Spring 2026 Course Search

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Spring ‘26

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.

Genesis is the first book in a compilation known collectively as the Bible. It is a text of enormous literary value, and one of our earliest historical chronicles, providing foundational material for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet how many of us know what it actually says?  How did it come together, what is the narrative, and how does it relate to ideas, cultures, and events in the ancient world? We will not be considering Genesis in terms of its status as scripture.

The aim of this course is to think about books. Not just books as objects, but books as the signifiers of a wealth of relationships – between reading and writing, between people and ideas, between people and people, between technologies and desires. For centuries, our ideas have been shaped by the rhythms and hierarchies inherent in the nature of print.  But the nature of the book itself has changed enormously over time – from the painstaking creation of ancient papyri and scrolls to Gutenberg and the fifteenth-century printing revolution.

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.

This intermediate to advanced-level course is for students who are interested in exploring more complex vessel forms. Using various building techniques, students will make vessels with multiple elements. Forms this class may explore include cups with handles, covered jars, baskets, and pouring pots. Students will be asked to expand their form vocabulary and further integrate their vessels and fired surfaces. Considerations will be: What space does a vessel occupy and contain? What is the vessel’s relationship to utility?

Clay responds directly to touch, retains memory and is forced through the dynamic process of firing to fix a point in time. This class will introduce students to a variety of hand-building techniques to construct sculptural and/or utilitarian forms. Students will develop their skills by practicing techniques demonstrated in class. Through making, students’ skills will increase, granting more confidence, and allowing more control over the objects they wish to realize.

This course will look into the use of the kiln as an integral tool and part of the creative process in ceramic art. We will explore various different kilns and firing techniques, learning the roles of fire and atmosphere in transforming glaze components into desired surfaces. We will also discuss the history of kiln technology and how it has influenced the development of wares, kiln building, and the theoretical basis for kiln design and firing. Students will be expected to develop and produce work independently outside of class time for use in the firings.

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.

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.

This advanced seminar offers students the opportunity to pursue a term-long project in history.  Asking the historian’s three basic questions – why this? why here? and why now? – each student will be able to do a deep dive into their chosen piece of the past.  For some, this will be the venue for writing their SCT senior theses.  For others, this will be the place where they can produce a historical project appropriate to their Plan. Writing will take place throughout term, and all students in this seminar will receive weekly feedback.

This course is an introductory survey course of U.S. history that pays particular attention to changing norms around gender and sexuality, and how people contested or subverted those norms. Topics include: same-sex intimacy in Early America, turn of the century panics around miscegenation and white slavery, the invention of hetero and homosexuality, cross-dressing in the American West, and the HIV/AIDS crisis.

This course examines the history of immigration to the United States. How did this country become a “nation of immigrants”? How did immigration become so central to American national identity? What are this country’s purported ideals on the subject and has it ever lived up to them?  

The Holocaust is one of the most ethically challenging, traumatic, and consequential occurrences in modern history. This seminar aims to give students a granular understanding of the mass oppression, enslavement, and genocide that occurred in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, in order to then consider how it has been represented in poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction both by survivors of the this historical humanitarian crisis and those who've followed.

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.

This class is an introduction to using the potter’s wheel as a tool for generating clay forms, emphasizing pottery making. While focusing on throwing skills, students will explore various possibilities for assembling wheel-thrown elements and experiment with functional and non-functional formats. Students will be introduced to the ceramic process from wet working to glazing and firing. Historical and contemporary ceramic vessels will be shown and discussed; this general survey of ceramics will include many cultures and periods.