Spring 2026 Course Search

In this course, films are used as textbooks to learn the French language and explore the French-speaking world. In order to hone their language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), students will listen to selected film dialogues to improve their listening comprehension, read and analyze excerpts from scenarios and reviews to strengthen their understanding of syntax and widen their vocabulary, mimic the pronunciation of actors and write on film to improve their spoken and written French.

This course will examine movement–travel, migration, and transition–in the French-speaking world. We’ll examine the travel tale as philosophical form (Candide), the sonnet, Orientalism, the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi, films of Josephine Baker, queer movement in the work of Abdellah Taïa, the North Atlantic Triangle (Maboula Soumahoro), and the gender transition of Océan. Students will write a variety of critical and creative texts, make individual and group presentations, and develop their reading skills. Conducted in French. Intermediate-high level.

This course will examine the comic in French theatre, literature, politics, and film in order to answer a deceptively simple question: What makes us laugh? In theoretical readings we will consider whether laughter is a universal, cross-cultural function. Additionally, we will look at special, sub-genres of the comic, such as satire and parody, in order to question the relationship between comic genres and the real world. Does comedy seek to change the world or does it merely want to point to its foibles? Is it a progressive or conservative mode?

Economic inequality is often described in terms of uneven distribution of income and wealth. Yet, more importantly, it reflects uneven access to opportunities, advantages, and life chances. Why do some people enjoy a higher standard of living and better quality of life than others? Are such inequalities fair and just? What role do history, policy, and institutions play in sustaining or reducing inequality?

Why does chronic hunger endure even in times of prosperity? How can famine devastate entire regions in extreme cases, while food deserts quietly persist in wealthy countries like the United States? And what does it mean to treat nourishment not as charity or commodity, but as a right of citizenship?

Drawing from news articles, interviews, archival materials, and more, writers throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries have sought to document the world through poetry.

The CAPA Workshop is for Seniors who are engaged in their advanced work and want to complete a project as part of it in Public Action.Students are able to connect this work to any area of study at Bennington College. Each student will be required to assemble a digital portfolio that will include their research or thesis, along with a description and implementation of their project during the term. A proposal form will be required once admitted to the class. Projects, can be local, national or international. 

This class will introduce students to creating digital archive that includes digitizing photographs, documents, videotapes and basic types of metadata. We will have discussions about why digitizing personal collections is so important. Students will be expected to bring their own materials to the class. 

This class will investigate various pedagogical approaches to food studies by examining curriculums, topics and discourses being taught at some academic institutions. More importantly, we will put focus on researching art collectives, contemporary civic engagement practices, and other non-institutional models developed by creative practitioners and activists, which engage with food as a conduit to undertake social, political and cultural identity issues and to enhance their community cohesion.