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Term
Time & Day Offered
Level
Credits
Course Duration

Black Markets — Canceled

Spring 2015
Instructor: Robin Kemkes
Credits: 4
Why do some transactions -- the sale of illegal drugs and weapons, human trafficking, finance, piracy, trade in endangered species, and harvesting of Siberian timber -- operate outside the formal economy? In this course we will study how the boundaries of the formal economy are negotiated, how black markets arise in relation to the formal economy, and the conditions under which
Environment Social Science

Black Mountain/Beat Poetry — LIT2525.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 4
The Beats were a mid-20th century group of writers who rebelled against the oppressive societal and cultural norms of 1950s America. These writers celebrated the freedom of the open road, dropping out of school, spoken-word poetry set to jazz, and drug culture. At roughly same time, another community of antiestablishment writers and artists sprung-up at Black Mountain College,
Literature

Black Music: Black Music Division (a 50 year retrospective) — MHI2238.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: Michael Wimberly
Credits: 2
Beginning in the Fall of 1974 through the spring of 1984, Bill Dixon, a Bennington music faculty member, American composer, and visual artist who was a seminal figure in free jazz, implemented a curriculum entitled Black Music: Black Music Division. This menu of courses introduced innovative pioneers of music who contributed to the lexicon and history of the black experience in
Black Studies Music

Black Music: Black Music Division – A Retrospective — MHI2238.01

Spring 2019
Instructor: Michael Wimberly
Credits: 4
In the early 70s Bennington music faculty members Bill Dixon and Milford Graves guided Bennington students through a black aesthetic, an awakening using music, words and deeds. Their compositions, teachings, and innovative approach to creative music boldly addressed a multitude of issues in the wake of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. This ever-evolving course
Music

Black Nature Writing — LIT2278.01

Fall 2021
Instructor: Phillip B. Williams
Credits: 4
In this class you will investigate the many faces that nature bears in the poetry of writers of African-descent. You will read poems from the Antebellum period through the contemporary period, poems that defy the myth that Black poets solely write about an urban experience in predictable ways. For Black poets, nature serves as a catalyst for contemplating freedom, complicating
Literature

Black Nature Writing — LIT2278.01

Spring 2018
Instructor: Phillip B. Williams
Credits: 4
In this class you will investigate the many faces that nature bears in the poetry of writers of African-descent. You will read poems from the Antebellum period through the contemporary period, poems that defy the myth that Black poets solely write about an urban experience in predictable ways. For Black poets, nature serves as a catalyst for contemplating freedom, complicating
Environment Literature

Black Playwrights of the Civil Rights Era — LIT2343.01

Spring 2021
Instructor: Maya Cantu
Credits: 4
In 1959, the resounding success of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun transformed the “Great White Way,” kicking open Broadway’s doors to the generations of African American playwrights that followed. Yet, as Hansberry herself acknowledged, she was only part of a larger wave of Black playwrights who, responding to the progress and protests of the Civil Rights Movement,
Literature

Black Queer Writing and Theoretical Approaches — LIT2327.01

Fall 2018
Instructor: Phillip B. Williams
Credits: 4
This class serves an introduction to Black queer writing and the theories that feed into and are inspired from said writing. We will read poetry, fiction, and essays by writers who revolutionized and made possible Black queer expression in the United States. What is the necessary vocabulary for Black writers left out of white academic and creative circles? When white gender and
Literature

Black Queer Writing and Theoretical Approaches — LIT2327.01

Spring 2022
Instructor: Phillip B. Williams
Credits: 4
This class serves an introduction to Black queer writing and the theories that feed into and are inspired from said writing. We will read poetry, fiction, and essays by writers who revolutionized and made possible Black queer expression in the United States. What is the necessary vocabulary for Black writers left out of white academic and creative circles? When white gender and
Literature

Black Studies: Black Film Division — FV2309.01

Fall 2016
Instructor: Karthik Pandian
Credits: 2
This film history course examines the Black American independent cinema of the 1960s-80s. We will screen landmark works by filmmakers such as Charles Burnett, Haile Gerima, Kathleen Collins and Julie Dash along with videos by contemporary artists. Screenings will be followed by discussions exploring the key thematic and formal preoccupations of black filmmakers of the era
CAPA Visual Arts

Black Studies: Black Music Division — MUS2149.02

Fall 2016
Instructor: Michael Wimberly
Credits: 2
In the early 70s Bennington music faculty members Bill Dixon and Milford Graves guided Bennington students through the black esthetic lens with music, words and deeds. Their compositions, teachings, and innovative approaches to creative music boldly addressed a multitude of issues inspired by the Civil Rights Movement. This 7 week course explores social, political and
CAPA Music

Black Studies: Black Music Division — MHI4102.01

Spring 2017
Instructor: Michael Wimberly
Credits: 2
This seven-week course encourages students who have taken Black Studies: Black Film Division or Black Studies: Black Video Division courses in the Fall 2016 term to take Black Studies: Black Music Division course spring term. Students will use this course to collaborate and realize an exhibition in the Usdan Gallery based on their work and research into the past, present and
CAPA Music

Black Studies: Black Music Division — MUS2149.01

Fall 2017
Instructor: Michael Wimberly
Credits: 2
In the early 70s Bennington music faculty members Bill Dixon and Milford Graves guided Bennington students through the black aesthetic lens with music, words and deeds. Their compositions, teachings, and innovative approaches to creative music boldly addressed a multitude of issues inspired by the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements. This course reveals social, political and
Music

Black Studies: Black Spring I — FV4318.01

Spring 2017
Instructor: Karthik Pandian
Credits: 2
Students who have taken Black Studies courses in the Fall 2016 term will use this course to realize an exhibition in the Usdan Gallery based on their work and research into the past, present and future of black lives at Bennington College. While the centerpiece of the exhibition will be the collaborative video produced in Black Studies: Black Video Division course, it will be
CAPA Visual Arts Music

Black Studies: Black Spring II — FV4320.02

Spring 2017
Instructor: Karthik Pandian
Credits: 2
Students who have taken Black Studies courses in the Fall 2016 term will use this course to realize physical and digital documentation of their work and research into the past, present and future of black lives at Bennington College. Participants in this practical course will archive and disseminate the work of Black Studies engaging technologies of print media, video
CAPA Visual Arts Music

Black Studies: Black Video Division — FV4317.01

Fall 2016
Instructor: Karthik Pandian
Credits: 4
This intermediate video production course imagines the past, present and future of black lives at Bennington College. Through archival work on the history of the Black Music Division, research into contemporary issues of race on campus and speculative explorations of the future of these issues and the aesthetic problems they pose, students will work collaboratively to
CAPA Visual Arts

Blackness, Fugitivity, and Visual Culture — MS4108.01

Spring 2022
Instructor: Carly Rudzinski
Credits: 4
This course explores the ways in which visual culture in the United States has mobilized Blackness and fugitivity for the purposes of both liberation and capture.  Starting in the 19th century we will trace the abstraction and the materiality of Blackness and fugitivity through print, photography, and film ending in the vortex of the digital. Our inquiry will be
Society Culture and Thought

Blockchain/Web3 as an evolution of the consumer web — CS2138.01

Fall 2025
Instructor: Michael Corey
Days & Time: TH 3:40pm-5:30pm
Credits: 2

The large-scale consumer web has been defined by epochs. The first epoch was defined by the user as consumer: large companies created content which was consumed by the masses. The second web epoch (web 2.0) has been defined by consumer creators, large companies own and deliver content created by users to other users (Facebook, TikTok,

Computer Science

Bodies in Inner and Outer Space — PHO4306.01

Fall 2024
Instructor: Terry Boddie
Credits: 4
What are the ways in which the spaces that the human body occupies affects how we view it in a photograph? How does the gendered and racialized body communicate through a photograph made in these spaces? What is communicated when figure and space intertwine? Throughout the history of photography, the human figure has been used to intentionally occupy and alter physical
Visual Arts

Bodies in Inner and Outer Spaces — PHO4361.01

Fall 2023
Instructor: Terry Boddie
Credits: 4
What are the ways in which the space the human body occupies affects how we experience it in a photograph? How does the gendered and racialized body communicate through a photograph made in these spaces? What is communicated when figure and space intertwine? Throughout the history of photography, the human figure has been used to intentionally occupy and alter physical spaces.
Visual Arts

Bodies of Sound — MCO4121.01

Spring 2019
Instructor: Sergei Tcherepnin
Credits: 2
What is the materiality of sound? Do some combinations of sounds have a shape, have color? How can we identify and work with these characteristics? How does sound affect the body and brain? This is an installation class that focuses on ways of working with Sound in the context of Visual Art. You will learn all the tools necessary to create an electronic sound installation -
Music Visual Arts

Bon Dance: A Cultural and Traditional Japanese Dance Experience — CSL2008.01

Spring 2026
Instructor: Ikuko Yoshida
Days & Time: MO 3:40pm-5:30pm
Credits: 2

This comprehensive course offers an immersive introduction to Bon Dance, a time-honored Japanese dance form traditionally performed during the Obon festival, which honors the spirits of ancestors. Designed for participants of all experience levels, the course provides a profound understanding of the dance's cultural significance while teaching basic Japanese

Cultural Studies and Languages Dance