Undergraduate Courses

What does it mean to be "urban" in China & how is Chinese urbanism mediated by new cultural formations? In this course we examine the culture and media that define city life in China, including state and popular media, television and film, music, fashion, verbal art and literature, and visual art. We focus on the period from the building booms of the mid-to-late nineties to the present. Students work in teams to make presentations, use primary sources (in translation) and secondary sources to write individual essays.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

A veritable buzzword globalization refers to several newly emerged trends. To name the three most visible ones these are the economy, culture and politics. Media do not only describe and interpret globalization but also are its important part. A study of globalization is inherently diverse and eclectic. So is this course. Students will read, watch, analyze and discuss. In class discussions and writings they are expected to engage questions connected to globalization, culture and the media. Through a series of lectures and discussions the course explores how the process of globalization transforms the media and examines the impact of new technologies on global communications. Emphasizing the transnational context of media and culture the course approaches global media and cultural production from a wide range of theoretical frameworks relevant to contemporary condition.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

Critical evaluation of recent research through seminars and class discussions.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

Dance is an integral & defining component of cultures throughout the world & throughout history. This course introduces students to dance as a live & performing art through a variety of experiences including attendance at live performances, examination of videos & theoretical texts, & physical participation in the practice & performance of dance. Through discussions, written assignments, & the creation of original dance compositions, students will explore the history & cultural relevance of a variety of forms of dance within their own lives, larger society, & the global community beyond.

Liberal Arts Core/CORE-MAP Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Expressive Cultures for Steinhardt students.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions
• Liberal Arts Core: Expressive Culture

Not Available.

An introduction to the sources and uses of data as a strategic asset in the music industry. Students gain literacy in the methods decision makers use to analyze data about music itself, music discovery and music consumption in the effort to drive competitive advantage. Students interact with the data sources and analytic tools in wide use; learn the basics of data storage,manipulation, and modeling techniques; and become familiar with the practical applications and business benefits of data analysis in the music in the music industry.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions

Data is often considered the domain of scientists and statisticians, but its increasing dominance across nearly all aspects of life – from political and advertising campaigns to social media, dating, education, and public health — has social, political, and ethical consequences, presenting both new possibilities and new hazards. In this course we think critically about how collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data affects individual and social life, with a focus on the ways in which it reproduces and creates new structural inequalities and power asymmetries.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

Not Available.

Explores early and obsolete media technologies. Students in this course learn methods for restoring media artifacts to their deep social, cultural, and personal context through, including, but not limited to, media archaeology; word, image, and sound archives; and hands-on repair and maintenance. Media archaeology is best undertaken, like any archaeological project, collaboratively, and so this class follows a hands-on research studio model commonly used in disciplines such as architecture or design.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

Based on three pillars of experiential learning--exploration, collaboration, and engagement--this course introduces students to pathways of academic, personal and professional achievement. The course includes three main components: self-assessment, understanding mentorship, and understanding leadership. Students will conduct individual and group self-assessments and interest inventories; identify and cultivate mentoring relationships in their field of study; and examine and practice leadership in both traditional and non-traditional modes. Course includes high-profile guest speakers, a high level of student involvement in constructing learning activities, and experiential learning trips to complement the on-campus experience.

• Department: Administration, Leadership, and Technology

Not Available.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

This course will build on a core concept of Lewis Mumford who understood media ecology as a component of spatial and urban ecology. Emphasis will be given on how space socially organizes human meaning and on the “inscription” of space. How do people, throUEh, their practices and their being in the world, form relationships with the locales they occupy (both the natural world and the build environment)? How do they attach meanings to spaces to create places? And how do the experiences of inhabiting viewing and hearing those places shape their meanings, communicative practices, cultural performance memories and habits? Course themes include; mapping and the imagination; vision and space, soundscape, architecture and landscape; new media and space/time compression; space and identity; spatial violence; spatialization of memory.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course is a Dean’s Global Honors Seminar and available by application only.Eligible students are contacted directly. It includes travel to Florence, Italy during January 2018 and requires a $400 fee. This course explores the implications of having a disability in global contexts. Students will explore and identify factors, which can influence a community’s view of disability, including enablers and barriers to participation in daily life especially for people with disabilities.

• Department: Occupational Therapy

Employing a global perspective, this course introduces students to the major issues and concepts regarding food and culture. Examining food and diet from historical and transnational perspectives, we examine the effect of colonialism and immigration on agriculture, food technologies, diets, and health. Through field trips, guest speakers, discussions, hands-on activities and eating, students explore how food influences and is influenced by myriad factors, including politics, economics, climate, geography, technology, and culture.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

This course will examine the origins, development, and meaning of cultural conflicts around the world. How have cultural issues divided human beings, within their own countries and across them? How have these issues changed during our contemporary era of globalization, with its rapid spread of people and ideas across borders? How have these developments created new global alliances as well as fractures? And, most of all, how can we find common ground across our profound cultural and national differences? Special topics may include abortion, same-sex marriage, sex education, pornography, and drug regulation. Liberal Arts CORE Equivalent - satisfies the requirement for Cultures and Contexts.

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Builds on a basic understanding of graphic design to help students refine their skills & develop more personally expressive ways to solving problems through visual communication. Assignments, readings, & research projects will allow students to consider the complex nature of graphic design. Both traditional & digital approaches to typography & layout will be incorporated with a wide range of assignment. A priority is placed on the use of concepts to dictate design techniques & on the pursuit of a genuinely creative vision

• Department: Art and Art Professions

Design for today's stage in period and modern styles. Methods of originating and presenting a design conception. Practice in scene sketching. Three hours of laboratory per week.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions

This course serves to familiarize the student with the fundamentals of typography. Typography forms the basis of our contemporary communication. Students will gain design abilities based on analogue techniques as well as digital software. The class explores letterform design & moves subsequently to typesetting exercises performed using the letterpress printer & computer. Compositions exploring typography as color, form, & image will be examined for visual impact as well as meaning. The history of typography is incorporated beginning with Guttenberg in the 1400’s through the classic designers of the 17th & 18th centuries, type-design through Russian Constructivism, the Bauhaus, & Modernism to contemporary digital type design.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This class acquaints the student with the fundamentals of Design by focusing primarily on layout, composition & color through use of the grid. The grid is a fundamental building block for publication design (print & digital), website design, & animation design. This class focuses primarily on Graphic Design but proposes basic concepts that can be extrapolated into other design fields. Classes will be client & solutions-based and will assume a professional career orientation. Additionally the class will provide a current overview of what’s happening in the contemporary design world through field trips, readings & presentations.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

A continuing exploration of graphic design to help students refine their skills & develop more personally expressive ways to solving problems through visual communication. Assignments, readings, & research projects will allow students to consider the complex nature of graphic design. Both traditional & digital approaches to typography & layout will be incorporated with a wide range of assignment. A priority is placed on the use of concepts to dictate design techniques & on the pursuit of a genuinely creative vision.

• Department: Art and Art Professions