A general study of writing and cultural production by and about black people from the earliest times to now. What has been and is being voiced by and about black people and black life? Who are black writers? What are some important themes and concerns in writing, film, and art by and about black people? What are the contexts for these themes and concerns? Of what value are they today, and how might they make us understand the world and inspire us? We will answer these questions and generate others by studying slave narratives, essays, speeches, novels, poems, film and art.

How does popular culture reproduce gendered identities and racialized difference(s)? By critically investigating racial stereotypes and hetero-sexist conventions within the varied field of popular culture (images, texts, and sounds), we can begin to understand and analyze how race and sexuality structure our desires and code our cultures. This course will employ Cultural Studies and Women's Studies to examine how the themes of exotification, hybridity, authenticity, cultural appropriation, essentialism, and liberal humanism circulate within the popular imaginary.

The English Romantic, William Blake, characterized the Bible as "the Great Code of Art," an observation that finds repeated illustration throughout the Western literary tradition from medieval mystery plays to the latest fiction of Toni Morrison. By the same token, biblical stories form the bedrock of the scriptural traditions of Christians, Muslims, and Jews the world over. What are these stories that have so captivated readers for over 2000 years? Why has the Bible had such an immense religious and imaginative appeal?

What is ultimately or fundamentally real? What is the nature of being? Is reality ultimately physical or nonphysical? Is it one or many, visible or invisible, discrete or diffuse, eternal or temporal? Philosophers have offered the wildest and most varied answers to these questions. Today, metaphysical debates continue to rage within philosophy, cultural theory, and social theory. In this course, we will survey a range of metaphysical theories, from ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese ontological theories up through the most recent debates in European and Anglo-American philosophy.

This course is designed to introduce students to key issues in film studies, focusing on the history of American cinema from 1895 to 1960. We will pay particular attention to the "golden age" of Hollywood, with forays into other national cinemas by way of comparison and critique. Screenings will range from actualities and trick films, to the early narrative features of D. W. Griffith, to the development of genres including film noir (Double Indemnity), the woman's film of the 1940s (Now, Voyager), the western (Stagecoach) and the suspense film (Rear Window).

"Remembering is an ethical act," wrote Susan Sontag. Photography's history is rich with diverse theories and practices of community engagement and documentation; in this class students will contribute their own approach. Throughout the semester students will work closely with older members of the Amherst community, photographing together, participating in group critiques and exploring photography's ability to communicate.

This course is designed for any student curious about design in motion. It will introduce theories and processes of movement composition and choreographic analysis. We'll work with movement prompts and structured improvisations to discover ways to generate movement, and to compose it into set forms. We'll question expectations about what dance, or a "good" dance is, and push to broaden movement preferences. In the process students will hone skills in perceiving, describing and interpreting compositional strategies in choreography.

The history of the novel in America has always been intertwined with the production of an image of the American man. From Hawthorne's attempt to best the "mobs of scribbling women" to the idealized loner cowboy, from the hard-boiled journalistic prose of Hemingway to the maximalist and misogynist rantings of Roth, we might say that the epitome of the American self-made man is the novelistic protagonist.

"Asia" is a diverse, dynamic, and complex cultural entity that encompasses a vast geographic area and a long rich history. In this course we will investigate some representative performing arts traditions of South, Southeast, and East Asia, e.g., Indian classical music, Javanese gamelan, Chinese operas, Japanese noh theatre, as a way of learning about the regions' unique history, different value systems, aesthetic sensibilities, spiritual beliefs, philosophies, and ways of life.

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of painting, such as composition, value, and color. Students will learn about material and the technical issues of painting. Drawings will often be produced in tandem with paintings in order to illuminate visual ideas. We will work with water based and oil based paint on various surfaces. Besides creating individual paintings, students will collectively prepare and work on large-scale canvases. This course will develop from individual representational set-ups towards collective, abstract work.