Spring 2021

Film & Television Studies 096
Film and Land
Professor Deb Ellis

In this class, we consider how film communicates in a selection of films that include significant portrayals of land. We engage in film analysis and consider formal elements such as genre and structure. We examine how land has been portrayed in Western art and how films that include land as a major element might relate to that history. We also consider questions related to the impact films have on public opinion and think about how films are produced and distributed to create that impact.

Dance 096
Environment & Performance
Professor Julian Barnett

This course explores the relationship between the human body, environment, and performance. The course orients itself around the processes of the body, as it moves, witnesses, and discerns to uniquely perceive ‘environment’ as a multi-layered body of history, geography, and identity and ‘performance’ as a social-political and transformative structure. The goals of the course are to heighten an individual's sensitivity to naturalistic practices that help build relationships to space, time, biography, and context. The class offers perspectives of how performance can function as a vital way of seeing, as well as being, within specific and rapidly shifting environments.

Geography 040
Weather, Climate & Landscape
Professor Beverley Wemple

Weather, Climate and Landscapes introduces the study of the spatial dynamics of earth’s atmosphere, weather and climate, water resources, landforms, and ecosystems. In this course, we explore how the atmosphere works, gain skills for interpreting the weather and understanding controls on climate, and examine how weather and climate influence processes that shape the surface of the earth and influence ecosystems. We seek to understand how these processes affect and are affected by human activity.

 

Fall 2020

English 053
Introduction to Creative Writing
Professor Eve Alexandra

This is an introductory course on the techniques of writing poetry, short prose fiction, and creative non-fiction. It is also an invitation to challenge your conception of “poetry” and “prose.” We will examine the work of contemporary poets and writers in order to further understand our own work and the creative process. We will also consider the role of creative writing in contemporary American culture. Throughout the semester you will be asked to carefully consider what it means to create and compose a body of work—a public document that responds not only to your own experience, but also to the world at large. The class is organized around student writing, and we will workshop on a weekly basis. A dedication to craft, aesthetic innovation, and risk-taking is expected of writers in this course.

Art 095
Introduction to Photography
Professor Bill McDowell

This course provides students with a broad introduction to making black and white photographs emphasizing craft, the history of photography, and conceptual problem solving.