This course is the foundation for the core curriculum in media arts at Hampshire College in Film/Video, Photography, Performance and Installation art centering on the analysis and production of visual images. Students are expected to learn to read visual images by focusing on the development of art forms and their relationship to their historical and cultural context (economic, historical, political, intellectual and artistic) from which they came.

In this introductory-level course we will explore the genealogies of underground, alternative, and radical comics in the United States, focusing on how unconventional comics relate to ideas about popular culture, underground cultures, and politics of race, gender, sexuality, and class. For the most part, we will look at comics and graphic novels published in the U.S., but we will often contextualize our studies by referencing comics histories of Japan, Western Europe, and Latin America.

While we may live in a society that favors narrative, poetry remains a vital art form that we can learn to appreciate. This course is designed to enhance the experience of reading, knowing, responding to, thinking through, and articulating ideas about poems. Key units will address the language, sound, rhythm, and form of poetry as well as explore several enduring poetic themes. Readings will span the history of British and American poetry from the early modern to the contemporary.

This course focuses on the broad fundamentals of western music and music theory, including music literacy (how to read western music notation). We will learn theoretical concepts such as pitch, rhythm, timbral nuances, texture, intervals, chords (triads and sevenths), harmony, etc. We will also develop our sense of aural music cognition through ear training; to this end, students must attend a weekly evening ear training workshop as well as the regular class meeting times.

This beginning level modern dance technique course will introduce students to "modern" and other dance technique practices. 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. We'll also consider what movement principles and priorities underlie the techniques we employ, and compare them to those of other dance styles and cultures.

"Certain people start with a documentary and arrive at fiction...others start with fiction and arrive at the documentary."-Jean Luc Godard This is an introductory course for students who would like to develop their interest in documentary practice. Through a combination of screenings, lectures, readings and technical workshops, we will explore a critical/historical overview of this genre and incorporate our knowledge and experience to produce individual or collaborative projects in a variety of "modes of representation.

Students will gain experience in the fundamentals of painting, including color, composition and materials but perhaps the most important aim of the class is learning to see. We will explore a range of painting surfaces from paper to board, sketchbook and wall; sizes: miniature to monumental; and paints including acrylics, inks and oils. Possible assignments will include color mixing, still life, landscape, self-portrait and figure painting. We will also explore conceptual painting and work inspired by street art and graffiti.

The Chorus is a performing ensemble in which students will learn skills of choral singing and sight-singing. They will be exposed to a wide variety of choral literature through rehearsal and performance, including a cappella and accompanied music, medieval through 20th century, ethnic, world music and folk. Several performances are given throughout the year. While this course is open to all and the ability to read music is not required, students are expected to have reasonable proficiency in aural learning (e.g. ability to sing on pitch).

This course is intended for concentrators and advanced students whose work involves mind, brain, behavior, or intelligent machines and who are studying disciplines such as cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, linguistics, computer science, animal behavior, education, and so on. The students in the course will select a number of current issues in this broad area, choosing recent journal articles, essays, or books in each area for discussion.

Psychologists have come to regard the mind as an active processor of information with speed and capacity limits. They have discovered that complex activities are sometimes accomplished by mental operations analogous to ones a computer might use. Mental chronometry, in which conclusions about human information processing are reached through measures of subjects' reaction time, has given us a window in these mental operations.