Courses

This course focuses on the social effects of applied theatre in community, vocational and educational settings. Informed by the work of Paulo Freire as well as other critical theorists and arts activists, like Augusto Boal, Bertolt Brecht, bell hooks, and Tony Kushner, students will explore projects which have a social justice and human rights agenda.

This course focuses on the social effects of applied theatre in community, vocational and educational settings. Informed by the work of Paulo Freire as well as other critical theorists and arts activists, like Augusto Boal, Bertolt Brecht, bell hooks, and Tony Kushner, students will explore projects which have a social justice and human rights agenda.

An overview of the many varied issues involved in the commerce of art, including the pricing and marketing of a wide number of art objects from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Different types of professions and their specific needs for determining the value of art will be examined. The impact of emerging markets and technologies and the impact on the business of art will be covered.

The purposes of this inquiry course are to: (a) examine the nature, purposes, theories and methods of qualitative research; (b) introduce several approaches to inquiry, including: ethnography, case study, phenomenology, grounding theory, and narrative inquiry to name a few; (c) practice the art of interviewing, observing, and making meaning of social settings; (d) explore a variety of methods for analyzing qualitative data such as thematic analysis, narrative analysis, and discourse analysis to name a few, and; (e) learn how to assess the quality and trustworthiness of interpretive research.

This class reads architecture and the built environment through the lenses of media, communication, and culture. Through analyses of a range of spaces - from Gothic cathedrals to suburban shopping malls to homes, factories, skyscrapers and digital cities - students will acquire a vocabulary for relating representations and practices, symbols and structures, and for identifying the ideological and aesthetic positions that produce settings for everyday life.

This class reads architecture and the built environment through the lenses of media, communication, and culture. The course takes seriously the proposition that spaces communicate meaningfully and that learning to read spatial productions leads to better understanding how material and technological designs are in sustained conversation with the social, over time. Through analyses of a range of space - from Gothic cathedrals to suburban shopping malls to homes, factories, skyscrapers and digital cities - students will acquire a vocabulary for relating representations and practices, symbols and structures, and for identifying the ideological and aesthetic positions that produce settings for everyday life.

An examination of the art of debate using current issues of public policy and social justice. Students will learn the skills of critical thinking, evidence evaluation and persuasion. Hours are arranged for fieldwork and student evaluation.

This class will seek to interrogate the categories of art and activism by looking closely at the following efforts: Occupy Wall Street movement, Gulf Labor Coalition and Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), the direct action wing of Gulf Labor Coalition, and the Direct Action Front for Palestine-NYC and Black Lives Matter. These case studies will sketch the possibility of a practice in which artist’s work does not simply add an artistic flair to this or that campaign, but rather theory and research, action and aesthetics, debriefing and analysis. Close readings of texts and visual materials form the core of the class supplemented with field trips, and special guests.

The contemporary art world is a convoluted interplay of aesthetics and economics; ego and idealism. How can an emerging artist navigate its layers and idiosyncrasies? Through readings of theory and criticism, lectures, discussions, site visits, guest speakers, and student responses in the form of multimedia projects and art writing, this course explores contemporary art’s mechanisms and current discourse, always keeping Berlin’s local context in mind.

Discussions of feminist art often assume a relatively narrow, Western horizon. This course will provide students with an interdisciplinary overview of feminism and art in a global context. Using arguments deriving from feminist theory, art history, and aesthetic theory, we will undertake a critical inquiry into ways in which gender, geography, and power inform art production, and will explore alternatives to dominant cultural narratives and aesthetics.

Combines a survey of artworks from antiquity through the Enlightenment with a critical exploration of the relationship of visual expression to the changing social contexts of the periods. Discussions will include the role of art within both non-Western and European cultures, as well as the influence of past cultures on contemporary issues.

This course considers the history and possibilities of imagining and representing the Other and the Unknown. It is centered on the close study of films, texts and media, including Yermek Shinarbaev's Revenge, on the Korean diaspora in central Asia; Susana Aikin's The Salt Mines; Kpop; and texts drawn from critical theory, fiction, and the news. Through experimentations with various media, ranging from writing and storytelling to films and diagrams, students are asked to find ways to bring the unknown to the realm of the familiar, while questioning the merits of this practice.

This class includes autobiographical works by writers, filmmakers and artists as well as psychological and philosophical concepts evolving around the problem of (aesthetic) personal formation between freedom and determinism. Students research this question by studying the assigned material and by interviewing a person of their choice. Interview results are presented to the class.

One common trait of experimental modernist and contemporary art is the pressure it exerts on conventional ideas about what art is and what it can do. This research seminar will address some of the many forms this redefinition has taken, combining art historical methods with approaches drawn from critical aesthetics and curatorial theory. Whenever possible, we will meet directly with artists, conduct site visits, and utilize NYU's extensive archives.

This course considers the history and possibilities of imagining and representing the Other and the Unknown. It is centered on the close study of films, texts and media, including Yermek Shinarbaev’s Revenge, on the Korean diaspora in central Asia, Susana Aikin’s The Salt Mines, Kpop, texts drawn from critical theory, fiction, and the news. Through experimentations with various media ranging from writing, storytelling, films and diagrams, students are asked to find ways to bring the unknown to the realm of the familiar, while questioning the merits of this practice.

This course explores the burgeoning field of social practice art. Today artists working in the field of social practice focus on aesthetics, ethics, collaboration, media strategies, and social activism as central issues that inform their artworks and projects that are designed for public and social spaces. In the United States, visual art that engaged the public directly began in the late 1950s and coincided with the local “decentralization” efforts that, in the arts, resulted in community-based art practices that envisioned the public as diverse, socially-engaged, and contributed to an expansive aesthetic consciousness. Understanding this history contextualizes social practice art and allows us to interrogate the ways artists blur the lines between object making, performance, activism, grass roots organizing and pedagogy.

How to collect art for both private and public collections. Factors of aesthetics, taste, and economics are discussed as well as the historic development of collections since the Renaissance. Special attention is given to corporate collections and collecting for investment. Guest lectures.

A wide range of contemporary visual and critical methodologies used in art criticism are explored, along with an extensive evaluation of writing techniques from a variety of sources including major international newspapers, journals, books, and on-line and print art publications.

Through a series of lectures, seminars, guest speakers, and workshops, students will be introduced to issues and recent research in art education. Students will have the opportunity to learn about available teaching and learning resources, share and critique artwork, and discuss their practices as artists, teachers, intellectuals, and activists within the contexts of contemporary art education. This course will also serve as a forum for fostering academic community through networking, sharing resources and planning special projects.

Studio work focused on enabling artists functioning as therapists to use their creative capacities in the service of individuals with adjustment problems and emotional disabilities.