Spring 2026 Course Search

Studio Practice is designed to offer each student a rigorous and immersive dance study experience. A deep-dive into practices of critical physicality, students will be supported in making direct connections across an abundance of dance forms that rearrange and blur the boundaries between traditional and emerging techniques. Studio Practice courses focus on the relationships between curiosity, desire, strength, effort, force, and presence, all while moving within the lineages and histories that inform the ways in which we create and encounter our dancing futures.

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?  

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 will focus on the learning of traditional Scottish and Irish melodies on the harp as well as developing foundational technique. This will include looking at body posture, the importance of relaxation and its relationship to developing good tone, and finger placement. In group lessons, students will learn melodies and exercises the traditional aural way, by ear, and simple notation and recordings will be provided at the end of each class to use as a reference for practice during the week.

This course enables students to undertake the research essential for composing their thesis or completing a project within their field of study or area of interest. Enrollment requires the submission of a comprehensive project proposal to Ikuko Yoshida, which must include a project title, a brief description, a list of relevant preparatory courses, and clearly articulated objectives and goals. 

This fourth-term Japanese course is purposefully designed to enable students to create digital books that promote cultural understanding among Japanese children. The curriculum begins with students engaging with short stories and Japanese animations to analyze expected behaviors and communication styles among Japanese children. Additionally, students examine social and cultural values in Japan—focusing on how these values are conveyed and how gender roles are represented in children’s literature and media.

How are language and thought connected, and does speaking multiple languages affect these connections?  Most people have had the experience of struggling to come up with a particular word or phrase, sometimes recalling it after a substantial delay.  This course will unpack the mental processes involved in that experience and explore the ways that cognitive psychology -- the study of thought -- has been broadened by investigations of monolingual and multilingual language use.

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. 

What do we remember about our lives, and how do these memories contribute to our sense of self?  This course will begin with an introduction to the scientific study of human memory to better understand how autobiographical memory brings episodic, semantic, and other types of memory together.  We will then explore what autobiographical memory has revealed about the development of memory in childhood at brain and behavioral levels.  Cross-cultural research has substantially reshaped the scientific understanding of autobiographical memory, and we will focus particularly on groun

Borrowed from the subtitle of Lois Ellfeldt & Edwin Carne's seminal 1971 Dance Production Handbook, "Later is Too Late" became a mantra for the course instructor after finding a well-worn copy of the paperback in his roadbox for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.  In this course we will examine the specific technical challenges and design opportunities presented in the production of dance performance, including the role that planning and management can play in overcoming the structural inequities and lack of resources endemic to the form.  Through readings,

Aristocles (known to us as "Plato") lived and wrote in Athens in the 5th c. BCE. More than 2400 years later, Alfred North Whitehead’s famous remark still resonates: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato…the wealth of general ideas scattered through them…have made [Plato’s] writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion” (Process and Reality, 1929).

In 1948, Elanor Roosevelt, instrumental for the approval of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, said “In a true sense, human rights are a fundamental object of law and government in a just society. Human rights exist to the degree that they are respected by people in relations with each other and by governments in relations with their citizens.”

This course is designed for new (or new-ish) playwrights, although more experienced playwrights who want to dig into the fundamentals are also welcome. We will focus on eight essential elements of playwriting craft: character, language, subtext, power, place, theatricality, surprise, and an elusive element called the gap. We will experiment with a variety of ways to start a play, and we will gain a greater understanding of our own individual creative methods and routines.

Three-Card Monte. Blind Man's Bluff. Poker. Charades. Chicken. What do onstage games reveal about our characters? Are onstage games always dangerous? How can the play itself become a game played with the audience?

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. 

With billions of images uploaded to the internet daily, we are bombarded by media content on corporately owned platforms from news outlets to algorithmic social media feeds and YouTube videos. How do we create meaningful independent media for each other in this current age of disinformation? What importance do physical materials such as books, zines, posters, and pamphlets still have in disseminating information and ideas to our communities? How does the art of self-publishing become a means of empowerment and an act of care?

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.

Journalism & Democracy is the result of a grant and partnership with the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont, a national network of student journalism programs around the United States. The course recognizes the essential role that the arts and culture play in a healthy democracy. Arts and culture invite us to experience perspectives and ways of life different from our own; they shape conversations about freedom, equal rights and other values that are at the core of American society; and they help us engage with the world in new and important ways.

This class will examine interesting thinkers about our future.  Artists, anthropologists, afro futurists, writers, scientists and philosophers have all thought about what we are facing in our futures. Books and essays such as “The Fourth Turning” by Neil Howe, “The Dawn of Everything” by David Graeber, “The End of History” by Francis Fukuyama,  "Emergent Strategies" by Adrienne Maree Brown, “A Paradise Built in Hell” by Rebecca Solnit, “The Work After Our Rage” by Kenneth Bailey and Lori Lobenstine”, "DeltasUNite and the UNCCRD" and others.

In this course, students will document the lived experiences of individuals during this immensely challenging period in American history. Students will receive training in the methods of oral history, interviewing techniques, historical ethics, and archival work. They will conduct interviews of classmates and community members. These narratives will then be preserved in order to provide future generations with a firsthand account of the United States during this period of history. 

Social psychology is the scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This course will explore social thinking, influence, and social relations that shape our lived experiences through a U.S. contextual lens. Social psychologists are increasingly concerned with the effects of the various systems of domination on outcomes such as health and wellbeing, relationships with others, personal and social identities, as well as political views and participation.

Qualitative inquiry seeks to discover and to describe in narrative reporting what particular people do in their everyday lives and what the actions mean to them. This course is intended for students who wish to learn more about the impact of theoretical frameworks on their ongoing knowledge projects at Bennington College.

Conducted through research focusing on the development of Japanese subcultures in the Post World War II period, this course poses various critical inquiries about the effects of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on contemporary global consumer society, visual culture and the production of art.

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.

This course is intended for students with some playing and reading experience.

Students will expand upon a repertoire of scales and chords.

They will study and learn to play selected compositions.

Individual piano lessons for more advanced students.

A weekly 45 minute lessons time is arranged with the instructor.

Have you been thinking about learning to play the piano? 

Do you want to learn to read sheet music and understand the basics of music theory? 

If you answered yes, then this course is for you.

Lessons are given on a one on one basis.

Each lesson is 20-25 minute-long.

This course is for students with no experience.

If you have taken piano lessons, audition for Intermediate Piano.

This course introduces students to two foundational texts in Chinese thought: The Twenty-four Stories of Filial Piety, which highlight the Confucian ideal of devotion to one’s parents, and the Tales of Zhuangzi, which reflect Daoist values of spontaneity, naturalness, and freedom. By reading these works in translation and in modern Mandarin at the student’s language level, the class explores the interplay between Confucian and Daoist perspectives—two traditions that have profoundly shaped Chinese culture.

This course will feature presentations and conversations with Bennington alumni with the purpose of providing guidance to current students about how to leverage their own experience in designing their education to the next step in their growth: designing a career. The skills and capacities that undergird the Bennington approach to liberal arts are intended to also help students secure and thrive in rewarding professional careers.

Traditional Chinese calligraphy is an ancient art form that uses brush and ink to write Chinese characters in a refined and expressive style. It embodies visual beauty, rhythm, and emotion, reflecting the writer’s personality, philosophy, and cultural sensibility. Calligraphy is also valued as a form of meditation and art therapy, fostering focus and inner calm.This course places a strong emphasis on learning the basic strokes and essential techniques of calligraphy.

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 language, essential dance techniques, and key movements.

The essay is an intellectual and an artistic endeavor, and work in the form means work in thinking—about life, values, our own ideas and the ideas of others. Good personal essays entertain, inform and move us through the rendering of, and reflection over, our own life experiences. Essays and stories by artists such as Virginia Woolf, E. B. White, Daniel Orozco, Annie Dillard, Alexander Chee, Alice Walker, and James Baldwin will provide students with a foundation for approaching and understanding their own stories.

Part of the Chemistry 1-4 suite, this will examine the energetics of chemical changes. Focusing on the enthalpic and entropic contributions to free energy change, we will examine how energy or work can be extracted from chemical systems and how these systems behave as they tend toward equilibrium. Types of equilibria to be covered will include acid/base, solubility, phase change, metal-ligand interactions and oxidation/reduction. The energetics of electron transfer reactions will be examined along with the practical considerations of making use of such reactions to power electric devices.

In this course, we will examine French culture’s engagement with questions of sexuality and gender, with a focus on authors, artists, theorists, and others who have questioned ideas of normative sexuality from the Middle Ages through the 21st century. Authors and texts to be studied may include Marie de France, Gabrielle d’Estrées et l'une de ses soeurs, Montaigne, l’Abbé de Choisy, Charles Perrault (La Belle au bois dormant), le Chevalier d’Eon, Virginie Despentes, Paul Preciado, Wendy Delorme, Abdellah Taïa, Edouard Louis, Bambi (Sebastian Lifshitz), and Parole de King (Chriss Lag).

In this sixth-term Japanese course, students will examine how Buddhism influenced Japanese thought on the afterlife and analyze how Japanese views on the relationship between life and death are depicted in Japanese films.  In the first seven weeks of the course, students will examine and discuss the history, beliefs, and deities of Buddhism, as well as their influences on society.  In the second half of the term, students will analyze how death and the common theme of reincarnation are depicted in different genres of Japanese films, such as love stories and

Students will work towards completing one moving image piece or body or work of their own devising during the course of the semester. This course is primarily intended for seventh- and eighth-term students with a Plan concentration in Film/Video who have already taken Advanced Projects I in the prior fall, but exceptions may be made by permission of the instructor.

This course is a hands-on color laboratory where students will explore the tactile, material, and physical characteristics of pigments. Working with both earth and synthetic colors, we’ll grind, mix, and transform pure pigments into drawing materials including watercolor paints and chalk pastels. If time allows, we will also make inks. Outside of class, students will complete a short research project/presentation, and create a self-directed body of drawings using the materials created in class.

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.

This course is an introduction to the magic of copper plate Intaglio. We will explore various techniques to prepare our plates including hand working and acid etching with materials such as rosin resists and sugar lifts. By the end of term, we will be printing in color. Ultimately, the overall goal of our endeavors will be to begin a dialog about artistic production in a contemporary context while also exploring the unique history of the intaglio process. 

This course introduces students to the basic language of 3D animation and modeling.  Students will be expected to become familiar with the basic principles of the MAYA program. A series of modeled objects placed in locations will be created. The emphasis will be on becoming proficient with modelling forms, texturing using Arnold Renderer, basic animation and utilizing lights and cameras.

Graduate Teaching Fellows in Dance are integrated into the dance program as teaching assistants. In consultation with their academic advisors and the dance faculty, MFA candidates develop an assistantship schedule of approximately ten hours weekly; the courses they develop and teach are listed in the curriculum. All Teaching Fellows bring their own professional histories and contribute their own manners of teaching.

In this course we will explore spiraling in and out of the floor.

Students will observe using the telescopes at Stickney Observatory for a series of astronomical observing projects. After a range of initial assigned projects designed to acquaint students with the capabilities of the observing equipment and astrophysically interesting observations, students will propose and carry out their own observing projects looking at astrophysical phenomena of interest to them. As this is a projects class, it is expected that students will be able to devote significant time (mostly at night) observing on their own or in small teams.