Courses

This course focuses on critical social theory and its connection to sociological and educational research. Explores the works of the Frankfurt School and Black Intellectuals in the early 20th century and their impact on contemporary critical theories. Examines theories such as Marxism, Critical Race Theory, TribalCrit, and Postcolonial theory. Issues of power, domination, and privilege in school and society will be analyzed

• Department: Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities

Much of critical theory finds its origin in the work of Karl Marx. The purpose of this doctoral seminar is to read key works by Marx, supplemented by some contemporary texts in western Marxist political theory, with the ultimate goal of understanding the various political and philosophical debates with which these texts engage. The course emphasizes Marxism as a political theory, but will also address Marxism as a scholarly methodology for critique applicable to disciplines beyond political theory. Themes include: the commodity, alienation and reification, surplus value, ideology, consumerism, spectacle, empire, feminism, postfordism, community, and communism.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course will introduce students to critical video—the use of documentary, ethnographic, and research-based video to investigate and critique contemporary culture. The class offers students a theoretical overview of documentary video, a set of conceptual tools to analyze video, and an introduction to the practice of video production for small and mobile screens. Students will apply texts on video’s history, culture and distribution, as well as on the ethical challenges of video production, to their own research-based video project. No prior experience in video production is required.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course introduces students to critical video—the use of documentary, ethnographic, and research-based video to investigate and critique contemporary culture. Students gain a theoretical overview of documentary video, a set of conceptual tools to analyze video, and an introduction to the practice of video production for small and mobile screens. Students apply texts on video's history, culture, and distribution, as well as the ethical challenges of video production, to their own, research-based video project. No prior experience required.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course develops cultural awareness & responsiveness of creative arts therapists & community educators. Using embodied practice & theory, the course explores intersections of race, class, sexuality, gender, age, ability, religion, immigration, & other cultural identity markers (visible & invisible). Students examine the impact of intersections and ostracisms as practitioners on their own personal & professional lives, as well as those of clients and group participants. Competencies are taught through action methods, Theatre of the Oppressed,lecture/discussion.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions

An examination of how behavior & experience are influenced by culture & intersectionality. Emphasis is given to increasing counselor self awareness, knowledge, & skills necessary to apply counseling theory & technique to diverse populations & settings.

• Department: Applied Psychology

Students examine and assess different strategies for conducting inquiries about policy issues relevant to their academic and professional lives.Through the use and analysis of case studies, students examine how policies are developed and implemented, explore cross-sector effects, and critically assess public policies with an understanding of the media and political biases. Cases are drawn from current domestic and international debates in such areas as desegregation, public health, housing, and migration.

• Department: Administration, Leadership, and Technology

This course offers an in-depth look at a specific cuisine or cuisines. We look at the historical evolution of cuisine including but not limited to agriculture, technology, geo-political forces, climate change, geographic border changes, colonialism, post-colonialism, and nationalism. We analyze this cuisine in its specific cultural context as well as through a broader, global prism. We pay particular attention to performances of national identity through food and cooking. We rely on both academic research and cookbooks.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

An individualized project that reflects a student's understanding of science teachings and learning and the student's philosophical underpinnings developed throughout his or her entire program.

• Department: Teaching and Learning

Project-based research course that integrates educational research with social studies classroom practice. Aims to broaden students understanding of what constituters appropriate data for scholarly inquiry. Focusing on particular research methods and drawing from the rich offerings of New York City's various collections, students explore strategies for locating, analyzing, and incorporating a broad array of sources into their doing, writing, and teaching of history and social studies. Also includes exploration of economics in the contemporary world and historically. Offers models and approaches for conducting research in and on social studies classrooms.

• Department: Teaching and Learning

Program seminar addresses issues confronting dance educators. Emphasis on integrating theory and practice and on the generation of new ideas, approaches and perspectives in dance education. Required culminating project or dance-related research or curriculum design for elementary, secondary, or post-secondary settings. Particular attention paid to report writing.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions

In this course, students read and critique current trends in TESOL and world language research. They conduct an individual or small group research project on a pedagogical issue of concern to them, drawing on current research and considering implications for their particular teaching context.

• Department: Teaching and Learning

Examines how branding for arts organizations communicates a distinctive role, relevance and identity to convey a clear institutional message. Rising media costs, ever increasing options for leisure-time activities, and the shift from philanthropic to brand-focused corporate support combine to create an imperative for clarity and impact in arts marketing activities. Theoretical business frameworks, case studies and guest speakers, effective strategies to engage target audiences and build a sustainable identity are analyzed.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This course explores New York City as a cultural and economic hub for food and media, where food shapes communities and social and cultural identities. Media of all types fuel and shape our connections to food. Tastes are defined; diets and food habits are promoted and demoted; food fortunes and food celebrities are made. Topics include: Food-related publishing and broadcasting; green markets, food trucks, systems of supply and distribution; marketing; diversity, fusion, and identity. Classroom work is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, and field research.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course explores the multi-faceted nature of New York City as a cultural & economic hub for food & media. Food is never just something we eat, but in New York City food has taken on an increasing prominence in public life. Food shapes communities & is an increasingly important marker of social & cultural identities. Media of all types fuel & shape our connections to food. Tastes are defined; diets & food habits are promoted & demoted; food fortunes & food celebrities are made. How has New York City become so important to the business of taste? What goes on behind-the-scenes? Topics include: Food-related publishing & broadcasting; green markets, food trucks, & systems of supply & distribution; marketing; Chinatowns, diversity, fusion, & identity. Open to majors & non-majors including special students. Classroom instruction is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, & field research.

• Department: Nutrition and Food Studies

This course explores New York City as a cultural and economic hub for media and the arts, arguably the cultural capital of the world. Classroom work is supplemented by site visits, guest lectures, and field research to explore the ways that media and the arts have shaped work and leisure in NYC life in the past century. Topics include: Time Square and live spectacle, the Broadway theatre, Madison Ave and modern advertising, the museum of New York, galleries, artists, and the art market, the Harlem Renaissance, alternative media and Bohemian arts.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

Survey of the ways in which art therapy may be used with the geriatric population including individuals with dementia, depression, psychiatric disorders, frail elders & healthy elders.

• Department: Art and Art Professions

This course examines the cultural geography of coffee as part of broader global processes shaping commodities, trade, and everyday life. The course situates coffee’s historical, geographic, and political contexts within frameworks such as slavery, colonialism, imperialism, economic development, global branding, and contemporary debates around labor, inequality, and sustainability. By focusing on coffee as a case study, students explore how commodities circulate through systems of production, consumption, and meaning across local and global contexts.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

Whether large, small, wide, high-definition, public, personal, shared, or handheld, screens are one of the most pervasive technologies in everyday life. From spaces of work to spaces of leisure, screens are sites for collaboration, performance, surveillance, and resistance. This course traces the cultural history of screens from a range of forms - from the panorama to the cinema, from the radar system to the television, and from the terminal to the mobile device - to provide a way of thinking about the development of the screen as simultaneously architectural, material, representational and computational.

• Department: Media, Culture, and Communication

This course examines the importance of cultural considerations within music therapy practice through experientials, group discussions, and didactic learning. Students critically investigate how cultural humility and reflexivity can be implemented within clinical contexts. Students explore their sociocultural identity and consider how race, ethnicity, language, ability, age, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and culture intersect at the individual and collective-societal levels in therapeutic, supervisory, and professional relationships.

• Department: Music and Performing Arts Professions