Graduate Courses

A survey and performance course on the art song repertoire. Student study the interpretive and stylistic aspects and performs songs in Italian and Spanish from the genres of Italian and Latin American songs.

Songwriters Forum is a practical writing course designed to help students become the best music creators they can be, in styles, genres, and approaches they define. While the focus tends to be on popular song, the curriculum addresses any and all songwriting. Forum students analyze, review, and, most of all, explore the tools (including collaboration) employed by composers and lyricists whose work has distinguished them as important practitioners of the art and craft of song. The goal is improved writing, with all other elements and aspects directed towards it.

This course will explore the history & development of classic popular music of the past 60 years. Through a detailed study of 14 profoundly influential songs & recordings, we will examine how art affects, & is affected by, its cultural & historical moment. Over the course of the semester, students will engage in musical analysis, critical listening, & a detailed study of songwriting & recording techniques. They will also view archival films of relevant musical artists, & engage in close analysis of selected musical performances.

This course will explore the history and development of classic popular music of the past 60 years, with a focus on the period 1980-2005. Through a detailed study of 14 profoundly influential songs and recordings, we will examine how art affects, and is affected by, its cultural and historical moment. Students will engage in musical analysis, critical listening, and a detailed study of songwriting and recording techniques. They will also view archival video of relevant musical artists, films, and news events and engage in close analysis of select musical performances.

Course Description: This course focuses on three important areas in music technology: spatialization, computer aided composition, analysis and synthesis techniques. In each area, concepts and implementations will be explored in a variety of artistic and technological contexts. Students will work with the latest technologies including IRCAM Tools, Spat plugin, Max Bach library, Ambisonics, and Wave Field Synthesis. The course includes a 3-hour weekly lecture, 3-hour studio lab, and workshops at IRCAM. This course is taught in collaboration with IRCAM in Paris, one of the world leading institutions in computer music and acoustics

This course examines central themes in the emerging field of “Sound Studies”. We explore a range of histories, archeologies and ethnographies of sound and listening, as it intersects with topics in media studies, science and technology studies, political economy and musicology. How has our experience of sound changed as we move from the piano to the personal computer, from the phonoautograph to the mp3? How have political, commercial, and cultural forces shaped what we are able to listen to, and how we listen to it? Finally, how have performers, physiologists, acousticians, engineers and philosophers worked to understand this radical transformation of the senses?

This course connects foreign language pedagogy to speech act theory, politeness theory, and pragmatic variation within the Spanish-speaking world. It is a close study of routinized language behaviors which enables teachers to raise awareness of cultural cues that are necessary to interpret conversations accurately. The course explores innovative, research-based approaches for teaching pragmatics in the foreign language classroom so that learners can avoid cross-cultural misunderstandings and better interpret texts in Spanish.

This course is an overview of generative and functional analyses of the structure of Spanish, with a focus on grammatical features that are especially challenging to acquire. Particular attention is devoted to exploring syntactic variance in the Spanish-speaking world through the use of authentic Spanish-language materials.

This course examines the history of Special Education in the American public education system, as well as what it means to be a ‘disabled’ student today by examining the vital components that teachers must be aware of when working with students with disabilities. There are 14 generally recognized disability classifications today, each with its’ own unique impact on the educational life of the affected student. This course will look at the current research into multiple intelligences & learning styles, where it becomes evident that using the arts; music, visual arts & dance, can allow access points to many students into the world of learning. Students will explore how collaboration with general education teachers can help inform their pedagogical practice as well as deepen the educational experience of their students. Additionally, the course covers the Individual Education Plan and how to use it as a teaching tool. Students will learn how to partner with the family, community, colleagues & pupils to create a differentiated & welcoming classroom environment. Finally, the course will also examine the ways disability is represented visually in our culture, both through media/popular culture & contemporary art practices.

An umbrella course that examines global dynamics in culture and media in a broad international and historical context. Special attention is paid to the social, economic, and political theories that inform our understanding of the phenomena and experience of globalization, and its relationship to media and cultural production, distribution and consumption. Specific courses focus on transnational identity formation, political economy of global media, and regional clusters such as the Middle East, Asia, South America, etc.

This course examines theoretical and methodological challenges in producing cartographies of the global that pay attention to transnational flows, assemblages, circuits and disjunctures across multiple political and social processes. Paying special attention to ethnographic challenges, we will conduct close readings of select global ethnographies of media and communication in order to discuss and decenter the politics of transnational linkages organized around issues of modernity, mobility and locality.

No description available.

Provides intensive reviews of common methods of quantitative or qualitative data analysis, and methods of design or measurement used in psychological research. Organized as a series of multisession workshops to provide an overview of the basic assumptions underlying a specific method, strategies for conducting analyses, reading outputs, and interpreting findings. Workshops offered for variable points (0-6); and point values for each workshop will be determined by the Department of Applied Psychology.

This umbrella course examines select topics in critical, cultural, social, and political theory, with special attention to problems of interpretation in the humanities and related social sciences in both historical and theoretical contexts.

Few figures have influenced the modern conception of the subject more than
Sigmund Freud. In this doctoral seminar we explore the writings of Freud, followed by those of one of his most influential interpreters, Jacques Lacan. Seminar themes include: the structure of the psyche; the unconscious; castration and lack; the symbolic order; neurosis; desire; enjoyment; and sex. Additional readings drawn from the work of Joan Copjec, Achille Mbembe, and Alenka Zupančič.

In this doctoral seminar we examine the digital and the analog, not merely by reference to actually existing media technologies, but also, and perhaps more importantly, through encounters with theory and philosophy. Themes in the course include analogicity, digitality, the logical, the illogical, interfaces, cybernetics, psychoanalysis, geometry, and arithmetic. Readings are drawn from the work of Friedrich Kittler, Sarah Kofman, Catherine Malabou, Brian Massumi, Katherine McKittrick, Hito Steyerl, McKenzie Wark, and others.

Not Available.

This course examines specific topics within the fields of cultural studies and visual culture, with the aim of delving into particular theoretical concerns within these overlapping and interrelated fields of study. It is the aim of Special Topics courses to incorporate historical theoretical frameworks and to examine important recent scholarship on these issues.

Not Available.

This advanced graduate seminar offers a survey of important academic monographs documenting the history of computing, introducing students to critical objects, interventions, and authors in and around the field. Readings will be drawn from the history of technology, history of science, media studies, STS, and game studies.