This course is an examination of utopian plans in architecture and art, including the works of C-N Ledoux, William Morris, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Kandinsky, Buckminster Fuller, and others. We will consider the philosophical constructs of utopia in architectural drawings, buildings, and plans in relationship to film, painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. We will consider how different projections about life in the future are also harsh criticisms of the present, which often rely upon imagined views of social organizations in times past.

Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 4 is designed for advanced-intermediate level dancers, as we continue to build on students' previous study of modern dance technique. As is true in Modern-Contemporary 3, the studio will be our laboratory for a semester-long exploration of a wide range of modern dance concepts with a focus on deepening sensation, clarifying points of initiation in the body, expansive use of space, connectivity and increasingly complex phrase work.

Graphic design is a creative and critical practice at the intersection of communication and abstraction. The process of learning graphic design is two-fold, and students in this course will engage both areas: first, students will develop knowledge and fluency with design skills--in this case, software (Photoshop/Illustrator); second students will address the challenges of design head-on through discussion, practice, iteration, critique and experimentation.

Modern-Contemporary Dance Technique 2 is an advanced-beginning level class, which will establish and build on students' foundational experience with modern dance technique. By practicing in-class exercises and phrase-studies, students will refine bodily awareness and articulation, hone spatial and rhythmic clarity, develop facility in perceiving and interpreting movement, and practice moving with our dance musicians' scores.

This course focuses on American southern old-time string band music, bluegrass, and early country song. We draw on cultural theory to explore the growth of these musics throughout the 20th/21st centuries as well as the influences of African-American musical expression, class, gender, and music revivalism. We will consider old time and bluegrass both from an historical perspective and ethnographically as vital forms in communities today.

In this class we will not only be looking at death as the "only absolute in life," that either "shadows or illuminates our lives" but also the way it is represented in contemporary film, video and media. We could argue that death is the ultimate "media event" in contemporary society. When we are talking about cyborgs, vampires, terrorism, dead princesses, immortal artists, we are thinking about death.

The problem of evil won't go away. Despite repeated attempts to dismiss the concept of evil as archaic and outmoded, it continues to haunt contemporary culture and thought. In literature, evil becomes a particularly prominent theme in the 19th century. Is literature intimately--or necessarily--connected to transgression, and to evil? We will explore 19th- and 20th-century literary as well as philosophical texts that take up the fascination with evil, and the difficulties thinkers have in confronting and making sense of it.

Understanding cinema as one of the most active forces in the visual, political, and social structure of place, we will screen and discuss films which have acted as social agents in the Americas. We will read major thinkers on class, social movements, and colonialism such as Hegel, Marx, Fanon, Malcom X, Castro, Marti, and Anzaldua. Thinking in dialogue with manifestos and cultural histories, we will screen films that challenge the narrative structures, cinematic techniques, notions of political activism, means of distribution, and even very notion of cinema.

An introduction to the archaeology, myth, history, art, literature, and religion of ancient Ireland: 4000 BCE to 1200 CE, from the earliest megalithic monuments to the Norman conquest. Consideration will be given, then, to these distinct periods: Pre-Celtic (Neolithic and Bronze Ages -- 4000 BCE-700 BCE); Pre-Christian Celtic (Late Bronze & Iron Ages--700 BCE-400 CE); and Early Christian Celtic (Irish Golden Ages and Medieval--700-1200 CE). The emphasis throughout will be on the study of primary material, whether artifacts or documents.

Creative Interventions will deeply explore the intersections between global environmental change, sustainability, the arts, education, and social action. In particular, we will highlight the essential role that creativity and art-making plays in organizing, strategizing and initiating powerful and effective social change. Through creative thinking and expanding on one's artistic practice, students will learn powerful and productive ways to be agents of social change.