Interdisciplinary Studies :: Majors and Minors

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Individually Designed Interdisciplinary Majors & Minors

Interdisciplinary Majors

An individually designed interdisciplinary program (IDIP) is a major program of study consisting of courses from two or more departments or the Institute taken in a well-defined area of interest. Students design an interdisciplinary major program in consultation with faculty members from the Departments or the Institute, wherever the majority of their coursework is based.

The student's course plan for the major must include a minimum of 40 credits for the B.A. and 56 credits for the B.F.A. To be eligible, students must have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher at the time of application, and they must complete a petition for an interdisciplinary major program and have it approved by the IDIP faculty committee before beginning their junior year.

Petitions, with rules, submission dates and instructions are available from The Office of the Executive Director, Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies, 120 Boylston Street, Room 509. Petitions are due in the Director's office by November 1st (for the Fall) and March 1st (for the Spring).

Interdisciplinary Minors

Through the Institute, students may pursue minors in selected areas of interdisciplinary study. Interdisciplinary minors give students the opportunity to explore an area of academic study in greater depth, from multiple disciplinary perspectives, over a period of several semesters.

Students interested in pursuing an Interdisciplinary Minor should consult with their advisor and the Executive Director of the Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. Students may count up to eight credits from the General Education curriculum toward the minor. Following is a list of the requirements for minors currently offered by the Institute:

Women's and Gender Studies Minor

At least 16 credit hours in courses designated as fulfilling the Women's and Gender Studies Minor.

Required Courses

Course Code	Course Information
IN200	Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies 4.00 Credits This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of Women's and Gender Studies. It emphasizes understanding the "common differences" that both unite and divide women and men. By examining how womanhood has been represented in myths, literature, ads, culture in general, the course's aims are: 1) to explore how gender inequalities have been both explained and critiqued, 2) to study the cultural meaning given to gender as it intersects with race, class, ethnicity, and sexuality, and 3) to address the historical role of feminism in the rise of gender studies. Ultimately, it poses the central paradox of contemporary thinking: the necessity to make gender matter and not matter at the same time.

Course Code

Course Information

IN200

Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies

For the remaining 12 credits, students may choose from the following classes (for additional classes always check the semester registration listings):

IN306	Masculinities 4.00 Credits Adopting critical/cultural studies, sociological, and media studies approaches, this course will explore and problematize how various forms of masculinities are signified in and through popular culture, how nationalist discourses are gendered and are bound up in masculine identities, how the gender of the audience is implicated in such processes, and how such constructions and representations both shape and are shaped by the larger social, cultural, racial, economic, and political contexts. Focusing on both theoretical critiques and practical interpretations of masculinities, the course will examine such media and popular cultural venues as film, video games, Japanese anime, wrestling (including sumo), sports, music and various television genres. Particular topics addressed in lectures, discussions, screenings, and (multi-media) student presentations include: Theories of Gender/Defining Masculinity; Female Masculinity; Masculinity, Nation, and Globalization; Masculinity and Sports, Video Game, and the Action Cinema; Male Body and Sexualities; Constructions and Intersections of Racial and Sexual Differences; and Performing Masculinities.
IN370	Topics in Global Studies 4.00 Credits Global Studies promotes an understanding and appreciation of the peoples, cultures, and diversity of the world. Topics in Global Studies courses include an examination of the causes and consequences of globalization viewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus of these courses includes an assessment of the impact of globalization on the economic, political, social, cultural and natural environments of nations, regions, and the world. Issues addressed in these courses will include the impact and uses of technology (such as contemporary media) on cultural production, cultural diversity and multiculturalism," and disparities in power and control among nations and peoples. Approaches to these issues may include human responses to globalization, including the ways we think about the world, as well as regional and cultural differences in responding to globalization. Topics may differ from year to year. Past topics have included: Global Cities, Third World Women, Media and Globalization, Globalization and Its Discontents, and The Global Event. Satisfies the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
IN404	The Evolution of Queer Identity: History, Literature, Theory 4.00 Credits This course provides an in-depth exploration of the evolution of queer (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) identity and culture. Through the lens of historical, literary (fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography), and theoretical readings, as well as a variety of films and other audio/visual media, students will be introduced to the relationship between these fields, and how they intertwine around the complex questions of queer identity and cultural representation. Is homosexuality, as stated by theorists such as Butler and Foucault, primarily a social construct, or is it something more essentialistic, as Dyer and Fuss suggest? Additionally, we will consider the role that the arts in general have served in the queer liberation movement worldwide.
LI210	American Women Writers 4.00 Credits Fiction, poetry, and other genres by 19th- and 20th-century American women such as Harriet Jacobs, Emily Dickinson, Kate Chopin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Eudora Welty, Adrienne Rich, and Toni Morrison. Fulfills the Literary Perspective of the General Education requirements and the U.S. Diversity requirement.
LI396	International Women Writers 4.00 Credits An exploration of the work of some contemporary international women writers, in its social and political context. Readings include works by such writers as Nadine Gordimer, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, Mawal El Saadawi, Bessie Head, Luisa Valenzuela and others. Fulfills the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
LI436	Cultural Criticism 4.00 Credits A survey of the dominant theoretical approaches to the study of culture. The course traces the main arguments found in them and helps students develop a sense of what it means to be a producer and a consumer of culture today.
PS230	Psychology of Gender, Race and Ethnicity 4.00 Credits We live in a country of diverse social groups. This course explores attitudes towards men and women from different racial and ethnic groups from a social-psychological perspective. To this end, it will explore three components of attitudes (stereotypes -- social perceptions, prejudice -- affective reactions, discrimination -- behavioral actions) and how social, cognitive, and emotional factors contribute to these components. Fulfills the General Education U.S. Diversity requirement.
SO206	Gender in a Global Perspective 4.00 Credits An exploration of gender in a comparative and global context. Framed by interdisciplinary perspectives from sociology, anthropology, psychology, and cultural studies, this course examines the social construction of gender across cultures. Globalization is explored as a web of complex forces shaping our gender-construction activities and institutions. Students learn to analyze course readings and other media, apply these to their own gendered experiences, and compare their experiences with those in other cultures. Sites for analysis range from ordinary daily activities involving work, play and intimacy, to institutional structures such as religion, politics, military, media, and the economy. Fulfills the Social and Psychological Perspective and the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
TH205	Dress Codes: American Clothes in the Twentieth Century 4.00 Credits Students will examine American clothes and fashion in the twentieth century, with a primary focus on the visual elements of everyday dress. Six distinct periods will be studied according to the silhouette and decorative details of each. Further, each fashion period will be studied within the context of its indirect influences (social, cultural, historical, technological, economical). Particular focus will be given to concepts of masculinity and feminity, and gender ambiguity; challenges to gendered clothes (such as trousers on women, long hair on men); and anti-fashion (zoot suits, beatniks, hippies, punk, goth). Fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective of the General Education requirements.
VM200	Media Criticism and Theory 4.00 Credits This course explores theoretical and critical approaches to the study of photography, film, video, audio, and digital culture. Theories and methods in this course will examine issues relating to production and authorship in the media arts, audience reception and effects, political ideology, ethics, aesthetics, cultural diversity, and schools of thought within the liberal arts. Extensive critical writing and reading in media criticism and theory. Prerequisite: VM 101 and VM 120.
VM400	TOPIC IN MEDIA ARTS: COURTING CONTROVERSY: ERROL MORRIS AND MICHAEL MOORE 4.00 Credits Among contemporary American documentary filmmakers, Errol Morris and Michael Moore have emerged as controversial stars of their genre. While both directors began their careers in the 1980s and have each received Academy awards for their films, Morris and Moore have developed different approaches to documentary filmmaking. Through an examination of each of their filmographies, this course investigates the various ways Morris and Moore create provocative documentaries.

Post-Colonial and Global Studies Minor

At least 16 credit hours in courses designated as fulfilling the Post-Colonial and Global Studies Minor. The minor offers students the opportunity to acquire a deeper understanding of the non-Western tradition. The aim of the minor is to provide both a conceptual and a historical understanding of the consequences of imperial expansions. To maximize the experience of the minor, it is strongly recommended that students choose classes that cover texts from diverse geographical locations. It is also strongly recommended that students choose classes that approach the subject matter of postcoloniality from different disciplinary perspectives.

Required Courses

Course Code	Course Information
IN203	Post-Colonial Cultures 4.00 Credits This course examines the historical, socio-economic and ideological contexts within which twentieth-century post-colonial cultures have been produced and are negotiated. Providing both geographical coverage and theoretical frameworks, it examines cultural production from formerly colonized nations. The aim of the course is to familiarize students with both the primary material and the critical contexts within which those materials can be read and understood. Possible topics in the Post-Colonial Cultures course include: 1) African and African-Diaspora Film, 2) Transnational Chinese Cinemas, 3) Latin American Testimonial Literature, 4) West-Indian Literature, 5) Transnational Culture Studies. Fulfills the General Education Global Diversity requirement.

Course Code

Course Information

IN203

Post-Colonial Cultures

For the remaining 12 credits, students may choose from the following classes (for additional classes always check the semester registration listings):

IN104	The Caribbean Imagination 4.00 Credits The Caribbean Imagination explores conceptions of the Caribbean in the European imagination and the imagination of the African Diaspora. Beginning with the letters of Christopher Columbus to the Spanish Crown, we will look at formulations of the Caribbean Imagination by essayists, novelists, and filmmakers from Caribbean nations in the twentieth century. We will examine the figure of Caliban as conceived by William Shakespeare and proceed to the conception of Caribbean peoples by thinkers such as Aimee Cesaire, C.L.R. James, Frantz Fanon, Kaman Brathwaite, and Roberto Fernandez Retamar. These historical essays will be read in conjunction with fictional and cinematic renderings of the Caribbean experience during the second half of the 20th-century.
IN142	African Civilizations 4.00 Credits What is Africa? Where is Africa? Who is African? These are geographical, cultural, and existential questions. Does Africa end at the coast or include the Islands and the Diaspora? What is the meaning of a white Africa and a black Africa in relation to Western civilizations? If Africa is the cradle of humanity, are we all Africans? This course provides a general introduction to interdisciplinary African studies considering aspects of history, archaeology, anthropology, politics and literature. We shall discuss such topics as religion and cultural life; political and economic history; diasporas; and post-coloniality. The course will be divided into three main sections. First, Ideas of Africa will focus on how Africa is representedgeographically, politically, psychologicallyand how Africans have responded; second a historical and geographical focus on a number of African Civilizations will counter the nineteenth century philosophic idea that Africa has no history; and third, by reading modern West African writers and film makers we will consider African public intellectuals as critics of colonialism and post-colonialism.
IN148	Politics, Film and Literature in Latin America 4.00 Credits Since the time of the encounter and conquest of the Americas by European powers, historians, writers, and later filmmakers, have taken on the challenge of revising and commenting on the official story written about the populations residing in the Western Hemisphere. This course concentrates on how Latin American writers and filmmakers, particularly from Mexico, Cuba, Argentina and Brazil, counteract the forces of censorship and political repression within their countries to create their own versions of national literatures and film industries. Their literature and film productions deal with the topics of revolution, gender, and the place of intellectuals and creative minds in their own construction of a history not dominated by censorship. The course also presents a history of the foundation and development of literacy and film genres that engage issues of local and national concerns at specific times of crises in the seventeenth (colonialism) and twentieth (post-colonialism) centuries. Fulfills the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
IN205	Exile and Global Citizenship 4.00 Credits In this course, we will consider multiple, interdisciplinary approaches to the current debates about exile and citizenship and the tangled identities that result from post-colonial/post-war migrations. We will explore the unstable continuum between location and identity, and discuss the impact of independence, war, and globalization on national, cultural, social, ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual identities. Through postcolonial, psychoanalytic, and global perspectives, we will examine issues of agency and responsibility alongside the plurality of (re)visions and (re)configurations that our various experiences of belonging, unbelonging, ambivalence and in-betweenness make possible. Alongside key theoretical texts drawn from such disciplines as sociology, cultural studies, political science, psychology, philosophy and history, we will examine cultural texts such as literature, film, art and photography.
IN370	Topics in Global Studies 4.00 Credits Global Studies promotes an understanding and appreciation of the peoples, cultures, and diversity of the world. Topics in Global Studies courses include an examination of the causes and consequences of globalization viewed from an interdisciplinary perspective. The focus of these courses includes an assessment of the impact of globalization on the economic, political, social, cultural and natural environments of nations, regions, and the world. Issues addressed in these courses will include the impact and uses of technology (such as contemporary media) on cultural production, cultural diversity and multiculturalism," and disparities in power and control among nations and peoples. Approaches to these issues may include human responses to globalization, including the ways we think about the world, as well as regional and cultural differences in responding to globalization. Topics may differ from year to year. Past topics have included: Global Cities, Third World Women, Media and Globalization, Globalization and Its Discontents, and The Global Event. Satisfies the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
IN405	Moving Out, Moving In 4.00 Credits This course explores the process of ethnogenesis, the process of "becoming American" that is common to all immigrants in the United States. Our principal focus is on the questions provoked by "moving out" of one's own country and "moving in" to another, on the deeper question of the psychosocial journey of moving out and into one's self, one's culture, and one's community. What is identity? What does it mean to be visible? What are the real and imaginary journeys that comprise our individual and collective maps of experience? We will explore these questions in interdisciplinary study and express our discoveries through multidisciplinary art in a very real, artistic interaction with children in Boston's Latino community.
LI381	Global Literatures 4.00 Credits A survey of contemporary world literature written in English by writers from such places as India, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Fulfills the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
LI396	International Women Writers 4.00 Credits An exploration of the work of some contemporary international women writers, in its social and political context. Readings include works by such writers as Nadine Gordimer, Jamaica Kincaid, Michelle Cliff, Mawal El Saadawi, Bessie Head, Luisa Valenzuela and others. Fulfills the General Education Global Diversity requirement.
LI423	Topic: Post-Colonial Literature, Film & Theory 4.00 Credits This course provides an introduction to the many responses to British and American colonialism in the writings of colonized and once-colonized peoples from Ireland, South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Starting with two early 20th century texts, we will begin by considering the mechanisms of culture and the role it plays in manufacturing and maintaining the discourses of empire. We will then consider how literary and filmic texts contest and challenge the legacies of colonialism through the production of alternative formations of identity and history. We will consider theorizations of diaspora, nation and nationalism, cultural ambivalence, subalterneity, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and gendered and sexual identities.
MU203	Perspectives in World Music 4.00 Credits This course investigates music-making within a variety of cultures, including societies from Africa, the Caribbean, India, the Far East, and Native Americans. Musical experience is examined from both the sonic and social perspectives, including: musical form, instruments, and style, as well as music's role as a vehicle for defining and representing social values. Fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective and the Global Diversity General Education requirements.
TH215	World Drama in Its Context I 4.00 Credits A survey of theatre and drama from the Greeks through the Renaissance, with a focus on the major periods of Western theatre and dramatic literature: the Greeks, Roman theatre and drama, Medieval theatre, Elizabethan drama, and Italian, French, and English Neo-Classicism. In addition, a survey of Eastern classical theatre and drama with a particular emphasis on the Sanskrit theatre, the Chinese drama and the Peking Opera, and the classical theatre of Japan, including Kabuki, No, and the puppet theatre. Selected readings of plays in their historical context with particular attention paid to theatrical styles of plays and production.
TH216	World Drama in Its Context II 4.00 Credits A survey of theatre and drama from the late seventeenth century to the present. The major periods of world theatre and drama, Neo-Classicism, Romanticism and Modernism will be studied with particular emphasis on Twentieth Century theatre and drama throughout the world, including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Attention will be given to the work of both women and men. Theatrical conventions, innovations and techniques developed in the Western and Non-Western theatres will be explored.
TH514	Top: Contemporary Women Playwrights 4.00 Credits Students in this course will engage in an investigation and exploration of plays written by contemporary women from various cultures and backgrounds. The course poses the following questions: 1) Is there a woman's aesthetic in playwriting? 2) If so, what is it? 3) Do women playwrights approach structure, character, style "differently"? 4) What is the history of critical response to plays written by women? In addition to reading primary material, students will also study a variety of critical responses to particular plays and to the work of women playwrights in general.
VM214	History of Non-Western Art I: Asia and the Mideast 4.00 Credits This course examines the varying styles of and critical approaches to East, South, and Southeast Asian art, including China, Japan, India, and the arts of the Mideast, especially those of Islam. Major artworks and artists are presented with concern for respective cultural traditions and diverse perspectives. We shall consider how indigenous philosophical and spiritual beliefs, as well as socio-cultural and political structures, inform the artworks, and how our understanding shifts when this art is experienced within its original context as opposed to western frameworks. Fulfills the Aesthetics perspective and Global Diversity requirements.
VM215	History of Non-Western Art II: Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas 4.00 Credits This course examines the various artistic styles of Africa (including the Diaspora), Islam, Pacific Cultures, and America (Mesoamerica, South, Central, and indigenous North America). Major artworks are contextualized through their indigenous traditions, as well as a diversity of critical perspectives. We shall consider how respective philosophical and spiritual beliefs, as well as socio-cultural and political structures, inform the artwork, and how our understanding of art made by each of these cultures shifts when encountered in its original context as opposed through the framings of the west. Fulfills the Aesthetics perspective and Global Diversity requirements.
VM216	History of Non-Western Art III: Topics 4.00 Credits This course will provide a focused study on a particular culture or issue germane to non-western art, its history, and/or criticism. The course emphasizes a diversity of perspectives (indigenous, non-western, western), and pays careful attention to the need to frame investigations within the artistic, socio-cultural, political, philosophical and spiritual contexts indigenous to the respective culture(s) being studied. Topic offerings vary by semester. Fulfills the Aesthetics perspective and Global Diversity requirements. Course may be repeated for credit if topics vary.
VM418	Transnational Asian Cinema 4.00 Credits In this course, Asian "national" cinemas are examined and problematized in the contexts of media and economic globalization. More specifically, this course will explore transnational Asian cinemas with the following foci: 1) the politics of transnational film practices 2) issues surrounding filmic representation and diasporic identities 3) the construction and negotiation of national, gender, and genre differences 4) local-regional-global dynamics and 5) questions of the postcolonial in Asian contexts.
VM509	Post-Colonial Film 4.00 Credits This course investigates the historical, socioeconomic, and ideological contexts of film production, distribution, and exhibition of post-colonial films that explore and challenge Hollywood and Western notions of identity, narrative, history, and oral traditions. Cinemas to be considered include those from Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Prerequisite: VM 200.

Performance Studies Minor

At least 16 credit hours in courses designated as fulfilling the Performance Studies Minor. The minor offers students the opportunity to study performance from aesthetic, cultural, and social scientific perspectives. The performance domains included within the scope of the minor are performance art and performance of literature, cultural performance (such as ritual, parades, and pageants), and performance in everyday life. The aim of the minor is to combine the theory and practice of performance from multiple disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Required Courses

Course Code	Course Information
IN202	Performance as Cultural Criticism 4.00 Credits This course explores performance as a mode of communication within and across culture(s). We begin by discussing performance as an ideologically and culturally communicative activity. We then consider examples of performances that are specifically intended as cultural criticism and, in particular, examples of solo performance art. In addition to discussing and critiquing the performances of working artists, we will construct and present performances ourselves. The process of composing, presenting, and evaluating a critical cultural performance will provide an opportunity to synthesize course concepts and to develop skills for creative rebellion.

Course Code

Course Information

IN202

Performance as Cultural Criticism

For the remaining 12 credits, students may choose from the following classes from the General Education and the majors curriculum. See catalogue for course descriptions, prerequisites, and availability.

IN123	Ritual and Performance 4.00 Credits This interdisciplinary course offers students the opportunity to explore the role of ritual and performance in our lives and in our communities through a variety of modes of inquiry including reflective, critical reading, journal writing and ethnography. Students work in groups to gain in-depth knowledge and first hand experience of ritual and performance in community sites they select for intensive study. Topics and sites selected by students might include ritual and performance in such areas as: dance, sport, politics, protest, religion, theatre, media, technology, travel, writing, dressing, and eating. This course links theory with practice by introducing rich, eclectic, and interdisciplinary theoretical material (ranging from the anthropology of Victor Turner, to Richard Shechner's work on performance, and Mihaly Csikszentmiahly's psychology of experience) and applying it to students' practices in ritual and performance. Guest speakers, fieldtrips, film, and the internet will expand the classroom walls in applying this material to lived experience.
IN138	Staging American Women: The Culture of Burlesque 4.00 Credits From the late nineteenth through the early twentieth century, the American theater presented images of women never before seen on the legitimate American stageimages which parodied gender roles and relationships, celebrated the highly controlled social and cultural power of the female form and demeanor, and forecasted an entire range of interwoven performative and visual arts designed to elaborate, explore, and exploit American ideologies of sex and genderfrom Ziegfeld girls, to the pin-up art of Alberto Vargas, to the early sexploitation films of Sonney and Freidman. This course will investigate and trace the roles and images of women presented in vaudeville and burlesque of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and their offshoots. Studying the cultural contexts and performance contents, students will learn how ideas about gender were performed in the burlesque genre and the powerful role they played in shaping dominant ideologies.
IN402	Living Art in Real Space: Multidisciplinary Art and the Collaborative Process 4.00 Credits In this course we will explore the nature of artistic collaboration through researching, reading, writing, and experiencing the collaborative process, with a primary focus on experimental, interdisciplinary processes and presentations. The goals of the course are to examine, explore and develop an understanding of, and successful working methods for, artistic collaboration. Through lectures, videos, slide presentations, artist talks, student research presentations and in-depth experiential processes, we will address how different creative disciplines illuminate one another; how individual interests, skills and methods inform one another in the context of a collective undertaking. This course will culminate in final, public presentations of multi-disciplinary work by each of the collaborative groups in the class, and documenting and mapping the methods and process of these collaborations.
IN404	The Evolution of Queer Identity: History, Literature, Theory 4.00 Credits This course provides an in-depth exploration of the evolution of queer (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) identity and culture. Through the lens of historical, literary (fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography), and theoretical readings, as well as a variety of films and other audio/visual media, students will be introduced to the relationship between these fields, and how they intertwine around the complex questions of queer identity and cultural representation. Is homosexuality, as stated by theorists such as Butler and Foucault, primarily a social construct, or is it something more essentialistic, as Dyer and Fuss suggest? Additionally, we will consider the role that the arts in general have served in the queer liberation movement worldwide.
IN405	Moving Out, Moving In 4.00 Credits This course explores the process of ethnogenesis, the process of "becoming American" that is common to all immigrants in the United States. Our principal focus is on the questions provoked by "moving out" of one's own country and "moving in" to another, on the deeper question of the psychosocial journey of moving out and into one's self, one's culture, and one's community. What is identity? What does it mean to be visible? What are the real and imaginary journeys that comprise our individual and collective maps of experience? We will explore these questions in interdisciplinary study and express our discoveries through multidisciplinary art in a very real, artistic interaction with children in Boston's Latino community.
LI436	Cultural Criticism 4.00 Credits A survey of the dominant theoretical approaches to the study of culture. The course traces the main arguments found in them and helps students develop a sense of what it means to be a producer and a consumer of culture today.
OP264	Oral Presentation of Literature 4.00 Credits The oral performance of literature (poetry, prose and drama) as the art of understanding and communicating a text's meaning to an audience is the focus of this course. Objectives include exploring the aesthetic dimensions of literature and its performance, and developing critical skills in interpreting texts and evaluating performed literature. Fulfills the Literary Perspective of the General Education requirements.
SO207	Dance, Ritual and Society 4.00 Credits A sociological examination of the role played by dance and ritual in creating and challenging societal order in diverse cultures throughout the United Sates and around the globe. Using interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives primarily from sociology, anthropology, and psychology, this course provides an introduction to dance and ritual studies. Emphasis in placed on the impact of dance and ritual practices on both social structure and individual identity. Fulfills the Social and Psychological Perspective of the General Education requirements.
TH525	Theatre and Community I 4.00 Credits This course examines the relationships between theatre and culture, where culture is understood as a process of knowing the other, of looking and listening, of creating and maintaining connection in a community. An examination of theoretical texts in economics, history, sociology, cultural studies, politics, and performance provides a foundation for exploring and experiencing various techniques of making theatre in community.
TH526	Theatre and Community II 4.00 Credits Students create pieces with a community selected in consultation with the instructor from stories, sensibilities, images, feelings and impressions gained from experience of dialogue with others. Prerequisite: TH 525 or Permission of the Instructor.
VM403	Studies in Digital Media and Culture 4.00 Credits The emerging digital technologies are changing all aspects of communications and the control and creation of the resulting new media. This course will examine the dramatic shift in meaning and processes of contemporary communication by examining the social, artistic, economic, and political implications of using and implementing digital ways of working. Topics include the Internet and the Web, cyberspace and censorship, history of the technologies and new media, games, digital film and video, multimedia and interactivity, virtual reality, person-machine interfaces, and globalization considerations. Prerequisite: VM 200.
VM503	Aesthetics and History of the New Media 4.00 Credits This course investigates the past 40 years of new media. Topics and fields of study include photography, experimental and video art, installation and interactive projects, Internet projects, implications of working in digital media, theory and practice, connections to other twentieth-century media, and review of the recent criticism in field. Prerequisite: VM 200.

Students may also choose special topics courses and seminars when the following topics are offered:

Course Code	Course Information
LI411	Topic: What is Taste? 4.00 Credits A course exploring the problem of aesthetic judgment and the relation between aesthetics, ethics and politics. Through a series of readings across periods (from the 18th century to today) and across disciplines (from philosophy, to film, to fiction, to poetry , to art) the course will examine what it means to be a member of an aesthetic community, as well as how communities shape aesthetic values and impact political repsonsiblities. In other words, the course will look at how "taste" constructs us as we construct it.
TH411	Topic: Principles of Dramaturgy 4.00 Credits The Principles of Dramaturgy course is designed to provide theoretical and critical background to the profession. It explores the history of dramaturgy as well as different professional venues and the variety of tasks that dramaturges perform within a particular venue. The course introduces students to the areas of Dramatic Criticism (theatre critics, theatre scholars, translators, script analysts, and editors), Literary Office Dramaturgy (new script analysis, literary management of the theatre), and Production Dramaturgy (working with the director, developing new plays, etc.). This course is open to juniors and seniors. It is required for the Dramaturgy concentration.
LI423	Topic: Post-Colonial Literature, Film & Theory 4.00 Credits This course provides an introduction to the many responses to British and American colonialism in the writings of colonized and once-colonized peoples from Ireland, South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. Starting with two early 20th century texts, we will begin by considering the mechanisms of culture and the role it plays in manufacturing and maintaining the discourses of empire. We will then consider how literary and filmic texts contest and challenge the legacies of colonialism through the production of alternative formations of identity and history. We will consider theorizations of diaspora, nation and nationalism, cultural ambivalence, subalterneity, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, and gendered and sexual identities.
TH315	Topics in Contemporary Theatre 4.00 Credits Various topics in the aesthetics of contemporary theatre with particular focus on the history, theory and criticism of selected contemporary performers and directors. This course will also focus on current productions and presentations in and around Boston. Attendance at selected events is mandatory. Prerequisite: TH 222 or permission of instructor. Fulfills the Aesthetic Perspective of the General Education requirements.
TH514	Top: Contemporary Women Playwrights 4.00 Credits Students in this course will engage in an investigation and exploration of plays written by contemporary women from various cultures and backgrounds. The course poses the following questions: 1) Is there a woman's aesthetic in playwriting? 2) If so, what is it? 3) Do women playwrights approach structure, character, style "differently"? 4) What is the history of critical response to plays written by women? In addition to reading primary material, students will also study a variety of critical responses to particular plays and to the work of women playwrights in general.