash ourselves when we feel like it, and use it for industry and recreation. But in our own country (western U.S.) and other parts
CAPA Environment

Water Dialogues: Conflicts Over Our Most Valuable Resource — APA2220.01

Fall 2018
Instructor: Susan Sgorbati
Credits: 2
Water is the essence of life. Access to Clean Water for drinking, fishing, irrigation and sanitation are basic human rights. In this course, we will use two texts: "Written in Water: Messages of Hope for Earth's Most Precious Resource" edited by Irena Salin and Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization by Steven Solomon. Water as a source of conflict for
CAPA Environment

Water Dialogues: The Future of Civilization — APA2016.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Susan Sgorbati
Credits: 4
This course fundamentally will address the following questions: How do we move out of the historical period of industrial waste and big dams to Water Systems that address climate change, water scarcity, water pollution and clean up, hydropower as a renewable resource and building new infrastructure? How does water affect our personal lives through health, sanitation, and
CAPA

Water: First Home of Life  — APA2148.01

Fall 2018
Instructor: Burcu Seyben
Credits: 4
Water is the source of life. Scientists search for water in the universe to discover if there is life out there. Civilizations of the ancient world flourished near water. Over the centuries, we have established relationships with water other than merely using it to survive. How has our relationship with water been changing, and how has this affected water? What role do
CAPA Environment

Waterways: Exploring the Landscape and Watershed with Artist Marie Lorenz — VA2204.03

Spring 2019
Instructor: Anne Thompson
Credits: 1
In this class, taught on the occasion of Lorenz’s exhibition in Usdan Gallery, students study the landscape from Bennington to Stillwater, following the course of the Walloomsac and Hoosic Rivers. The group will look at the history of land use in the watershed, examine current ecological issues, and think about ways that current actions might affect the land. Each session,
Visual Arts

Wavians Among the Ruins — LIT4328.01

Fall 2015
Instructor: Jonathan Pitcher
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
Evelyn Waugh is often described as a Bright Young Thing, a master of farce, the 20th century’s ironist, a modernist, an anti-modernist, a Catholic apologist, or the victim of a particularly elegiac, unforgiving case of enantiodromia. We will read his major novels, though with an eye on their critical reception, both then and now, since part of the course will be devoted to
Literature

Ways to Manipulate the Two-Dimensional World — MA4102.01

Fall 2013
Instructor: Sue Rees
Days & Time: TBA
Credits: 4
The class will be concerned with creating short animations utilizing two dimensional imagery. The animations will be created using both software and a MultiPlane Camera;MultiPlane set ups have been used for animators from Lotte Reiniger to Norman McLaren, Disney to Martha Colburn. The software programs used will be primarily After Effects, DragonFrame and Photoshop. Additional
Visual Arts

We, Unfortunately, Are Borges — SPA4219.02

Fall 2020
Instructor: Jonathan Pitcher
Credits: 4
Whether he is the last modernist, or the first postmodern, the least Latin American of all Latin American authors or perhaps the most, the grand destroyer of all illusions or ultimately their victim, in the wake of his own statement that “Every writer creates his own precursors” Jorge Luis Borges has already provided the theoretical premise for so much subsequent work that this
Cultural Studies and Languages

Wearable Paper Prints Experiment — PRI4215.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Thorsten Dennerline
Credits: 4
This course will explore the potential of wearable paper prints. To start, we will learn and practice simple printing methods that allow us to make prints into “use objects” that can be worn on the body. We will begin by looking at simple examples of paper dresses, party favors, disposable protection gear, and halloween costumes, as well as historical examples ranging from Dada
Visual Arts

Wearable Paper Prints Experiment — PRI4215.01

Spring 2023
Instructor: Thorsten Dennerline
Credits: 4
This course will explore the potential of wearable paper prints. To start, we will learn and practice simple printing methods that allow us to make prints into “use objects” that can be worn on the body. We will begin by looking at simple examples of paper dresses, party favors, disposable protection gear, and halloween costumes, as well as historical examples ranging from Dada
Dance Music Visual Arts

Weird Covers — MCO4173.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: Nicholas Brooke
Credits: 2
A cover song that veers from the original is a time-tested way for singers to plant a stylistic flag, from Captain Beefheart’s unhinged take on "Moonlight in Vermont" to Lauryn Hill’s pioneering "Killing Me Softly." In this class, you’ll be asked to write weird covers, versions of songs that rewrite style, affect, and genre. Sometimes we’ll work in groups and individually, and
Music