Spring 2026 Course Search

This course will discuss practices and ethics around digital photography, and experiment with foundational tools and techniques, aiming to create space for students to develop their own interests within the possibilities of the medium. Classes will combine practical exercises, readings on the development of digital photography and its impact on society, discussions mostly on the work of contemporary photographers, and analysis of portraiture, landscape, and still photography techniques.

This course explores how photographers translate artistic concepts into the materiality of bookmaking, giving students insight into the basic steps of creating a photobook. The course will experiment with different book designs, paper qualities, digital printing, binding techniques, sequencing exercises, intervened photography, photo-collage, and layering.

Celtic history and music from Ireland, Scotland, Bretagne, Galatia, and Cape Breton will be experienced, studied, and performed using instruments and voices. We’ll find and cross the musical bridges between regions–from the ballads of Ireland, Scotland and Wales to the Alalas of Spain, through the Scottish Gaelic speaking Highland and Islands to the dance tunes of Brittany. An end-of-term presentation will be prepared drawing on inspiration from traditional forms.

Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American icon whose approach and innovation on the trumpet set him apart from the mainstream. Davis explored new approaches to creating and composing music. Davis was a trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. When you hear a Miles Davis recording, you know it's Miles. Davis's five-decade career kept him at the forefront of many major stylistic developments in jazz.

This 2-credit course will explore the use of medium format film, its purpose, benefits and drawbacks, and the appeal of photographing with a significantly larger film than 35mm. Students will learn about the history of medium format film, the versatility of its sizes that varies from camera to camera and how to enhance their photographic practice with its use. Most of the coursework will involve developing, photographing, printing digitally and in a darkroom, and scanning negatives made with medium format film.

In this course we focus our attention on a few of the most exciting composers of the late twentieth-century, and discuss how their music has influenced the music of the current period.

Students in this advanced level course will engage in research through both texts and images. Reflective writing and constructive peer critiques will expand their critical thinking and expand their photographic practice. Individual feedback by the instructor will be geared towards the progressive development of the student’s semester long project. By the end of the semester, students will produce visual and written work that is representative of their creative exploration over the course of the term.

How do we read photographs? What are the stories contained within their borders? How does two, three, or a sequence of images convey a narrative? In this intermediate course, students are guided through a series of assignments that explore the photograph as a narrative pictorial space using analog and digital processes. Structurally the assignments may take a traditional documentary format or a creative thematic narrative format. Image editing and sequencing to strengthen narrative structure will be a key goal of the course.

This course examines the complex relationship between language, culture, and society through an interdisciplinary lens, incorporating perspectives from linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and discourse analysis. Students will explore how linguistic practices both reflect and shape identities, power dynamics, cultural norms, and worldviews as we cover topics such as linguistic relativity, regional variation, racialization, politeness, and markers of gender and class.

How can anthropology help us understand political dynamics around the world? This course will introduce students to a range of approaches anthropologists have developed in the study of politics and the political. The course will consider anthropological methods for studying the powerful, the state and institutions, and political movements.

What does intimacy reveal about our social worlds? This seminar explores a range of recent methods in the study of intimacy, as well as what it means to make intimate knowledge claims. Through neighboring concepts in Anthropology, such as kinship, friendship and relatedness, as well as through intimacy’s imbrication with economy, sexuality, violence, and more-than-human worlds, this course considers the varied shapes that intimacy takes across distinct social worlds.

This seminar course investigates the cultural, philosophical, and aesthetic dimensions of sound through critical readings, listening exercises, and discussions. Drawing from fields such as sound studies, media theory, musicology, literature, and art, Readings in Sound challenges students to consider how sound shapes experience, knowledge, identity, and space.

In this course we will be taking a hands on approach to understanding the lever harp both historically and compositionally. We will be building and stringing small 19 string harps which will be used as the basis for our compositional work where students will be creating new works of varying length for the lever harp to be presented at the end of the semester. We’ll look at what techniques are and are not achievable, what makes this instrument unique to other harps, and how to include it in larger compositional contexts.

This course delves into the influence and impact of photography by examining the works of iconic and contemporary photographers. Students will explore how photography has shaped visual culture and society, gaining a deeper understanding of its power as an artistic and documentary medium. Ethical considerations are central to the course, as students will analyze the responsibilities that photographers hold when capturing and representing their work.