In this course students will explore the sculptural object as a self contained form and as an element within a found or created environment. Traditional materials such as steel, wood, plaster and concrete will be taught concurrently with more ephemeral materials including paper, wire mesh and found materials. Ideas originating within the traditions of modernism, postmodernism, minimalism, post minimalism, installation art and public art will be introduced through slide lectures, readings and independent research. The course will culminate in an independent project.

In the course, students will explore the art of ensemble through the exploration of technical theatre - from the sculpting of stage space through lighting design to holding the rhythm of a play through the role of the stage manager. Learning will take place in the classroom, where you will read and discuss plays and historical texts, as well as in the theatre spaces, where you will create ensemble-based, creative projects that are inspired by your stories.

What is presence on stage? And how does an actor manifest it? In this course, you'll explore acting through a hands-on, ensemble-based approach that is grounded in listening. The course begins with an exploration of the many stories that you carry, hear, and express through movement. We'll then move to language, developing skills of text analysis and character development - and read plays from a range of diverse playwrights whose work challenges the way we see and embody stories.

In the midst of our current fraught political moment and landscape, students will track, interrogate, compare, and contrast the manner in which Black and other poets of color engage race and dispensations of American politics. How do various poetic approaches enact the political concerns of the day? Can the making of art create additional problems or concerns? Students should expect to draft essays that close read and think through numerous poems within their respective historical contexts. What can these poems teach us about the function of American Letters as a kind of chronicle?

Through drawing, students will develop their ability to perceive and construct visual images and forms across a wide range of media and subject matter. Projects will address the two-dimensional picture plane from an array of observed and imagined sources. A large variety of media will be used to explore the body, found and imagined objects, collage, abstraction, and structures in the natural and built environment. Slide presentations and group critiques will provide students with historical and conceptual contexts for the development of their own work.

The intent of this course is to provide a supportive space for traditionally underserved students to acquire hands-on fabrication shop skills. Students will be introduced to the basic tools, equipment, machinery and resources available through the Lemelson Center. We will cover basic elements of design and project planning. Students will be expected to participate in discussions of their own and each others' work.

This is a course in decolonial and political theory that will explore the historical legacy of colonialism and the ongoing conflict between the so-called east/west. Through a range of texts, we will analyze and critique the major theoretical and cultural origins of various contemporary social-political phenomena that are connected to the east/west conflict, including war on terror, the rise of ISIS, and the militarization of everyday life throughout the world.

This course proposes an interdisciplinary approach that historical, cultural) for a study of the complex and contested reality of Cuba. Displacing images of Cuba circulating in US popular and official culture, we examine the constructions of race, gender, and sexuality that have defined the Cuban nation. We will explore how Cuba can be understood in relation to the U.S., and to its own diasporas in Miami and elsewhere. The course will engage with primary texts, historiography, literature, film, and music to examine Cuba within these multiple frameworks.

Millions of people are living outside the borders of their home countries as expatriates, migrant workers or transnational managers of the global economic order, as refugees, displaced persons fleeing violence and persecution, and as people without papers. Bodies are thus a key part of the package of the multiple transborder flows of globalization, and they are produced, differentiated and understood through discourses of citizenship, national security, and universal human rights that are frequently at odds.

It is fashionable today to speak of "sustainability," but how do we understand the term in its broadest sense? Historic preservation plays a key role in researching our history, building civic identity, and creating sustainable communities. Once associated primarily with saving the elegant buildings of the elite, historic preservation today involves vernacular as well as distinguished architecture, landscapes as well as the built environment, and the stories of all social groups.