Indian popular film, known commonly as Bollywood, is usually understood to have weak storylines interrupted with overblown cinematic spectacles and distracting dance numbers. The course explores the narrative and visual structure of Bollywood for what scholar Lalitha Gopalan has called a "constellation of interruptions." We will analyze a selection of films closely, read scholarly articles, participate in debates, write guided assignments, and pursue independent research papers.

The multicultural course will survey architecture, sculpture, painting, and other arts of India from the earliest times to the twenty-first century. Students will explore the various arts as material expressions of a relationship between religious beliefs, geography and cultural conditions of the subcontinent of India in different historical periods. Class sessions will also provide opportunities for an examination of cross-cultural issues relating to the study of non-Western art in a Western academic discipline.

A survey of painting and sculpture, this course introduces students to the work of individual artists. Classes also develop ways of looking at and thinking about art as the material expression of American social, political, and cultural ideas, including the depictions of nature, race, revolution, and country life. The course focuses on 'American Masters': Copley, Stuart, Cole, Church, Eakins, Homer, Sargent, Whistler, and Cassatt are some of the key artists.

This course traces the different paths of painting, sculpture, and mixed media in the United States and, to a lesser extent, Western Europe between 1945 and 1989 -- that is, between the end of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. We will begin with both the "climax" and "crisis" of modernism in midcentury and the movements and works that the crisis spawned. In the second half of the course, we will follow art's relationship to a variety of postmodern subjects and debates. Throughout, we will measure the effects of geopolitical tensions on the visual arts.

This survey outlines the arts in Italy from the late thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, a time of major cultural transformation. Our approach will be primarily geographic, focusing on individual cities and courts in order to understand the social networks that linked artists with their patrons and publics.

Some of the best feature-length films of the past century have commanded our attention and imagination because of their compelling artistry and the imaginative ways they tell stories visually and verbally. This course closely studies narrative films from around the world, from the silent era to the present, and in the process it introduces students to the basic elements of film form, style, and narration.

This course surveys architecture from the ancient world to the present as both a functional response to human activity and as a medium that expresses cultural values. In the service of domestic life, religious ritual, political agendas, commerce, and leisure, architecture reflects and shapes the natural environment, technology, economics, and aesthetic taste. While the history of Western architecture constitutes the primary touchstone, we will pursue themes that include buildings, cities, and sites from around the world.

This course explores how artists, images, and objects have sparked revolution, defined identity, changed how people think and act, reflected and made history. We will examine moments of major change in the arts through close attention to specific themes, individuals, and works from the last seven centuries. The goal is not a fact-filled, comprehensive, strictly chronological overview, but rather an understanding of the ways in which the western visual legacy has profoundly shaped how we see the world around us.

Not available at this time

No matter where you end up in tech, you will need to explain concepts, products and ideas to people with different technical backgrounds. This course is intended to help prepare you for these communication tasks. Through the lens of tutoring, we will work on explaining technical ideas clearly and compassionately to others. We will do some theoretical study, including a history of CS education as well as brain and learning science, and some practice, including tutoring beginning students in CS.