An examination of the gothic - a world of fear, haunting, claustrophobia, paranoia, and monstrosity - in U.S. literature and visual culture. Topics include slavery and the gothic; gender, sexuality, and the gothic; regional gothic; the uncanny; cinematic and pictorial gothic; pandemic gothic. Authors, artists, and filmmakers may include Dunbar, Elmer, Faulkner, Gilman, Hitchcock, Jackson, Kubrick, LaValle, Lovecraft, McCullers, Morrison, O'Connor, Parks, Peele, Poe, Polanski, Romero, and Wood.

Usually, an artist produces a work, and then an audience experiences that work. However, sometimes audiences influence what a work means and even how an ongoing story unfolds. This course focuses on works of popular, serialized art in which the possibilities for artist/audience interaction are great, and so is the potential for conflict. We look at serial novels, film series, television shows, and new media (such as TikTok), among others. What are the rights of artists to control their works? What rights do audiences have to alter or create new works based on an existing work?

This course offers the student a study and practice of theater as a collaborative art. Course includes the analysis of the dramatic text in terms of the actor; the director; the scenic, costume, lighting, and sound designers; and technicians. Close analytical readings of play texts and critical/theoretical essays will be supplemented by attending theater productions both on and off campus and by staging students' own theatrical projects.

Fall 2020 Productions:
FMT-282-01: The Language of Angels
FMT-282-02: Much Ado About Nothing
Spring 2021 Productions:
FMT-282-01: Machinal.

This course provides a foundation in the principles, techniques, and equipment involved in video production. Students will make several short videos over the course of the term as well as one final piece. We will develop our own voices while learning the vocabulary of moving images and gaining production and post-production skills. In addition to technical training, classes will include critiques, screenings, readings, and discussion.

The purpose of this course is to introduce the history, art, and techniques of designing sets for theater and film. Students will learn how sets have been created in the past, how a designer approaches a script, how a designer's work supports the director's vision, how it illuminates a production for the audience, and what methods and techniques are used in the execution of the process. Students will have the opportunity to exercise their visual imaginations, through the creation of designs for a script.

This course teaches the basic concepts, vocabulary, and critical skills involved in interpreting film. Through readings and lectures, students will become more informed and sophisticated observers of the cinema, key examples of which will be screened weekly. While the focus will be on the form and style of narrative film, documentary and avant-garde practices will be introduced. The class will also touch upon some of the major theoretical approaches in the field.

This course is designed to be an introduction to the fundamental theories and principles of directing for the stage. Visual theory, text analysis, collaborative techniques, and organizational strategies are examined and applied in class exercises, including the direction of a major scene. Each student will be required to cast, rehearse, and present to the public a fully realized scene by the end of term. Directing is a complicated activity that requires you to do and be many things, and this course will help you lay the foundation to discovering your own process.

This class will delve into the history of space exploration starting with the 1960 space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The class will continue to follow the last 60+ years of space exploration across the globe, changing from a competitive endeavor between the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the global cooperative venture it is today. Topics will include but not be limited to manned missions, technology such as unmanned rovers and high-resolution cameras, exploration missions such as Voyager, and the search for life.

This course explores Italian theatre from the 1700s to today with particular attention to social mobility, women's rights, politics, and class conflict. Authors include classics such as Goldoni, Pirandello, DarioFo, Franca Rame, Dacia Maraini, Eduardo De Filippo, and more.