Collab and Collect in LA Art

This course examines Latin American and Latino art practices based in collaboration and collectivity. We will look at artist groups such as concretismo (Helio Oiticica, Lygia Clark), New York Graphic Workshop (Luis Camnitzer, Liliana Porter), Los grupos (Felipe Ehrenberg, Maris Bustamante), the Mexican Muralists, Tucuman Arde, Polvo de gallina negra (Maris Bustamante and Monica Mayer) and ASCO (Gronk, Harry Gamboa, Willie Herron, Patssi Valdez) as well as individual practices from throughout the Americas.

LA Film and Politics

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, and Anzaldua. Thinking in dialogue with manifestos and cultural histories, we will screen films that challenge the narrative structures, cinematic techniques, notions of political activisim, means of distribution, and even very notion of cinema.

US Women's History to 1890

Surveys the social, cultural, economic and political developments shaping American women's lives from the colonial period to 1890, and explores women's participation in and responses to those changes. Topics include: the transformation of work and family life, women's culture, the emergence of the feminist movement, sexuality and women's health, race and ethnic issues. Sophomore level and above. (Gen.Ed. HS, U)

American Drama, 1787-present

This course offers a broad survey of American drama in the context of performance traditions such as minstrelsy, melodrama, realism, the Broadway musical, and the avant-garde. We read works that challenge and expand concepts of national identity and their connection to discourses of race, class, ethnicity, and gender. How do the characters and landscapes of these plays reflect historical events and theatrical inventions? What do they tell us about what it means to be an "American," and how have our answers changed over time?

The Neurobiology of Stress

In this seminar, students will gain a thorough understanding of the stress response system, referred to as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Using primary literature, the course will cover various facets of the HPA axis, including the cellular and anatomical neuroscience behind the stress response. Students will gain an understanding of the techniques commonly used to assess acute and chronic HPA axis activity and behavioral reactivity in humans and in a variety of non-human animals.

Reimagine the Classics

How can we look back to classic plays that were written one or two millennia ago and use them as the basis for a new piece of art that will be relevant and inspiring to a contemporary audience?This course will explore how artists from various media--theater, film, TV, dance, music, painting--have interpreted and re-authored classical texts. We will discuss western classics as well as canonical texts from Japan, India, Africa and Latin America.Are there any shared fundamental human elements among these very different continents and cultures?

Latin American Cinema

How have Latin Americans represented themselves on the big screen?  In this course we will explore this question through close readings of representative films from each of the following major periods: silent cinema (1890s-1930s), studio cinema (1930s-1950s), Neorealism/Art Cinema (1950s), the New Latin American Cinema (1960s-1980s), and contemporary cinema (1990s to today). Throughout the course we will examine evolving representations of modernity and pay special attention to how these representations are linked to different constructions of gender, race, sexuality, and nationality.

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