Why study three countries about which you know little and may not be able to find on a map? In less than a century, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), Hungary, and Poland, which began as provinces of multiethnic empires, experienced independence, Nazi occupation, communist dictatorship, and independence again, as members of NATO and the European Union.

According to a famous and revealing anecdote, antisemitism means "hating the Jews more than necessary." Why hate them at all? Among the most perplexing things about antisemitism is its persistence. It has flourished for over two millennia in a wide variety of settings. Three-quarters of a century after the end of World War II, despite the rise of modern multiculturalism, it seems to be on the rise again. One-third of Jewish college students report having experienced antisemitism in the past year. It is no wonder that it has been called the longest hatred.

Young activist Xiuhtezcatl Martinez has written that "the youth of the world are continuing to rise to power and shape our culture." In this course, we will examine texts written by youth, and youth action and activism primarily in the contemporary US, as forms of enacting such power and shaping. We will use methods from critical youth studies and literary studies to take seriously young people's social-political and cultural engagements.

What would it mean for age to be understood as an axis of power and a category of sociopolitical dynamics such as gender, race, or class? How does ageism or age-related injustice intersect with other forms of inequalities and injustice? How does the idea of generations inform studies of sociology, history, literature, youth-produced culture, or forms of cultural or political activism? What do critical studies of youth and age add to our understanding of education, antiracism studies, literature, ethnic studies, history, psychology, and the arts?

There are processes designers in the theatre must undertake to realize the physical world of a play. Within the performing arts no single aspect of design exists in isolation and no designer should fly solo. Moving through a series of individual and group exercises, students will begin to develop their own process toward expressing the passion of a theatre work through their designs. Throughout the semester students will develop a design vocabulary that allows for collaboration and interplay, while producing unified and coherent design work.

This class is a collaboration between Hampshire College faculty Donna Cohn and Division II student Luka Eriksen. We will start the semester by learning and practicing the techniques of traditional broom making that Luka learned while enrolled at Berea College in Kentucky. We will gather natural materials from surrounding local habitats. We will make brooms that are functional, to a chosen specific task that can also be beautiful works of art.

As part of this course, students will learn traditional- expanded sculpture techniques, from, assemblage, found object, wood and ceramics. This course is an inquiry into spatial realities through tools, objects, and beyond. The students will begin to critically analyze objects.

This course integrates performance, sculpture, and histories of queer and feminist art. In this course, students will work in multimodal form to create sculptural objects, or props crafted out of wood, metal, found objects, molds, fabric and incorporate them into self-choreographed movement(s), performances, happenings or political actions throughout the semester. As a method of presentation, students may integrate components of video, sound, site-specific work and installation.

In this course we will explore traditional and non-traditional spaces for arts, performance, and entertainment through functional and historical lenses. Theatre, dance, and music venues, escape rooms, theme parks, art galleries, museums, and film locations come to life in a wide range of structures and locations. How does the historical evolution of a space contribute to its suitability, and how have traditional spaces evolved and transformed over time? What elements help create the physical functionality and appropriateness of each space?

When designing costumes, projections, sound, lighting, or scenery, do theatre designers read plays any differently than a director or an actor? To what does a designer respond? Theme, character, dialogue, stage directions, place, time, rhythm, flow, and arcs all play into a designer's process of discovering the visual and aural possibilities of texts. How does a designer sift through the body of a script to discover clues of the physical nature of the play?