University Bulletin (2019-2020)

AMST/MUS 35a History of Rock: Rock and Roll in American Culture
[ ca ]
Formerly offered as MUS 35a.
Examines the historical context, stylistic development, and cultural significance of rock and roll spanning 1950s through the present. Close attention paid to how instruments, technology, mainstream media, and popular culture affect how rock music is created, marketed, and celebrated worldwide. Usually offered every third year.
Paula Musegades

AMST/MUS 38a American Music: From Psalms to Hip Hop
[ ca ss ]
Open to music majors and non-majors. Formerly offered as MUS 38a.
Explores the many varieties of folk, popular, and art music in American culture. We will focus on the stylistic development of select repertoires beginning with 18thcentury New England Psalm singing and African American traditions and continuing on through folk, jazz, art, pop, rock, and hip hop music. Throughout the course, music serves as a lens to examine diverse aspects of American culture and history with an emphasis on America’s shifting definition of identity. No musical background is required. Usually offered every third year.
Paula Musegades

AMST/MUS 39b Protest Through Song: Music that Shaped America
[ ca ss ]
Open to music majors and non-majors. Does not fulfill the Main Currents in American Studies requirement for the major.
Examines 20th and 21st century protest music to better understand the complex relationships between music and social movements. Through class discussions, reading, writing, and listening assignments, and a final performance students will discover how social, cultural, and economic protest songs helped shape American culture. Usually offered every second year.
Paula Musegades

AMST/MUS 41a Leonard Bernstein: Composer, Conductor, Educator, and Humanitarian
[ ca ss ]
Explores the life and career of Leonard Bernstein. As a composer, conductor, educator, and humanitarian, Bernstein played an important role in shaping American music and culture. Through class discussions, group projects, and reading, writing, and listening assignments, this course will help students better understand the musical, cultural, political, and educational influence of Leonard Bernstein both then and now. Usually offered every second year.
Paula Musegades

AMST/MUS 55a Music in Film: Hearing American Cinema
[ ca ]
Formerly offered as MUS 55a.
Examines the aesthetics and the history of music in film. Through lecture, class discussions, screenings, and readings, the course teaches students how to critically read image, script, and music as an integrated cultural text, ultimately helping one understand and appreciate the progression of film and sound technology from the 1890s to the present. Usually offered every third year.
Paula Musegades

MUS 1a Exploring Western Music
[ ca ]
Does not meet requirements for the major or minor in music.
A general introduction to the materials and forms of music, and a study of western musical literature. Training in analytical listening, based on selected listening assignments. Open to non-majors who are assumed to have little or no previous knowledge of music. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

MUS 2a The Western Tradition as Seen through Chamber Music
[ ca ]
The focus will be on the string quartet and music for strings and keyboard. Key works from the baroque period through recent music will be performed, examined, and placed in cultural context. Composers represented will include Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Ives. Usually offered every fourth year.
Lydian String Quartet and Staff

MUS 3b World Music: Performing Tradition through Sound
[ ca nw ]
Open to all students. Required of all Cultural Studies track majors.
What are we listening to? Applies engaged listening skills and critical analysis for a deeper appreciation of (non-Western) music as a cultural expression. Focuses on particular traditions as well as social context, impact of globalization, cultural production, cultural rights, etc. Usually offered every year.
Judith Eissenberg

MUS 5a The Beginner's Toolbox: Fundamentals of Music Notation and Performance
[ ca ]
Does not meet requirements for the major or minor in music.
For the general student with no musical background. Two hours a week will be devoted to the notation of music, including scales, intervals, keys, triads, rhythm, and meter. The third hour will be devoted to sight-singing and dictation. Reading knowledge of music is not required; a placement exam will be given on the first day of instruction. Usually offered every year.
Mark Berger

MUS 10b What to Listen for in Music: An Ears-on Approach
[ ca ]
Does not meet the requirements for the major or minor in Music.
Introduces the fundamental materials and forms of music through ear training and the study of western musical literature and popular music, with listening assignments. For non-majors having little previous knowledge of music. Usually offered every second year.
Joshua Gordon

MUS 31a Broadway Bound: The Craft of Composing Music and Lyrics for the Theater
[ ca ]
Open to music majors and non-majors.
Do you like to write poetry or plays? Have you written music and/or lyrics and want to try your hand at writing musical theatre? In this class, you will learn how music functions in a dramatic context by writing songs (alone or in collaboration with others) and regularly presenting your material for peer and instructor feedback. Contemporary and traditional musical theater masterpieces will be analyzed. Usually offered every second year.
Neal Hampton

MUS 32b Elements of Jazz
[ ca ]
Open to music majors and non-majors.
Examines the development of Jazz styles from the origins of Jazz in the late 1800’s through today's Jazz masters. Early Jazz, Swing, Bebop, Cool, the year 1959, and Avant Garde are some of the styles we will be examining through recordings, videos, and in-class performances by local jazz musicians. The emphasis will be on learning how to listen to the various layers of the music and recognize specific stylistic techniques. Usually offered every third year.
Bob Nieske

MUS 37b Back to the Future: Digging for the Roots of Western Music
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 5a or basic knowledge of music notation.
Dig for the roots of polyphony in the Western tradition. Unearth new concepts (from half a millennium ago) for understanding, hearing, and making music of any period. Compose melodies, improvise counterpoint, and learn to hear intervals with fresh ears. Usually offered every second year.
Sarah Mead

MUS 45a Beethoven
[ ca ]
Open to music majors and non-majors.
A study of the most influential musician in the history of Western civilization. Although attention is given to his place in society, emphasis falls on an examination of representative works drawn from the symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and solo piano works. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

MUS 56b Romanticism in Music: Breakdowns, Breakups, and Beauty
[ ca ]
Intended for non-majors. Music majors and minors and any students who have taken MUS 101a,b must obtain permission from the instructor.
Considers musical expressions of psychological breakdowns, fragmented breakups, and experimental forms of beauty. Connects nineteenth century music with specific paintings, poems, and political events. Charts the towering influence of Romanticism on 20th and 21st century artists. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

MUS 61a Introduction to the Music Business
May not be used to satisfy the Creative Arts distribution requirement.
Helps students gain an understanding of the workings of the music industry, its revenue streams, system of payments, legal principles of intellectual property and copyright regulations, principles that are key components to become a music professional. This course will also provide students with descriptions of the music industry's various professional profiles, serving as a career tool to help them consider different career paths and employment options. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

MUS 80a Early Music Ensemble
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Open to singers and instrumentalists interested in learning about the historical ancestors of their modern instruments. Instrumental and/or vocal experience and competency in sight-reading required. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
Examines the performance of music written before 1700. A large number of historical instruments are available for student use and instruction. Solo, ensemble, and one-on-a-part opportunities. Usually offered every year.
Sarah Mead

MUS 80b Early Music Ensemble
Continuation of MUS 80a. See MUS 80a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Sarah Mead

MUS 81a Brandeis University Chamber Singers
Corequisite: MUS 80a,b or MUS 82a,b. Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Full academic year participation expected. Significant vocal experience, aural skills and music literacy required. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
The Chamber Singers is the premiere ensemble at Brandeis University. The ensemble explores repertoire for chamber choir including all major genres from the Renaissance through present day. Singers prepare independently outside of scheduled rehearsals. Opportunities for one-on-a-part ensemble singing and solos. Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 81b Brandeis University Chamber Singers
Continuation of MUS 81a. See MUS 81a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 82a University Chorus
Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Vocal placement auditions will be held at the start of the semester. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
Performs in concert great literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. Aspects of singing, musicianship skills, and ensemble building are emphasized. Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 82b University Chorus
Continuation of MUS 82a. See MUS 82a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 83a Jazz Ensemble
Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Admission by the consent of the instructor based on an audition. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
The Brandeis Jazz Ensemble has about 15 musicians from the Brandeis community. Instrumentation will vary according to annual fall auditions. Repertoire consists of pieces by jazz greats including Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Sun Ra...as well as arrangements of tunes and original compositions by the director, Bob Nieske and students. Students are also encouraged to compose or arrange for the group with the assistance of the director. Each semester the ensemble performs 5 or 6 pieces as a full group and 4 or 5 as small groups for a different musical experience. Although saxophone, brass, piano, guitar, bass and drums are the traditional jazz instruments, the ensemble is also open to more “classical” instruments (strings and woodwinds). Lower brass such as French horn, trombone, euphonium and tuba are especially encouraged to audition. Students do not have to have any experience improvising but must be able to read well and have a good command of their instrument. At least one concert per semester. Usually offered every year.
Bob Nieske

MUS 83b Jazz Ensemble
Continuation of MUS 83a. See MUS 83a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Bob Nieske

MUS 84a Orchestra
Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Acceptance into ensemble contingent on instructor’s approval based on auditions held at the start of the semester. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
The orchestra gives several concerts each year performing major works from the symphonic repertory. Students prepare independently, outside of scheduled rehearsals. Usually offered every year.
Neal Hampton

MUS 84b Orchestra
Continuation of MUS 84a. See MUS 84a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Neal Hampton

MUS 85a Wind Ensemble
Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Placement auditions will be held at the start of the semester. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
The Wind Ensemble gives one to two concerts a semester. Members of the Wind Ensemble may be asked to play with the orchestra as needed for large-scale works. Usually offered every year.
Thomas Souza

MUS 85b Wind Ensemble
Continuation of MUS 85a. See MUS 85a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Thomas Souza

MUS 86a Improv Collective
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Placement auditions will be held at the start of the semester. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
Open to all Brandeis students who play an instrument or sing, regardless of skill or experience in improvising, the Improv Collective focuses on both individual creativity and group improvisation. The semester culminates with a performance in Slosberg Recital hall. Usually offered every semester.
Thomas Hall

MUS 86b Improv Collective
Continuation of MUS 86a. See MUS 86a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every semester.
Thomas Hall

MUS 87a Music and Dance from Ghana
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Yields half-course credit. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. Instruments will be supplied by instructor.
Students in this course will study and perform a repertory of traditional music and dance of a variety of ethnic traditions from Ghana, West Africa. The drum ensemble includes bells, rattles and drums. The vocal music features call-and-response singing in local languages. The dances have choreographic formations as well as opportunity for individual expression. Drumming and dancing are closely intertwined; work will culminate in a final performance. Usually offered every year.
Benjamin Paulding

MUS 87b Music and Dance from Ghana
Continuation of MUS 87a. See MUS 87a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Benjamin Paulding

MUS 88a Chamber Music for Leonard Bernstein Fellows
Offered exclusively on a credit/no credit basis. Yields half-course credit. Only open to Leonard Bernstein scholars. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (80a,b – 88a,b) alone or Private Instruction and Ensemble together. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section.
Organizes Leonard Bernstein Fellows into chamber ensembles and assigned specific works to prepare for the semester. They will be coached by a member of the music department faculty and are expected to rehearse weekly in addition to the coaching sessions. Usually offered every semester.
Mark Berger, Judith Eissenberg, Joshua Gordon, and Andrea Segar

MUS 88b Chamber Music for Leonard Bernstein Fellows
Continuation of MUS 88a. See MUS 88a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every semester.
Mark Berger, Judith Eissenberg, Joshua Gordon, and Andrea Segar

MUS 92a Internship and Analysis
Staff

MUS 92b Internship and Analysis
Staff

MUS 97a Independent Projects
Yields two semester-hours credit (one half-course credit). Normally open only to music majors in their junior and senior years. May be taken twice for credit if no undue duplication of content is involved.
Reserved for projects such as directed readings, preparation of a work for performance, or internships that do not require written work (papers or compositions). Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 97b Independent Projects
Yields two semester-hours credit (one half-course credit). Normally open only to music majors in their junior and senior years. May be taken twice for credit if no undue duplication of content is involved.
Reserved for projects such as directed readings, preparation of a work for performance, or internships that do not require written work (papers or compositions). Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 98a Directed Independent Study
Yields four semester-hours credit (one course credit). Open to qualified undergraduates.
One-semester course with one semester credit. Requires written work such as a historical or analytical essay, preparation of a critical edition, or the creation of an original musical composition. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 98b Directed Independent Study
Yields four semester-hours credit (one course credit). Open to qualified undergraduates.
One-semester course with one semester credit. Requires written work such as a historical or analytical essay, preparation of a critical edition, or the creation of an original musical composition. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 99d Senior Project
Yields eight semester-hours credit (two course credits).
A full-year course with two semester course credits. Open to seniors with a GPA in music of 3.00 or above. Admission by petition. May involve a thesis, musical performance, or composition. In all cases, it must produce written work. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 101a Theory and Musicianship I: Part 1
[ ca ]
Admission by placement exam to be given in class on the first day of instruction. Corequisite: MUS 102a.
A first course for students who already read music, but wish to develop a deeper involvement. Students investigate how music "works" by composing exercises based on examples of tonal music and literature that students are practicing for performance. Focuses on elementary harmony and voice-leading, counterpoint, analysis, and model composition. In the required one-hour lab (MUS 102a), students practice sight-singing and dictation, skills essential to music literacy. Usually offered every year.
Erin Gee

MUS 101b Theory and Musicianship I: Part 2
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 101a. Corequisite: MUS 102b.
The second semester introduces broad concepts of theory and begins the process of learning to write and analyze music. By the end of the year, students will gain experience in counterpoint, harmony, and formal analysis, and will compose in a simple form. Throughout the year, the relationship of repertoire and theory is stressed. The required ear-training and keyboard lab meets separately. Usually offered every year.
Erin Gee

MUS 102a Theory and Musicianship Lab I: Part 1
Corequisite: MUS 101a. Yields half-course credit.
Designed to help students develop essential music literary skills. Beginning sight-singing, simple melodic and harmonic dictation, and rhythmic studies. Materials drawn from the corequisite lecture course. Keyboard harmony. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 102b Theory and Musicianship Lab I: Part 2
Corequisite: MUS 101b. Yields half-course credit.
See MUS 102a for course description. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 103a Theory and Musicianship II: Part 1
[ ca ]
Prerequisites: MUS 101a,b and 102a,b. Corequisite: MUS 104a.
This course builds on MUS 101. Chromatic tonal harmony is covered, and short pieces of nineteenth century music are analyzed in depth. Students will analyze pieces on their own and write analytical papers. Students will also harmonize various chorale melodies. The required ear training and keyboard lab meets separately. Usually offered every year.
Yu-Hui Chang

MUS 103b Theory and Musicianship II: Part 2
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 103a. Corequisite: MUS 104b.
A continuation of MUS 103a. Twentieth century styles and techniques are covered, including extended tonality and atonality. Several compositional projects are assigned and performed in class. Usually offered every year.
Yu-Hui Chang

MUS 104a Theory and Musicianship Lab II: Part 1
Corequisite: MUS 103a. Yields half-course credit.
A continuation of MUS 102. More advanced exercises in sight-singing and dictation. Keyboard harmony. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 104b Theory and Musicianship Lab II: Part 2
Corequisite: MUS 103b. Yields half-course credit.
A continuation of MUS 104a. Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 106a Undergraduate Composition
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 5a or equivalent experience. Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. May be repeated once for credit.
Students are introduced to a variety of compositional issues by writing five or six short pieces and one longer project. Concurrently, pertinent examples from the twentieth-century classical repertoire will be discussed. Usually offered every second year.
Erin Gee

MUS 106b Advanced Undergraduate Composition
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 106a. Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis.
A continuation of MUS 106a, intended for more advanced undergraduate composers. Studies more advanced compositional concepts discussed in greater depth and more substantial pieces are assigned, for solo instruments, for voice, and for ensembles. Individualized projects are also given. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

MUS 107a Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: Any music course or permission of the instructor.
A course designed to give students basic studio skills and a context for listening to and working in electronic music. Topics include basic acoustics, sound design, digital and analog recording techniques, and assignments on the pioneers and current practitioners of electro-acoustic music. Involves hands-on experience in the use of MIDI-controlled synthesizers, samplers, production equipment, and includes individual studio projects based on individual studio time. Usually offered every second year.
Davide Ianni

MUS 111a Private Instruction: Instrumentalists
Offered on a credit/no-credit grading basis. Yields two credits (one semester half-course credit). Placement auditions will be held at the start of the semester. Students registering for MUS 111a must also register for a departmental Ensemble (MUS 80a,b – 87a,b or 116a,b); 111a may NOT be taken alone. Students may petition to substitute one semester of a professionally directed non-university ensemble for their university Ensemble co-requisite. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (MUS 80a,b – 87a,b) alone or Private Instructions and Ensemble together. Successful completion of MUS 111a,b may be applied only once toward the requirements for the major or minor in music. Course may be taken as a noncredit activity by registering in the XC section. Studio fee: $250 fee for majors; $700 for non-majors.
Instrumentalists will take ten one-hour, private lessons per semester in the field of early music, jazz, or classical music while participating in a departmental ensemble on that instrument. Usually offered every year.
Bob Nieske

MUS 111b Private Instruction: Instrumentalists
Continuation of MUS 111a. See MUS 111a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Bob Nieske

MUS 112a Private Instruction: Voice
Offered on a credit/no-credit grading basis. Yields two credits (one semester half-course credit). Placement auditions will be held at the start of the semester. Students registering for MUS 112a must also register for a departmental Ensemble (MUS 80a,b – 87a,b or 116a,b); 112a may NOT be taken alone. Students may petition to substitute one semester of a professionally directed non-university ensemble for their university Ensemble co-requisite. A maximum of four course credits will be allowed for all enrollments in Ensemble (MUS 80a,b – 87a,b) alone or Private Instructions and Ensemble together. Successful completion of MUS 112a,b may be applied only once toward the requirements for the major or minor in music. Course may be taken as a noncredit activity by registering in the XC section. Studio fee: $250 fee for majors; $700 for non-majors.
Voice students will take ten one-hour, private lessons per semester. Fundamental skills of breathing, resonating, and relaxing will be taught along with repertory appropriate to the individual student. A ten-minute jury is required in second semester. Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 112b Private Instruction: Voice
Continuation of MUS 112a. See MUS 112a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Robert Duff

MUS 113a Introduction to Conducting
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 103a,b or permission of instructor.
Covers the fundamentals of choral and instrumental conducting techniques and is designed for all students interested in conducting musical ensembles. Fundamentals include basic metrical patterns, dynamic shading, cues, entrances, cutoffs, and uses of the left hand. All students have the opportunity to conduct several times throughout the semester. Usually offered every third year.
Robert Duff

MUS 116a Chamber Music: from Page to Stage
Offered exclusively on a credit/no-credit basis. Yields two semester-hours credit (one half-course credit). May be repeated for credit. May be undertaken as an extracurricular, noncredit activity by registering in the XC section. Vocalists will be admitted on an individual basis and must take MUS 82 a,b: University Chorus or MUS 80 a,b: Early Music Ensemble as a corequisite. Informal auditions at the beginning of the semester.
Musicians bring their own experience, instinct, and theoretical knowledge to music-making through study and performance of chamber music in a supportive master class setting. Through coaching by a professional performer, readings, and listening to recordings, this course examines how performance practice, basic structural analysis, and historical context affect interpretation. Individual and ensemble preparation required. Class meetings include coaching, discussion/listening salon, masterclass and rehearsals, to be scheduled. Final public performance. Usually offered every year.
Judith Eissenberg

MUS 116b Chamber Music from Page to Stage
Continuation of MUS 116a. See MUS 116a for special notes and course description.
Usually offered every year.
Mark Berger

MUS 117a Junior Recital I
Yields two semester-hours credit (one half-course credit). For music majors accepted into the performance or musical theater performance tracks only. Admission by the consent of the instructor based on an audition. Students may not enroll in MUS 111a,b or MUS 112a,b for credit while enrolled in MUS 117a,b.
Students will take ten one-hour private lessons in preparation for performance of a recital, to be given in the spring semester, of significant representative repertory appropriate to the instrument or voice of the student, including the selecting of repertory for a coherent program. Students are expected to demonstrate command of stylistic, technical, and expressive aspects of the chosen music. Requires passing a jury at the end of the fall semester. Studio fee: $250. Usually offered every year.
Joshua Gordon

MUS 117b Junior Recital II
Continuation of MUS 117a. Includes final preparation for spring full recital.
Usually offered every year.
Joshua Gordon

MUS 118a Senior Recital I
Yields two semester-hours credit (one half-course credit). For music majors accepted into the performance or musical theater performance tracks only. Admission by the consent of the instructor based on an audition. Students may not enroll in MUS 111a,b or MUS 112a,b for credit while enrolled in MUS 118a,b.
Students will take ten one-hour private lessons in preparation for performance of a full recital, to be given in the spring semester, of significant representative repertory appropriate to the instrument or voice of the student, including the selecting of repertory for a coherent program. Students are expected to demonstrate command of stylistic, technical, and expressive aspects of the chosen music. Requires passing a jury at the end of the fall semester. Studio fee: $250. Usually offered every year.
Joshua Gordon

MUS 118b Senior Recital II
Continuation of MUS 118a. Includes final preparation for spring full recital.
Usually offered every year.
Joshua Gordon

MUS 131a History of Music I: Ancient through Early Baroque
[ ca ]
Prerequisites: MUS 101a and b, or by permission of the instructor. This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken MUS 131b in prior years.
A survey of music history from antiquity to the mid-17th century, considering major styles, composers, genres, and techniques of musical composition from a historical and analytical perspective. Topics include Gregorian chant, the motet and madrigal, Monteverdi and early opera, and developments in instrumental genres.
Karen Desmond

MUS 133b History of Music II: Late Baroque and Classical
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 101a and b. This course may not be repeated for credit by students who have taken MUS 133a in prior years.
A survey of music from Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel through Beethoven and Schubert. Major styles, genres, and techniques of musical composition are discussed from historical and analytic perspective, based on a study of representative works.
Paula Musegades

MUS 135a History of Music III: Romantic and 20th Century
[ ca ]
Prerequisites: MUS 101a and b. May not be taken for credit by students who took MUS 134b or 135a in prior years.
Surveys music history from c.1830 to the present, considering major styles, genres, and techniques of musical composition from a historical and analytical perspective. Styles and composers represented include Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, impressionism, serialism, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, and Babbitt. Usually offered every second year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 150b Choral Methods
[ ca ]
Prerequisites: MUS 101a and b.
Introduces the prime elements of choral singing, regardless of criteria for idiom or genre. Students will be introduced to the examination of representative music suitable for groups at various levels of development, principles of programming methodology involving sight-reading and strengthening musicianship, building a choral program, rehearsal techniques, and issues pertaining to the development of a choral ensemble. Usually offered every second year.
Robert Duff

MUS 160b Electro-Acoustic Music Composition (Laptopping)
[ ca ]
Preference given to students who have taken MUS 107a and majors in the departments of the School of Creative Arts.
A continuation of work begun in MUS 107a, with emphasis on composition and performance in the electro-acoustic medium. Course focus is on individual and collaborative projects. Work is carried out in BEAMS (Brandeis Electro-Acoustic Music Studio), but every effort will be made to equip students to compose on their own computers and to work collaboratively using the Internet. Composition projects are based on models since 1948 in the genres of musique concrete, "pure" and "live" electronic music, music for instruments and tape, and multidisciplinary works. A final project leads to the production of a concert. Usually offered every second year.
Eric Chasalow

MUS 161a Electro-Acoustic Music Composition
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: MUS 107a or MUS 160b, or permission of the instructor. Intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates.
Composing for electronic media. Advanced topics in software synthesis, sound design, studio production. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

MUS 162b Seminar in MAX/MSP
[ ca ]
Advanced undergraduate students may enroll with permission of the instructor.
Topics related to the use of the MAX/MSP graphical programming language for composition, sound design, installation, and live performance. Participants engage in individual projects and study MAX patches by established practitioners. Individual and group research and presentations are required. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

MUS 171a Form and Analysis
[ ca ]
Prerequisite for undergraduate students: MUS 103a and permission of instructor. Required of all Musicology graduate students during their first year, and Composition and Theory MA students. May not be counted for credit toward the course requirements for the MFA and PhD programs.
A proseminar in analytical approaches to Western music through representative examples from major composers from the Middle Ages through the early 20th century. Emphasis will be placed on the common practice period. Different theories of musical form will be applied to representative genres. Work on close harmonic analysis as well as large scale tonal and rhythmic structure will be included. Graduate students may be exempted by examination. Usually offered every year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 172b Proseminar in Theory and Composition
[ ca ]
Required of all composition MFA and PhD students. May be repeated for credit.
Advanced study of chromatic and non-tonal harmony, as well as various analytical approaches to the 20th and 21st century music. Work includes writing exercises, keyboard harmony, and score study. Usually offered every second year.
Yu-Hui Chang

MUS 175a Instrumentation and Orchestration
[ ca ]
Prerequisites: MUS 101a and b.
Technical projects in the art of writing for instruments and for groups of instruments, from chamber groups of various sizes to full orchestra. Score study of examples from 1770 to the present. Additional focus on notation and on rules for instrumental parts. Usually offered every second year.
David Rakowski

MUS 184b Proseminar in Medieval Music
[ ca ]
Broad coverage of the principal topics and research techniques of medieval music; structure of the liturgy, chant notation, oral transmission theory, tropes and sequences, polyphonic notation, and rhythmic modes. Introduction to standard bibliographic tools including editions, facsimiles, microfilms, liturgical books, and reference books. Usually offered every third year.
Karen Desmond

MUS 185a Proseminar in Music of the Renaissance
[ ca ]
An introduction to the fundamentals of Renaissance musical language. Investigation of selected topics in Renaissance musicology, such as editorial methods, archival research, printed and manuscript sources, historiography, and analytical approaches to Renaissance music. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

MUS 188b Proseminar in Music of the Eighteenth Century
[ ca ]
In addition to tracing the evolution of the principal genres (e.g., sonata, symphony, string quartet, opera buffa, opera seria), the course assesses the historical position of the major figures from Bach and Handel to Mozart and Haydn. Particular emphasis is placed on understanding the phenomenon of the "style shift" from baroque to classical style. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

MUS 189a Proseminar in Music of the Nineteenth Century
[ ca ]
A broad study of the principal stylistic developments and musical genres of the nineteenth century. Topics include significance of Beethoven on the musical thinking of the nineteenth century, the rise of national schools of composition, especially opera, and program music and its aesthetic and compositional bases. Usually offered every third year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 190a Proseminar in Music since 1900
[ ca ]
Examines music developing in Europe and the United States after 1900. The course divides into four periods - 1900-WWI, the Interwar years, WWII and the early cold war, and 1960s to the present - and explores select developments in compositional style, as well as interactions of music with cultural and political history within each of these periods. Usually offered every second year.
Paula Musegades

MUS 190b Proseminar in Schenkerian Analysis
[ ca ]
The systematic study of the approach to music analysis developed by Heinrich Schenker. The basic concepts of diminution, voice leading, prolongation, and structural level are studied and their significance is applied to smaller examples as well as the principal longer forms of tonal music. The student gradually masters all of the notational techniques of linear analysis as they are applied to the tonal repertory. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

MUS 191b Analysis of Extended Tonal Music
[ ca ]
Works in this course are selected from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Composers such as Wagner, Wolf, Debussy, early Schoenberg, Bartok, and Stravinsky. Music from the Renaissance and early baroque may also be examined. Usually offered every second year.
Mark Berger

MUS 192a Topics in Analysis of Early Twentieth-Century Music
[ ca ]
Detailed examination of selected works composed between 1908 and 1951. Usually offered every second year.
Erin Gee

MUS 193b Topics in Analysis of Contemporary Music
[ ca ]
Detailed examination of selected works since 1951. Usually offered every second year.
Yu-Hui Chang

MUS 196b Sound and Space: Sound Installation and Movement Staging in the Field of Music Composition
[ ca ]
Students will design their own sound installation and learn how to build meaning through space and sound In relation to a cross-disciplinary research topic. This research will be modeled on methods cross-disciplinary project-building In various disciplines. Students will be informed by historical precedent In this field, design (and fulfill) a research goal around the production of the installation, and understand how to create (and to actually create by the end of the class) an intellectually rigorous and engaging interaction between the aural and visual. Usually offered every third year.
Erin Gee

MUS 198b Proseminar in Music and Disabilities
[ ca ]
Pursues intersections of Disability Studies-an identity category subject to social, cultural, and political constructions-with the study of music. Topics cover disability's role in shaping musical identities, disability's expansion of musical knowledge, and representations within musical narratives. Special one-time offering, spring 2019.
Jeannette Jones

MUS 200b Teaching Music
Approaches to teaching music subjects at the college level. Subjects include strategies for teaching music appreciation, history and theory; evaluating and choosing textbooks; crafting a syllabus; grading; and teaching philosophies. Usually offered every third year.
David Rakowski

MUS 202b Seminar in Seeing Sound: The History and Practice of Notation to c. 1500
From c. 900, music notation spread rapidly across Europe, and took root as a the way to record, archive, share, and eventually compose music. Students will transcribe music from a variety of notations and examine how the writing down of music transformed music practice. Usually offered every second year.
Karen Desmond

MUS 212a Seminar: Analyzing Early Music (1300-1600)
An investigation of analytic approaches to pretonal music, including such issues as text-music relations, tonal structures, compositional planning, use of preexisting material. Usually offered every fourth year.
Karen Desmond

MUS 214b Seminar: Baroque Topics
An in-depth investigation of one selected topic in baroque music. Topics may include the Monteverdi madrigals, seventeenth-century instrumental music, and the Bach Passions. The methodology employed varies according to the subject; emphasis is given to more recent research in most cases. Usually offered every fourth year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 216a Seminar: Topics in Bach Interpretation
The interpretation of the music of J. S. Bach. Selected topics may include the Bach Passions, Bach's early cantatas, the Leipzig cantata cycles, Bach's instrumental cycles. Usually offered every third year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 217b Topics in Music of the Eighteenth Century
An in-depth examination of selected topics in eighteenth century music. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

MUS 218b Seminar in the Music of the Nineteenth Century
A detailed exploration of one historical, analytical, or stylistic issue of current significance to nineteenth-century musicology. Topics include the two versions of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra and cyclic organization in the song cycles of Robert Schumann. Usually offered every fourth year.
Staff

MUS 219a Seminar: Wagner
This seminar will study one of Wagner's major works in depth and from a variety of approaches: analytical questions; the sketches and drafts; Wagner's writings. Special emphasis will be given to Wagner's Schopenhauerian aesthetics. Usually offered every second year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 220a Seminar: The German Postromantic Period
This course will study topics drawn from the period between 1860 and 1914. Topics may include Mahler's songs and symphonies, the aesthetics of late nineteenth-century music, the postromantic lied with particular emphasis on Hugo Wolf. Usually offered every second year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 221a Topics in Music after 1900
Investigates selected topics in music since 1900 in depth. Topics will be determined by the instructor. Sample topics from previous years include Stravinsky's 'The Rake's Progress'; Schoenberg 'The Book of the Hanging Gardens'; Hindemith 'Mathis der Maler'. Usually offered every third year.
Eric Chafe

MUS 224b Seminar in Medieval Music
An in-depth study of a selected topic in medieval music. Usually offered every third year.
Karen Desmond

MUS 225a Seminar: Topics in the History of Theory to 1700
An investigation of topics in music theory (including the tonal system, solmization, modality, counterpoint, composition, musica ficta, notation) based on a close reading of theoretical treatises.
Staff

MUS 226b History and Literature of Western Music Theory: 1850 to the Present
Usually offered every third year.
Staff

MUS 292a Seminar in Composition
Group meetings and individual conferences. Opportunities for the performance of student works is provided. Usually offered every year. Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Yu-Hui Chang and Erin Gee

MUS 292b Seminar in Composition
Group meetings and individual conferences. Opportunities for the performance of student works are provided. Usually offered every year. Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested.
Yu-Hui Chang and Erin Gee

MUS 298a Independent Study
Staff

MUS 299a Individual Research and Advanced Work
Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 299b Individual Research and Advanced Work
Usually offered every year.
Staff

MUS 401d Dissertation Research
Specific sections for individual faculty members as requested. Required of all doctoral candidates.
Staff

FILM 100a Introduction to the Moving Image
[ hum ]
An interdisciplinary course surveying the history of moving image media from 1895 to the present, from the earliest silent cinema to the age of the 500-channel cable television. Open to all undergraduates as an elective, it is the introductory course for the major and minor in film, television and interactive media. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AAAS 125b Caribbean Women and Globalization: Sexuality, Citizenship, Work
[ ss wi ]
Utilizing perspectives from sociology, anthropology, fiction, and music to examine the relationship between women's sexuality and conceptions of labor, citizenship, and sovereignty. The course considers these alongside conceptions of masculinity, contending feminisms, and the global perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Faith Smith

AAAS 133b The Literature of the Caribbean
[ hum nw ss wi ]
An exploration of the narrative strategies and themes of writers of the region who grapple with issues of colonialism, class, race, ethnicity, and gender in a context of often-conflicting allegiances to North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Usually offered every second year.
Faith Smith

AAAS 155b Hip Hop History and Culture
[ ss ]
Examines the history of hip hop culture, in the broader context of U.S., African American and African diaspora history, from the 1960s to the present. Explores key developments, debates and themes shaping hip hop's evolution and contemporary global significance. Usually offered every second year.
Chad Williams

AAAS 165a Performance and the Politics of Black Authenticity
[ ca ss wi ]
Introduces students to black performance theory. Foregrounds the micro-politics through which black racialized subjects are shaped in the realm of culture. This course asks what is black authenticity? How is it evoked through performance? How is black performance political? Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 35a Hollywood and American Culture
[ ss ]
This is an interdisciplinary course in Hollywood cinema and American culture that aims to do justice to both arenas. Students will learn the terms of filmic grammar, the meanings of visual style, and the contexts of Hollywood cinema from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to last weekend's top box office grosser. They will also master the major economic, social, and political realities that make up the American experience of the dominant medium of our time, the moving image, as purveyed by Hollywood. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 55a Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in American Culture
[ ss ]
Provides an introductory overview of the study of race, ethnicity, and culture in the United States. Focuses on the historical, sociological, and political movements that affected the arrival and settlement of African, Asian, European, American Indian, and Latino populations in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Utilizing theoretical and discursive perspectives, compares and explores the experiences of these groups in the United States in relation to issues of immigration, population relocations, government and civil legislation, ethnic identity, gender and family relations, class, and community. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 100b Twentieth-Century American Culture
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: AMST 100a.
The democratization of taste and the extension of mass media are among the distinguishing features of American culture in the twentieth century. Through a variety of genres and forms of expression, in high culture and the popular arts, this course traces the historical development of a national style that came to exercise formidable influence abroad as well. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

AMST 129a From American Movie Musicals to Music Videos
[ ss ]
Examines the spectacle of song and dance in movie musicals and music videos, beginning with the earliest talking pictures in the late 1920's and continuing to the present. Particular emphasis will be on technological change, race, gender and the commodification of culture, among other topics. Usually offered every second year.
James Mandrell

ANTH 1a Introduction to the Comparative Study of Human Societies
[ nw ss ]
Examines the ways human beings construct their lives in a variety of societies. Includes the study of the concept of culture, kinship, and social organization, political economy, gender and sexuality, religion and ritual, symbols and language, social inequalities and social change, and globalization. Consideration of anthropological research methods and approaches to cross-cultural analysis. Usually offered every semester.
Jonathan Anjaria, Elizabeth Ferry, Sarah Lamb, or Janet McIntosh

ANTH 26a Communication and Media
[ ss ]
An exploration of human communication and mass media from a cross-cultural perspective. Examines communication codes based on language and visual signs. The global impact of revolutions in media technology, including theories of cultural imperialism and indigenous uses of media is discussed. Usually offered every second year.
Janet McIntosh

ANTH 129b Global, Transnational and Diasporic Communities
[ ss ]
Examines the social and cultural dimensions of diasporas and homelands from an anthropological perspective. It starts by critically engaging with more fundamental concepts such as state, identity, and movement. It then proceeds to debate the various contributions that anthropologists have presented to the understanding of human life in transnational and diasporic contexts. Topics to be discussed include homeland, place, migration, religion, global sexual cultures, kinship, and technology—all within a global perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Anjaria or Sarah Lamb

ANTH 184b Cross-Cultural Art and Aesthetics
[ nw ss ]
A cross-cultural and diachronic exploration of art, focusing on the communicative aspects of visual aesthetics. The survey takes a broad view of how human societies deploy images and objects to foster identities, lure into consumption, generate political propaganda, engage in ritual, render sacred propositions tangible, and chart the character of the cosmos. Usually offered every second year.
Javier Urcid

ANTH 202b Advanced Ethnographic Research Methods
An intensive study of anthropological research and ethnographic practice, with particular attention to topic formation, field notes and evocative writing. Combines discussions ethnography with writing workshops. Readings include essays on research methodology and critiques of ethnographic practice, as well as ethnographic monographs that demonstrate sophisticated fieldwork practices. Writing workshops cover issues such as taking notes in the field and describing scenes, speech in action, characters, language and affect. Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Anjaria

CA 125a Provocative Art: Outside the Comfort Zone
[ ca ]
Presents, analyzes and discusses art that provokes controversies, discomfort, and other strong responses. This class will focus on a broad range of artistic expressions, including visual art, theater, film, music, and literature with Brandeis faculty as well as visiting artists. Usually offered every second year.
Gannit Ankori and Mark Brimhall-Vargas

CAST 150b Introduction to Creativity, the Arts, and Social Transformation
[ ss ]
How can music, theater, poetry, literature, and visual arts contribute to community development, coexistence, and nonviolent social change? In the aftermath of violence, how can artists help communities reconcile? Students explore these questions through interviews, case studies, and projects. Usually offered every year.
Cynthia Cohen

ECS 100a European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Modernism
[ hum oc wi ]
Explores the interrelationship of literature, music, painting, philosophy, and other arts in the era of high modernism. Works by Artaud, Baudelaire, Benjamin, Mann, Mahler, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Kandinsky, Schiele, Beckett, Brecht, Adorno, Sartre, Heidegger, and others. Usually offered every fall semester.
Stephen Dowden

ECS 100b European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Making of European Modernity
[ hum wi ]
Investigates how the paradigm of what we know as modernity came into being. We will look at the works of writers and philosophers such as Descartes, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Petrarch, Ficino, Rabelais, and Montaigne. Artwork from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will be used to understand better what "the modern" means. Usually offered every spring semester.
Michael Randall

ED 101b Elementary School Curriculum and Teaching: Science, Arts and Other Topics
[ ss ]
Limited to students enrolling in ED 111e spring semester.
Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching elementary students inquiry-based science. Examines how art, creative drama, multicultural education, special education, and physical education affect teaching and learning. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 101a Studies in Popular Culture
[ hum ]
A critical analysis of contemporary culture, including television, film, video, advertising, and popular literature. Combines applied criticism and theoretical readings. Usually offered every second year.
Paul Morrison

ENG 107a Women Writing Desire: Caribbean Fiction and Film
[ hum ]
About eight novels of the last two decades (by Cliff, Cruz, Danticat, Garcia, Kempadoo, Kincaid, Mittoo, Nunez, Pineau, Powell, or Rosario), drawn from across the region, and read in dialogue with popular culture, theory, and earlier generations of male and female writers of the region. Usually offered every third year.
Faith Smith

ENG 127b Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
[ hum nw ]
Beginning with the region's representation as a tabula rasa, examines the textual and visual constructions of the Caribbean as colony, homeland, backyard, paradise, and Babylon, and how the region's migrations have prompted ideas about evolution, hedonism, imperialism, nationalism, and diaspora. Usually offered every second year.
Faith Smith

ENG 151b Performance Studies
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A course in dramatic literature and familiarity with theatrical production.
The theater, etymologically, is a place for viewing. Theory, etymologically, begins with a spectator and a viewing. Reading theories of theater and performance against paradigmatic dramatic texts and documents of social performance, speculation, and spectatorship are reviewed. Usually offered every third year.
Thomas King

FA 174a Art and Trauma: Israeli, Palestinian, Latin American and United States Art
[ ca ]
A comparative and critical examination of the various ways in which personal traumas (illness, death, loss) and collective traumas (war, the Holocaust, exile) find meaningful expression in the work of modern and contemporary artists from diverse regions. Usually offered every second year.
Gannit Ankori

GECS 167a German Cinema: Vamps and Angels
[ hum wi ]
Open to all students. Conducted in English with readings in English translation.
From silent film to Leni Riefenstahl and Nazi cinema, from postwar cinema in the East and West to new German film after unification, this course traces aesthetic strategies, reflections on history, memory, subjectivity, and political, cultural, and film-historical contexts with an emphasis on gender issues. Usually offered every second year.
Sabine von Mering

GS 202b Critical Global Issues
This foundational seminar examines key issues from the primary area of concentration in the global studies program. The specific focus of the seminar will vary from year to year, reflecting the changing relevance of particular issues as well as the specific interests of the instructor. Usually offered every year.
Kristen Lucken

HISP 111b Introduction to Latin American Literature and Culture
[ fl hum nw ]
Prerequisite: HISP 106b, or HISP 108a, or permission of the instructor.
Examines key Latin American texts of different genres (poems, short stories and excerpts from novels, chronicles, comics, screenplays, cyberfiction) and from different time periods from the conquest to modernity. This class places emphasis on problems of cultural definition and identity construction as they are elaborated in literary discourse. Identifying major themes (coloniality and emancipation, modernismo and modernity, indigenismo, hybridity and mestizaje, nationalisms, Pan-Americanism, etc.) we will trace continuities and ruptures throughout Latin American intellectual history. Usually offered every semester.
Jerónimo Arellano, Lucía Reyes de Deu, or Fernando Rosenberg

HIST 61a Cultures in Conflict since 1300
[ ss wi ]
Explores the ways in which cultures and civilizations have collided since 1300, and the ways in which cultural differences account for major wars and conflicts in world history since then. Usually offered every year.
Paul Jankowski

HIST 169a Thought and Culture in Modern America
[ ss wi ]
Developments in American philosophy, literature, art, and political theory examined in the context of socioeconomic change. Usually offered every third year.
Staff

IGS 10a Introduction to International and Global Studies
[ ss ]
"Globalization" touches us more every day. Introduces the challenges of globalization to national and international governance, economic success, individual and group identities, cultural diversity, the environment, and inequalities within and between nations, regions of the globe, gender, and race. Usually offered every year.
Kerry Chase or Chandler Rosenberger

JAPN 135a Screening National Images: Japanese Film and Anime in Global Context
[ hum nw ]
All films and readings are in English.
An introduction to some major directors and works of postwar Japanese film and anime with special attention to such issues as genre, medium, adaptation, narrative, and the circulation of national images in the global setting. Usually offered every third year.
Matthew Fraleigh

PHIL 113b Aesthetics: Painting, Photography, and Film
[ ca hum wi ]
Explores representation in painting, photography, and film by studying painters Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Vermeer, as well as later works by Manet, Degas, Cézanne, and Picasso; photographers Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Alfred Stieglitz, and Diane Arbus; and filmmakers Renoir and Hitchcock. Usually offered every second year.
Andreas Teuber

SOC 1a Order and Change in Society
[ ss ]
An introduction to the sociological perspective, with an emphasis on an analysis of problems of social order and change. Topics include gender, work and family, poverty and inequality, race and ethnicity, democracy, social movements, community, and education. Usually offered every year.
Wendy Cadge, Karen Hansen, Carmen Sirianni, or Michael Strand

SOC 120b Globalization and the Media
[ ss ]
Investigates the phenomenon of globalization as it relates to mass media. Topics addressed include the growth of transnational media organizations, the creation of audiences that transcend territorial groupings, the hybridization of cultural styles, and the consequences for local identities. Usually offered every third year.
Laura Miller

SOC 154a Community Structure and Youth Subcultures
[ ss ]
Examines how the patterning of relations within communities generates predictable outcomes at the individual and small-group level. Deals with cities, suburbs, and small rural communities. Special focus is given to youth subcultures typically found in each community type. Usually offered every second year.
Staff

WMGS 105b Feminisms: History, Theory, and Practice
[ oc ss ]
Prerequisite: Students are encouraged, though not required, to take WMGS 5a prior to enrolling in this course.
Examines diverse theories of sex and gender within a multicultural framework, considering historical changes in feminist thought, the theoretical underpinnings of various feminist practices, and the implications of diverse and often conflicting theories for both academic inquiry and social change. Usually offered every year.
Faith Smith

AAAS 79b African American Literature of the Twentieth Century
[ hum ss wi ]
An introduction to the essential themes, aesthetic concerns, and textual strategies that characterize African American writing of this century. Examines those influences that have shaped the poetry, fiction, and prose nonfiction of representative writers. Usually offered every second year.
Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman or Faith Smith

AAAS 125b Caribbean Women and Globalization: Sexuality, Citizenship, Work
[ ss wi ]
Utilizing perspectives from sociology, anthropology, fiction, and music to examine the relationship between women's sexuality and conceptions of labor, citizenship, and sovereignty. The course considers these alongside conceptions of masculinity, contending feminisms, and the global perspective. Usually offered every second year.
Faith Smith

AAAS 165a Performance and the Politics of Black Authenticity
[ ca ss wi ]
Introduces students to black performance theory. Foregrounds the micro-politics through which black racialized subjects are shaped in the realm of culture. This course asks what is black authenticity? How is it evoked through performance? How is black performance political? Usually offered every second year.
Staff

AMST 35a Hollywood and American Culture
[ ss ]
This is an interdisciplinary course in Hollywood cinema and American culture that aims to do justice to both arenas. Students will learn the terms of filmic grammar, the meanings of visual style, and the contexts of Hollywood cinema from The Birth of a Nation (1915) to last weekend's top box office grosser. They will also master the major economic, social, and political realities that make up the American experience of the dominant medium of our time, the moving image, as purveyed by Hollywood. Usually offered every second year.
Thomas Doherty

AMST 55a Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in American Culture
[ ss ]
Provides an introductory overview of the study of race, ethnicity, and culture in the United States. Focuses on the historical, sociological, and political movements that affected the arrival and settlement of African, Asian, European, American Indian, and Latino populations in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Utilizing theoretical and discursive perspectives, compares and explores the experiences of these groups in the United States in relation to issues of immigration, population relocations, government and civil legislation, ethnic identity, gender and family relations, class, and community. Usually offered every year.
Staff

AMST 100b Twentieth-Century American Culture
[ ss ]
Prerequisite: AMST 100a.
The democratization of taste and the extension of mass media are among the distinguishing features of American culture in the twentieth century. Through a variety of genres and forms of expression, in high culture and the popular arts, this course traces the historical development of a national style that came to exercise formidable influence abroad as well. Usually offered every spring.
Staff

ECS 100b European Cultural Studies Proseminar: Making of European Modernity
[ hum wi ]
Investigates how the paradigm of what we know as modernity came into being. We will look at the works of writers and philosophers such as Descartes, Aquinas, Dante, Ockham, Petrarch, Ficino, Rabelais, and Montaigne. Artwork from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance will be used to understand better what "the modern" means. Usually offered every spring semester.
Michael Randall

FA 45b Art of the Early Renaissance in Italy
[ ca ]
May not be taken for credit by students who took FA 45a in prior years.
Examines major painters, sculptors, and architects in Florence, Rome, and Venice from Giotto to Bellini (1290-1500). Important themes include the revival of Antiquity, the visual arts and the culture of Humanism, the Rise of the Medici, art and the ideal of the Republic, the development of art theory and criticism, Naturalism and the Sacred image, and the relation of artists and patrons during times of crisis (Black Death, Pazzi Conspiracy, and Savonarola). Usually offered every second year.
Jonathan Unglaub

HIST 147a Imperial Russia: From Westernization to Globalization
[ ss ]
Examines the processes and problems of modernization--state development, economic growth, social change, cultural achievements, and emergence of revolutionary and terrorist movements. Usually offered every year.
Gregory Freeze

RECS/THA 148a Russian Drama: Text and Performance
[ hum ]
Open to all students. Conducted in English. Students may choose to do readings either in English translation or in Russian. Formerly offered as RECS 148a.
Examines the rich tradition of Russian drama and theater. Readings include masterpieces of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including those by Chekhov, Pushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky, Mayakovsky, Erdman, and others. Usually offered every second year.
David Powelstock

ED 101b Elementary School Curriculum and Teaching: Science, Arts and Other Topics
[ ss ]
Limited to students enrolling in ED 111e spring semester.
Focuses on principles and effective procedures for teaching elementary students inquiry-based science. Examines how art, creative drama, multicultural education, special education, and physical education affect teaching and learning. Usually offered every year.
Staff

ENG 151b Performance Studies
[ hum ]
Prerequisite: A course in dramatic literature and familiarity with theatrical production.
The theater, etymologically, is a place for viewing. Theory, etymologically, begins with a spectator and a viewing. Reading theories of theater and performance against paradigmatic dramatic texts and documents of social performance, speculation, and spectatorship are reviewed. Usually offered every third year.
Thomas King

THA 10a Theater as Performance
[ ca ]
Develops the student's ability to read a theatrical text through the lens of the directorial mind and the voice/body/imagination of the performer. Reading, discussions, papers and exercises about acting, directing, dance, performance art, devised work, etc. will constitute the bulk of this course. Intended for Theater majors as well as students with no theater experience. Usually offered every year.
Adrianne Krstansky and Ryan McKittrick

THA 23a Movement for the Stage I
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: THA 10a or permission of the instructor.
The actor's job is to create action out of meaning and meaning out of action. Exercises designed to lead students into their imaginations in order to bring courage and responsiveness into the body. Focus on building necessary tools to create the balance between free form and free expression and an artistic and intelligent relationship to theater. Usually offered every year.
Susan Dibble

THA 35a The Audition
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: THA 21b.
Actors obtain work through an audition process; therefore, actors need to audition well. This course aims to prepare mid- and upper-level acting students for that process. Topics include resumes, material selection, preparation, and practice in various kinds of auditions using both classical and contemporary literature. Usually offered every second year.
Robert Walsh

THA 115a The Human Voice for Life and Art
[ ca ]
Prerequisite: THA 10a or permission of the instructor.
Explore the un-boundaried voice – deeply breathed and dynamically embodied. Traditional Anglo-American methodologies are combined with archetypal imagery and ethnic vocal styles organized to harness untapped resources of energy, deepen full-bodied breath connection, and strengthen imaginative muscles in order to invigorate a more personal connection to your voice. In this workshop-style course we will explore and celebrate the wide range of colors, timbres, heights and depths available to the human voice. The course is appropriate for actors, singers, and anyone interested in exploring their vocal potential in a creative environment. Usually offered every year.
Marya Lowry

THA 130a Suzuki
[ ca pe-1 ]
Counts as one activity course toward the physical education requirement. Undergraduates may repeat this course twice for credit, once with each instructor.
Developed by the Japanese theater artist Tadashi Suzuki, the Suzuki method of acting training develops physical strength, stamina, and agility while engaging the imagination and will of the actor. Through a series of walks, statues, and marches, students are taught to breathe and move from the core of their bodies. This training allows students to act from physical impulse, resulting in a deep and personal experience of language and the world of play. Usually offered every semester.
Staff

THA 132a Collaborative Theater Making
[ ca ]
May be repeated once for credit.
An exploration of the process of collaborative creation from the idea to performance. Students work as performers, directors, writers, and designers to create original theater pieces based on current events, literature, theater, genres, and personal obsessions. Usually offered every year.
Adrianne Krstansky