The age-old search for the Divine, the Sacred, the Great Spirit, the Source, the Goddess, the Ancestors, among other names, has been the subject of countless literary texts, whether it is the Buddhist-inspired poetry of the Beats, the gothic Catholicism of Flannery O'Connor's short stories, the visions of Black Elk, the confessions of Augustine. In this analytical and creative writing course we'll examine varieties of spiritual experience as they are represented in both past and present literature, including poetry, fiction, memoir, and biography.

This course is for 3rd-semester tudents whose Division II's include fiction-writing. Taking up the concepts of 'mystery,' and 'imagination,' this course will ask students to take inspiration from their Division II as well as their inner worlds. We will ask: how can imaginations be invigorated by openness to new topics? What does it mean to 'imagine' a fictional world? What role does 'mystery' play in both reading and writing fiction? How can writing communicate a writer's inner world as well as reshape and sharpen the mind's eye?

Literary Journalism encompasses a variety of genres,including portrait/biography,memoir,and investgation of the social landscape. Literary journalism uses such devices as plot, character, and diologue to tell true stories about a variety of real worlds. By combining evocation with analysis, immersion with investigation, literary journalism tries to reproduce the complex surfaces and depth of people, places, and events. Books to be read will include: The JOHN McPHEE READER, Dexter Filkin's THE FOREVER WAR, and Mircea Eliade's COSMOS AND HISTORY.

Digital Art: Multimedia, Malleability and Interactivity: Proceeding from the premise that the ideas behind a successful artwork should be intimately related to its materials, this course will investigate three of the most significant characteristics of digital media. We will work with a wide variety of tools that allow for the creation and manipulation of various media, including bitmap and vector images, 2D animation, and sound. Students will create a series of conceptually based digital artworks, culminating in an interactive multimedia final project.

In Intermediate Sculpture students will further develop concepts and processes that are applicable to work in sculpture and other three dimensional media. Fundamental principles that link materials and methods with meaning will be explored through projects in a wide range of materials including clay, wood, plaster, and steel. The human body, abstraction, installation, public art, and the relationship between sculpture and architecture are all possible areas of investigation.

The Intermediate Poetry Writing Workshop is a course for poets interested in deepening their craft. In this workshop we will explore narrative, structure, syntax, behavior, powers, and voice in the work. We will read the work of international poets writing about craft and poetry, both. Students will gather weekly to workshop new poems and to participate in writing experiments that push toward some rupture in the work. These experiments will push the community to (re)consider and disrupt the habits of mind and process in the ways we read, write, and consider the page.

This course is an opportunity for students to explore methods of writing the persona poem while (hopefully) challenging personal perspectives and identities in the process. The course will be reading, research, and workshop-intensive. We will study collections and individual poems by Patricia Smith, Ai, and T.S. Eliot, among others, and we will also read essays and interviews by various multi-genre artists who explore character and persona (or portraiture) in their work.

Questions about money and economic divides define the national dialogue. In this course, we will create a theatrical response from the materials of our own stories and the craft of community-based theater. In the first part of the semester, students will interview one another and write and perform autobiographical material. We will then shape this material into an ensemble theatrical piece, learning tools of storytelling, dramaturgy, and composition.

Understanding the limits and possibilities of point of view is an essential step in becoming a writer. This reading and workshop course will introduce members to various kinds of literary point of view. Through focused writing exercises, intensive reading of contemporary U.S. and international fiction told in different modes, members will acquire a language for analyzing point of view in fiction, as well as practical experience in using varied points of view themselves.

This is a hands-on course in which students will create mechanical animal models based on their observations of live animal and recorded animal behaviors. We will examine work being done by scientists and artists who combine the study of animals with robotics and mechanical design. Students will practice animal observation techniques, design and fabrication skills, basic electronics and simple programming. This is a class for students with skills or interests in any of the following: electronics, robotics, kinetic sculpture, animal behavior, programming, metal, wood, or plastics fabrication.