We are currently living through a new golden age of photobooks. The last few years have seen an explosion of renewed interest in the artistic and narrative possibilities of this form. We will explore this resurgence within the context of the history of photography and photobooks, paying special attention to the changes in technology that have allowed for the growth of small press/DYI publishing and studying examples of notable works that have recently emerged.

Ethnomusicology is a field of music scholarship, which examines a wide range of music and music-related human activities with distinctive sociocultural perspectives and methodologies. This course offers an introductory experience of the field for students pursuing ethnomusicological projects in their Div II and III and those interested in exploring this relatively unknown field.

In the fourth century BCE, Plato already anticipated the popular derogatory conception of myth as an imaginative fabrication--pseudos, "a lie." Throughout Western history, however, and particularly since the rise of Romanticism, thinkers from various disciplines have viewed the stories of antiquity in more constructive terms. What is "myth"? Deliberate falsehood or veiled truth? Is it a term applicable to or recognizable in non-Western cultures also? What is the relationship between myth and history, myth and literature, myth and ideology?

Spring semester of this yearlong course will be a project-based semester with students working in collaborative interdisciplinary teams (with the fall course as a prerequisite) to develop research-based design proposals across multiple scales.

William Pope L., Yinka Shonibare, Ghada Amer, Gabriel Orozco, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Wangechi Mutu, Anish Kapoor, David Hammons, Louise Bourgeois, Jean Tinguely, El Anatsui, Hannah Hoch. Since the 1960s, the variety of an increasing choice of media has created more diverse working fields for artists. While this may make it easier for more artists to find areas of expression, it may also be more difficult for students to map their own artistic language. This course is designed for students who are starting to develop their own personality as artists.

Shortly after September 11th many journalists suggested that the attacks marked the death of irony. Nevertheless, irony, parody and political satire were used to challenge the Bush Administration's response to - and the mainstream media's framing of - the attacks. How do these modes of communication allow people to speak the unspoken, to challenge the political, social and cultural status quo, and to consolidate community? What are the limitations of these rhetorical strategies?

This course will explore a range of vanguard musical practices and various approaches to thinking theoretically and critically about them. We will traverse musical areas such as minimalism, indeterminacy, musique concrete, free improvisation, turntablism, and electronica, and examine these via historical and philosophical texts by theorists, composers and producers. Investigating different modes of listening to and talking about contemporary music, we will ask such questions as: What is the nature of music in relationship to silence and noise?

This advanced production course looks at cross cultural and interdisciplinary experimental and hybrid approaches to narrative filmmaking, including single channel film/videos, multi-channel installations, expanded cinema and interactive storytelling. Alternative Narrative Forms will emphasize tenets of experimental scriptwriting and writing forms and its relation to scenography, performance, visual language and sound design.

This ensemble course will jump into the wide road of the African-American music continuum at the whistle stops commonly called Jazz, Blues, and Funk. As musical artists, we will look to meet its rigorous standards of performance practice. We will perform repertoire from the historical breadth of the music. This ensemble course requires weekly practice outside of the class meeting, individually and in groups, as well as reading, listening, and written assignments. We will present a concert of our work at the end of the semester. This course is open to all instrumentalists and singers.

This course seeks to uncover the roots of today's debates about immigration and American identity in the interactions between Jewish immigrants of the turn of the 20th century and other immigrant and ethno-racial communities in the United States in the context of popular culture and literature. We will begin with debates about race, ethnicity and immigration in the nineteenth century as they took shape in relation to a rapidly modernizing American cultural landscape.