Spring 2026 Course Search

Historical Dress: The Park-McCullough Project Spring ‘26

This course asks each student to work in a self-directed way among a community of critical thinkers. Finding one’s voice, as a maker, requires research sources of influence and inspiration. Students are expected to undertake a significant amount of work outside of regular class meetings. At this point in your Visual Arts Education you must be able to represent serious attention and dedication to your work, and prove that you can manage your time and energy towards advanced inquiry.

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?

This course serves as an introduction to rhythms, songs, and musical practices from Africa and the African Diaspora, including Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. Students will learn these traditional folkloric rhythms using indigenous percussion instruments from these territories and provinces. Class discussions will convey history, culture, language, and dance from these regions. Students will also have opportunities to create rhythms and arrangements in collaboration in our “break-out” segments.

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 production course introduces students to the fundamentals of working in video and the language of film form. Drawing on the energy, intensity and criticality of avant-garde film and contemporary video art practices, students will complete a series of projects exploring dimensions of cinematography, mise-en-scène, editing and sound design before producing a final self-determined project. Concepts crucial to time-based media such as apparatus, montage and identification will be introduced through screenings, discussions and texts by a diverse range of artists, filmmakers, and theorists.

The physics of light and color initially appears simple: light is a wave and the wavelength of light determines color. While this basic physical description of light is easy to state, going deeper quickly opens up large range of questions. How do different wavelengths of light combine to make colors? How does light from different sources interfere? How does light change path when it travels through different materials? How do humans sense light both in and outside of the visible spectrum? How does our perception of color affect how we interpret our world?

Physically, sound is simply the compression of air around us. However, this relatively simple description obscures a much richer understanding of sound. From how different sounds are generated and perceived to how different sounds can combine to make something new to how to design acoustically pleasant spaces, the physics of sound plays a key role. This course is about the fundamentals that underlie sound and is designed to serve as an introduction to those who are interested in going further.

What is the lyric? How did lyric poetry emerge as a genre, and how have reading practices evolved alongside it? This is a 2-credit survey class exploring theoretical engagements with the modern idea of the lyric, including readings in genre theory, new criticism, structuralism,  post-structuralism, and beyond.

This ensemble-based course explores the intersection of live performance, experimental soundscapes, and dub aesthetics. Rooted in the traditions of dub music—including remix culture, delay and reverb manipulation, and bass-driven textures—students will create immersive sonic environments using a mix of acoustic instruments, electronic tools, field recordings, and live effects processing.

Fake news, reality television, “IRL” – asserting the veracity of our perceptions is a constant preoccupation in contemporary culture. What is real? Realism is a widely used term with multiple connotations: verisimilitude, authenticity, objectivity, truth, fact.

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.