Spring 2026 Course Search

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Spring ‘26

Delights of Ephemera explores the significance of mass-produced materials in the context of art movements and exhibitions. Contrary to its definition, ephemera can have power and permanence, giving agency to marginal and marginalized groups and providing a record of actions outside institutional structures. A poster for an exhibition can be as important—or, in terms of its historical presence, more important—as the exhibition itself.

In this class, students will start working on their artists' book documenting their ongoing MFA thesis research, process and practice, and we will discuss how this relates to potential ideas for Research As Action presentations. To make this possible, we will use software such as Adobe CC Indesign and Photoshop. Slide presentations, software demos, group and individual critiques will help students develop and shape their ongoing thesis research and actions. 

The seventeenth-century Flemish painter-diplomat Peter Paul Rubens is at the heart of a course that proposes the intrinsic baroqueness of diverse strains of high modernism. Our transdisciplinary project crosses entrenched nationalistic and chronological borders between modern and early modern art and artists including Bacon, Guston, Manet, Newman, Picasso, Bearden, and Titian in addition to Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), himself a more conceptually various and possibly more prolific artist even than Rubens (1577-1640) to whom some 3,000 paintings and drawings have been attributed.

The term will be spent focusing on a teaching statement, evidence of teaching history, with a focus on intersectional Life writing. The continuation of the collection of documentation of professional activity, a full CV, an artist statement, and any other applicable statements will be added to the materials to create the fullness of the Portfolio book. An artist’s talk will conclude the portfolio process during the summer term.

The term will be spent focusing on a teaching statement, evidence of teaching history, with a focus on intersectional Life writing. The continuation of the collection of documentation of professional activity, a full CV, an artist statement, and any other applicable statements will be added to the materials to create the fullness of the Portfolio book. An artist’s talk will conclude the portfolio process during the summer term.

This course allows students more time to complete thesis project work.

This course allows students to self-design course work by combining topics and approaches from the Practice LABs and the Study LABs to meet required hours. The Individualized LABS take the form of a series of self directed intensive workshops and study immersions.

Variable Credit, 1-2 Credits

Through mentor approved independently paced work, students develop and schedule their own weekly, planned creative practices using student-initiated resources and/or classes. Mentors guide students through the designed plan that can include a combination of practices, techniques, technologies and methodologies. The study format should provide opportunity for varied approaches and choices.

This topic driven seminar focuses on current developments within the field of dance and performance. Students will learn to think of dance and performance through their own embodied experiences and by placing dance, movement, and performance in wider disciplinary, cultural and global contexts.

Where and how does study happen? What is the value of study and how do we recognize that value? What does it mean to think of our study of dance and performance as an encounter and how might that thinking offer up a chance for one to pay attention differently? Is it different from research?  Or, as Kevin Quashie suggests, does it perhaps re-situate the activities of research, scholarship, teaching and practice in an important way? These Labs take the form of intensive workshops and/or lectures.

Variable Credit, 1-2 Credits

What does studying together offer us critically that studying alone might not? Ariella Azoulay refers to studying with companions as a method of unlearning. What are the shifts experienced when you are studying with and alongside others? What conditions might group study provide that allow different questions and understandings to emerge? If, as Irit Rogoff states, “All research is collaborative,” how might these study groups expand our thinking through collaborative practices? What methodologies emerge?

The record of the processes and research practices take shape in the writing and designing of the artist’s book. The Research as Actions are discussed and planned. These actions are shared informally and at the conclusion of the term. 

Students propose, plan, discuss and develop a (research) thesis project. They choose a thinking partner to work alongside and begin the processes.

In this course, we will explore various projects that aim to connect people with their surroundings and communities.
We will also explore the strategies that various artists have implemented to increase their audiences and interest in the arts.
We will analyze and design projects that seek sustainability, diversification, and access to the experience of art and culture.

By evaluating environments we could design artistic projects that promote art, artistic education, and the promotion of cultural products as actions to build community, identity, and a creative economy.

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Spring '26

Working in collaboration with the local Park-McCullough Historic Governor’s Mansion, students will create a new archive of the historic dress collection.