Humanities & Arts

This course introduces students with no prior Arabic experience to Modern Standard Arabic and Darija, the Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco. The course sets the foundation for subsequent courses; it introduces students to pivotal aspects of Arabic, including the Arabic script and sound system. Along the way, students learn common vocabulary used in formal contexts, common phrases and greetings as well as aspects of Arab cultures.
  This course is open to students with no Arabic language background; this course is closed to native speakers of Arabic and heritage speakers except with written permission from the instructor.

This course continues students’ exposure to and development of Modern Standard Arabic and Darija, the Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco; it is for students who can read and write using the Arabic script but have very basic understanding of vocabulary and syntax. New language structures, vocabulary and cultural concepts will be presented in communicative activities/materials in class and homework assignments; these activities will focus on receptive (reading & listening) and productive (writing & speaking) skills in Arabic.
 

This course is a continuation of AB 1532. Emphasis will be on building and strengthening receptive and productive skills in both Modern Standard Arabic and Darija, the Arabic dialect spoken in Morocco. Grammatical structures covered in the previous courses along with new structures will be part of class activities as well as homework assignments. Cultural aspects of Arabic-speaking countries will be introduced through course materials including commonly used vocabulary and expressions.

This course builds on the knowledge and skills that students learn in the elementary level courses (AB 1531, AB 1532 and AB 1533). Students continue learning Modern Standard Arabic with moderate exposure to phrases and expressions in Darija, Moroccan colloquial Arabic. The course employs a student-centered approach that focuses on receptive language skills (reading and listening) and productive language skills (speaking and writing); it also integrates culture and authentic materials in order to create real-life opportunities for language practice/use and to develop students’ cultural competency. By the end of this course, students should be able to use tense appropriately to describe actions and events, describe their daily routines, describe personal and professional relations and report bibliographical and general information. Course assignments include daily homework, short quizzes, skits, presentations and/or an oral exam.
Students cannot receive credit for both AB 210X and AB 2531.

This course is a continuation of AB 2531. Students continue learning Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) with limited exposure to phrases and expressions in Darija, Moroccan colloquial Arabic. The course employs a student-centered approach that focuses on receptive language skills (reading and listening) and productive language skills (speaking and writing); it also integrates culture and authentic materials in order to create real-life opportunities for language practice/use and to develop students’ cultural competency. By the end of this course, students should be able to read and understand the gist of authentic texts in MSA, answer basic comprehension questions, differentiate between parts of speech and use parts of speech to reproduce or produce short texts in MSA. Course assignments include daily homework, short quizzes, skits, presentations and/or an oral exam.
Students cannot receive credit for both AB 220X and AB 2532.

This course is a continuation of AB 2531 and AB 2532; it focuses on improving students’ skills in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). The course employs a student-centered approach that focuses on receptive language skills (reading and listening) and productive language skills (speaking and writing); it also integrates culture and authentic materials in order to create reallife opportunities for language practice/use and to develop students’ cultural competency. By the end of this course, students should be able to read and understand selected authentic texts written in MSA, differentiate between main ideas and supporting ideas, answer level-appropriate comprehension questions, respond to level-appropriate open-ended questions in MSA and generate content that is level adequate. Course assignments include daily homework, short quizzes, skits, presentations and/or an oral exam.
Students cannot receive credit for both AB 230X and AB 2533.

This course provides an introduction to the basic principles of two and three-dimensional visual organization. The course focuses on graphic expression, idea development, and visual literacy. Students will be expected to master basic rendering skills, perspective drawing, concept art, and storyboarding through traditional and/or computer-based tools.

This course focuses on the methods, procedures and techniques of creating and manipulating images through electronic and digital means. Students will develop an understanding of image alteration. Topics may include color theory, displays, modeling, shading, and visual perception.

How do we understand a work of art? Through readings and the study of objects at the Worcester Art Museum, the student will survey the major developments in world art and be introduced to various critical perspectives in art history. Students will learn how art historians work with primary materials and formulate arguments. No previous knowledge of art is required. (Formerly HU 1014.)

This course teaches students the use of DSLR cameras to capture high quality images. Students will learn to produce images with correct exposure by using camera controls such as f/stops, shutter speeds, film speeds. The application of principles and elements of design in photography will be explored, and students will learn to create effective compositions by the use of depth of field, action motion, shadows and light, and camera angles. Projects may include still life, portraits, architectural and landscape, product and industrial photography as well as postproduction techniques.

This course will focus on making digital art functional in a video game environment. Students will learn the skills necessary to create and optimize their art assets through several creative and technical solutions that are all geared towards making high quality game art. This course will allow students to form a greater understanding of the bridge between pure art creation and interactive art implementation into a game engine. The course explores the many problems and technical restrictions one is faced with when trying to implement anything from animated characters to textures and focuses on how one can creatively apply technology to achieve high quality results. Topics covered include: creating complex character rigs, optimizing character meshes for rigging, shader creation, optimizing UV space and baking texture files and lighting. 

3D modeling is concerned with how to render created forms in a virtual environment. This course covers 3D modeling applications in video game development, film production, product design and fine art. Topics may include creating and armature, modeling organic and hard surfaces and sculpting using traditional techniques applied to a 3D model. Students will create works suitable for presentation in professional quality portfolio.

The successive phases of modern art, especially painting, are examined in light of the late-19th-century break with the 600-year old tradition of representation. Topics covered include: non-objective art and abstraction—theory and practice, primitivism in modern art, surrealism and the irrational, the impact of photography on modern painting, cubism and collage, regionalism and abstract expressionism as American art forms, Pop art and popular culture, and the problem of concept versus representation in art. (Formerly AR 2300.)

This course studies, in a non-technical way, Americas buildings and places, in the context of world architecture in modern times. The history of American architecture was shaped by the forces that shaped America, from its political emergence in the eighteenth century to the post-9/11 era. These forces include dreams of social and spiritual perfection; a tight and conflicted relation with nature; and the rise and spread of industrial capitalism. The same forces created the Modern Movement in architecture. How are modernism and American architecture interrelated? Illustrated lectures, films, and tours of Worcester architecture explore the question, while training students in the methods of architectural history and criticism. Students who have taken AR 2113, Topics in 19th- and 20th-Century Architecture, since the 2000-2001 academic year MAY NOT take AR 2114 for credit.

This course offers a detailed overview of the history of architecture between the consolidation of modern architecture in standard architectural practice and the present period of pluralism. Topics covered will include: modernism and its critique in the developing world; Louis I. Kahn’s and Robert Venturi’s critiques of modernist architecture culture; the High-Tech movement; utopian alternatives to the modernist city; the return of pre-modern urbanism; Critical Regionalism; the rise of Postmodernism 1970-80; the developer-led architectural boom of the 1980s; “Deconstructivism” and critical dissolution of rationalist form; the introduction of CAD in architectural design and its impact on the “blob architecture” of Frank Gehry and others; the development of global models of architectural practice; sustainable architecture and urbanism; global developments in other, related design fields and their consumer culture.

The focus of this course is in study of representational figure drawing. This course will cover drawing techniques, applied to study from a live model. Topics covered will be sight size measurement, study of form and light, copying from master drawings and applying these lessons to weekly sessions with a live model. Each class will feature a demonstration on the topic followed by individual critique and study.

2D Animation I teaches students how to draw, pose, breakdown and in-between characters for 2D animation, focusing on weight, balance, timing, and movement to achieve well-structured and fluid animation. Lectures and projects are conducted to train students in the twelve classical animation principles using digital 2D media. Projects and lectures are designed to practice the fundamentals of traditional frame-by-frame and hand-drawn character animation.

This course introduces design principles and their application to create effective forms of graphic communication. The students will learn the fundamentals of visual communication and will work on projects to analyze, organize, and solve design problems. Topics may include: the design process; figure/ground; shape; dynamic balance; Gestalt principles; typography; layout and composition; color; production and presentation in digital formats.

3D Animation I teaches students how to use 3D animation software to apply classical animation principles into 3D work. Lectures focus on creating organic and compelling character animation through body mechanics, weight, and dynamic posing in addition to exposing students to learning how to think about character acting and staging within a 3D environment.

This course will introduce students to concepts and techniques for live action digital filmmaking. Topics will include constructing a visual narrative, principles of cinematography, visual and audio editing, working with actors, and the stylistic elements of various genres of filmmaking.

This course covers painting techniques as applied to texturing a 3D asset or illustration/conceptual art. Topics include are color theory, study of form, lighting, applying traditional painting ideas to the digital format, character design, generation of ideas and a history of digital painting. Each class features a demonstration on the topic followed by individual critique and study. Students work towards a final project that may be suitable for an Art portfolio.

The objective of this course is to teach students how to create 3D environments and props for use in digital models, simulations, games, or animation. The course will examine different types of architecture used in 3D spaces. The students will learn how to create historical and fictional interior and exterior environments; to design, model, texture, and render in high details; and to import their creation into an engine for testing. Topics may include space, human scale, set design, surface texturing, and basic camera animation. Students may not receive credit for IMGD/AR 2740 and IMGD/AR 205X. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Specialty subjects are offered using the research and creative expertise of the department faculty. Content and format varies to suit the interest and needs of the faculty and students. Courses are defined through the registrar and may be repeated for different topics covered. Students may not receive additional credit for taking this course more than once with the same title.

This course will build upon the skills learned in 3D MODELING with studies in life drawing/anatomy study and application towards completed character models. Students will create high resolution sculpts for real time game environments and animation. Topics covered will be character design as it applies to 3D MODELING, creating realistic design sculpts and incorporating them into a game environment as well as the study of anatomy as it applies to organic modeling.

What is the role of art to be in the modern world? Can art be a vehicle for social change, or should art be a self-critical discipline that pursues primarily aesthetic ends? What is the relationship between art and mass culture? Using primary sources, this course focuses on some of the theorists and artistic trends since the mid-nineteenth century that have sought to resolve this dilemma. These include: Ruskin, Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement; Art for Art’s Sake; the German Werkbund and the Bauhaus; American industrial design.

By using material from the sciences and the humanities, this course examines the ways in which ideas of knowledge and of human nature have been fashioned. The specific topics include physical theories about light, biological and psychological theories of visual perception, and artistic theories and practices concerned with representation. The mixing of material from different academic disciplines is deliberate, and meant to counter the notion that human pursuits are “naturally” arranged in the neat packages found in the modern university. The course draws upon the physical and social sciences, and the humanities, to examine how those fields relate to one another, and how they produce knowledge and self-knowledge. Cultural as well as disciplinary factors are assessed in this process. Light, Vision and Understanding is conducted as a seminar. The diverse collection of reading materials includes a number of primary texts in different fields. In addition, the students keep a journal in which they record the results of numerous individual observations and experiments concerning light and visual perception. The course can fit into several Humanities and Arts topic areas as well as serve as a starting point for an IQP. There are no specific requirements for this course, although some knowledge of college-level physics, as well an acquaintance with the visual arts, is helpful. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course introduces students to techniques and processes for the creation of real-time, interactive works of art. Students learn to use electronic sensors and other tools for audio, graphics, and video processing, as well as design customized software interfaces to create interactive artworks that respond to users and their environment. The course also introduces students to the work of significant contemporary arts practitioners as well as their historical precedents, with a special emphasis on inter-media works that bridge visual art, music composition, and the performing arts. Topics may include electronic musical instruments and performance interfaces, computer vision, VJing, electronically-augmented dance, controller hacking, wired clothing, networked collaboration and mobile media, and algorithmic and generative art.

This course offers in-depth analysis of the human figure in action. Motion is analyzed and studied through drawing and sketching of live models, video clips, performance and pantomime, studying not only the physical exterior but also how thoughts and emotion are expressed through gesture. Students will develop skill in figure posing and staging for applications in animation, storyboards, comics, and illustration.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will build upon the techniques learned in AR 2222/IMGD 2222. Students will learn to apply the animation principles to character animation. Students are taught how to tell a compelling, character-driven story through a focus on character acting techniques such as body language, lip syncing, facial animation, and micro expressions. Additional topics covered may include sprites for games, biped and quadruped animation, and 2D animation pipelines. Students will create animated sequences that are intended to serve a narrative structure for games and other media.

This course will build upon the techniques learned in IMGD/AR 2333. Students will learn to apply the animation principles with a focus on character acting and cinematic animation. Students are taught how to tell a compelling, character-driven story through a focus on acting techniques such as body language, lip syncing, facial animation, and micro expressions whilst incorporating digital cinematography techniques. Additional topics covered may include creating 3D simulations for hair and cloth, biped and quadruped animation, and 3D animation pipelines. Students will create animated sequences that are intended to serve a narrative structure for games and other media.

This course covers drawing as it applies to concept art and illustration. The course begins with study of a human model and representational drawing. Following this, students work on drawing from the mind and applying the lessons learned from the figure drawing to creating concept art and illustration. Topics covered are shape recognition and recalling, inventing from the mind, creative starters, study of form and light, visual composition and developing a personal approach, working with individual strengths to create a compelling visual design. Students create a series of concept art exercises and apply these skills towards a personal project of their own.

An intensive course to introduce Mandarin Chinese to students with no or little background in Chinese. Pronunciation, basic grammar rules, and character recognition will be the emphasis of the course. Handwriting of Chinese characters is not emphasized at this stage, and students are encouraged to typewrite the characters. Major aspects of Chinese culture will be introduced throughout the course. Students who have taken Chinese in high school are urged to take a placement test before enrolling in Elementary Chinese I.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Elementary Chinese I, with progressive expansion of vocabulary and grammar. Pronunciation, basic grammar rules, and character recognition will continue to be the emphasis of the course. Handwriting of Chinese characters is not emphasized at this stage, and students are encouraged to typewrite the characters. Major aspects of Chinese culture will be introduced throughout the course.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Elementary Chinese II, with progressive expansion of vocabulary and grammar. Pronunciation, basic grammar rules, and character recognition will continue to be the emphasis of the course. Handwriting of Chinese characters is not emphasized at this stage, and students are encouraged to typewrite the characters. Major aspects of Chinese culture will be introduced throughout the course.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

Building upon the foundation of the Elementary Chinese course series, this course is designed to expand students' skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. The course continues to enhance students’ vocabulary and introduces more complex grammatical patterns, with more emphasis placed on improving communication skills both orally and in writing.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Intermediate Chinese I. This course is designed to expand students' skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. The course continues to enhance students’ vocabulary and introduces more complex grammatical patterns, with more emphasis placed on improving communication skills both orally and in writing.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Intermediate Chinese II. This course is designed to expand students' skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. The course continues to enhance students’ vocabulary and introduces more complex grammatical patterns, with more emphasis placed on improving communication skills both orally and in writing.
This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Intermediate Chinese III. This course is designed to expand students' skills in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. The course continues to enhance students’ vocabulary and introduces more complex grammatical patterns, with more emphasis placed on improving communication skills both orally and in writing. Special attention will also be given to uses of nuanced and formal expressions to prepare students for the advanced level.
This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

Building upon the foundation of the Intermediate Chinese course series, this course continues to develop students’ integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing to meet the demand of increasing complexity and sophisticated communication at the advanced level. Expanding on topics from the concreate to the abstract, this course equips students with appropriate linguistic and cultural knowledge and skills through interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes of communication.   
This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Advanced Chinese I, this course continues to develop students’ integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing to meet the demand of increasing complexity and sophisticated communication at the advanced level. Expanding on topics from the concrete to the abstract, this course continues to equip students with appropriate linguistic and cultural knowledge and skills through interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes of communication.   
This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers, except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

A continuation of Advanced Chinese II. This course continues to develop students’ integrated skills of listening, speaking, reading, and writing to meet the demand of increasing complexity and sophisticated communication at the advanced level. Expanding on topics from the concreate to the abstract, this course continues to equip students with appropriate linguistic and cultural knowledge and skills through interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational modes of communication.     
This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.
This course is closed to native speakers of Chinese and heritage speakers except with written permission from the coordinator of the Chinese track.

The objective of this content-based language course is two-fold: students with intermediate-high level and above will continue to build their language skills in business contexts through a curriculum design that incorporates interpretive, interpersonal and presentational modes of communication in the target language. Students will also acquire knowledge and understanding of how social and cultural factors come into play in doing business in China, thereby gaining sharper cultural awareness about Chinese business in the context of globalization. Course materials include actual business cases of Chinese companies as well as analysis of strategies adopted by multinational companies that have successfully entered the competitive market in China.
Students who have completed CN 356X cannot receive credit for CN 3561.

This advanced language course aims to develop students’ in-depth understanding and perspectives on social-cultural issues in contemporary Greater China. Building upon the foundation of CN3543 Advanced Chinese III, this course continues to advance students’ language skills through the exploration of topics that reflect the transitional changes of traditional Chinese cultural values due to the influence of Western culture and the impact of globalization. Students will learn essential vocabulary to understand, discuss, analyze, and examine the unique cultural phenomena associated with the selected topics through comparison with their own culture. Students who have completed CN 357X cannot receive credit for CN 3571.

In this introductory course, students will learn about the craft of writing poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. They will study contemporary published poems, essays, and stories written by international masters and use these texts as inspiration for their own creative work across genres. They will also read and respond to the work of their peers. Through an equally balanced studio/research approach, this course will develop students’ skills as literary critics and creative writers.
Students may not receive credit for both EN 1219 and EN 121X.

This introductory course gives students a basic understanding of theatrical productions and theatre vocabulary through an investigation of how a play moves from the page to the stage. By touching on the various sub-disciplines of theatre (including playwriting, design, performance, and more), this course explores the role of theatre and art in the world.
Students may not receive credit for EN 1221 & TH 1221.

This introductory course gives students a basic understanding of theatrical productions and theatre vocabulary through an investigation of how a play moves from the page to the stage. By touching on the various sub-disciplines of theatre (including playwriting, design, performance, and more), this course explores the role of theatre and art in the world.
Students may not receive credit for EN 1221 & TH 1221.

This course is an introduction to Shakespeare, his theatre, and some important concepts of his world. Students will have the opportunity to sample representative Shakespearean tragedies, comedies, and histories. In addition to class discussions and scene work, students will be able to enhance their readings by analyzing video recordings of the plays.

This course surveys the poems of our language. From the Anglo-Saxon poems to the popular verse of Tennyson, the songs and the poets are legion: Chaucer, Raleigh, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Herrick, Milton, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Tennyson, Browning, and Hopkins. The England that nourished these writers will be viewed through their ballads, lyrics, sonnets, epigrams, and epics. “Not marble nor the gilded monuments of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.”

This course introduces the student to a variety of critical perspectives necessary to an understanding and appreciation of the major forms, or genres, of literary expression (e.g., novel, short story, poetry, drama, and essay). Writing and class discussion will be integral parts of this course.

This course examines the formation and history of the African American literary tradition from slave narratives to contemporary forms in black popular culture. The course will explore some genres of African American writing and their relation to American literature and to black cultural expression. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course examines literary works of multiple genres produced by Chicana/o writers from WWII to today,  with particular emphasis on the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the contemporary relevance of issues such as land and education rights for immigrants. Writers studied may include the novelist Sandra Cisneros, the cultural critic Gloria Anzaldúa, the memoirist JP Brammer, and the short-story writer Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This course will emphasize civic involvement and will offer students the opportunity to engage with political activists and other public groups involved with immigration in America. Students cannot receive credit for both this class (EN 1259) and EN125x, Intro to Contemporary Chicana/o Literature. This course will be first offered in 2024-2025 and alternate years  thereafter.

This writing workshop aims to help students develop or improve the skills of written expression, emphasizing presentation and discussion of original work. Offerings may include themed courses covering multiple genres or specialized workshops in single genres of focus such as fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. This course may be repeated for different genres.

This course begins with selections from John Milton’s provocative version of Adam and Eve’s original sin in Paradise Lost. Focusing on Milton, John Donne and others, we will examine the theme of sin—political, religious, and sexual— in early modern literature. The events of the English Reformation profoundly influenced these writers, and their personal struggles against societal institutions have greatly influenced subsequent literary expressions of rage and rebellion. Students will also be reading texts by contemporary writers such as David Mamet which address the theme of sin in the modern city. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

With his many references to syphilis, Bubonic Plague, mental illness, and other serious afflictions, Shakespeare illuminates the harsh reality of living in 16th and 17th-century England. This course explores Shakespeare through the historical lens of early modern medical practice. Students will study plays such as Hamlet, Richard III, and The Winters Tale alongside accounts by surgeons, doctors, midwives, and others who diagnosed, dissected, and (sometimes) cured. We will also pay close attention to the superstitions, misinformation, and downright strange treatments included in some of these accounts. Through creative and expository writing, students will analyze the impact of disease on Shakespeare’s writing. This course is intended for students interested in any one of the following: drama, English literature, the history of medicine, biology, other fields of life sciences. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Selected works of fiction which appeared after World War I will be the focus of this course. Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, or other authors of the early modern period will be studied, but significant attention will also be given to contemporary novelists, such as Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and Toni Morrison. The cultural context and philosophical assumptions of the novels will be studied as well as their form and technique. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will examine the many ways in which dramatists, essayists, filmmakers, novelists, and poets have articulated ecological and environmental concerns. Topics to be discussed may include changing attitudes towards terms like ‘nature’ and ‘wilderness’, the effects of technology on the environment, issues of conservation and sustainability, the dynamics of population growth, the treatment of animals, the production of food, and the presence of the spiritual in nature. Materials will include works by writers such as Wendell Berry, Rachel Carson, Winona LaDuke, Wangari Maathai, Thomas Malthus, Arne Naess, Nicolas Roeg, and Gary Snyder. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Students in this course will have the opportunity to read two major masterpieces of English fiction the way they should be read: slowly, carefully, and with relish. Victorian novels are long and the term is short, but by reading novels in the way in which they were read by their original readers—serially—we can experience masterworks by Charles Dickens and George Eliot at comparative leisure, examining one serial installment in each hour of class.

A survey of major modern British authors. The works of many of these writers reflect the political, religious, and social issues of the twentieth century. New psychological insights run parallel with experiments in the use of myth, stream of consciousness, and symbolism. Authors studied may include Hardy, Conrad, Owen, Joyce, Lawrence, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, and Orwell. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Participants in this course will examine outstanding works of 19th-century English poetry and fiction, and consider questions of identity, beauty, judgment, and social responsibility. Writers covered may include such figures as Jane Austen, John Keats, Charles Dickens, and Robert Browning.
This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course focuses on the problem of how to live in the modern world. Emphasis will be placed on the way moral issues evolve within the complications of individual lives, as depicted in fiction. Such authors as Conrad, Kesey, Camus and Ellison show characters struggling with the questions of moral responsibility raised by love, religion, death, money, conformity.

This course surveys the ways in which modern literature has represented science and scientists. Beginning with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the origin of what Isaac Asimov calls the “damned Frankenstein complex” is examined. More complex presentations of science and scientists occur in twentieth-century works like Brecht’s Galileo, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The course covers major modern works of fiction and drama, including such literary forms as the play, the novel of ideas, and the utopian novel. Attention is focused on the themes (ideas) in, and the structure of, these works.

An investigation into one or more major movements or periods in American literature, focusing on aesthetic formations such as sentimentalism, realism, modernism, or postmodernism, on cultural formations from Transcendentalism and Regionalism through the Lost Generation and the Harlem Renaissance to the Beat Generation and the Native American Renaissance, or delivered through chronological engagements by century, by decade, or by other suitable framings attending to specific communities or sets of writers. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course will examine literary works from two or more languages, modes, and/or traditions, often connecting these works to other works of expressive culture in the visual and performing arts. Some iterations may turn on a broader survey, others on more particular engagements with wider inflections. Material introduced beyond English will rely on translations but may also include attention to work in the original language. Attention to drama, poetry, and prose from various periods and places will encourage students to connect themes across cultural, formal, and historical divides, utilizing interdisciplinary and theoretical methods in the process of their reading and writing. Students who have previously taken EN 230X cannot take this course for credit. This course may be repeatable for different topics.

This course introduces students to a variety of technical theatre disciplines, including scenery, lighting, sound, props, and costumes. Students will explore each technical element through a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and workshops, and will demonstrate their learning through group projects and other hands-on activities. 
Students may not receive credit for TH 2500 and either EN 2222 or TH 2222.

This course introduces students to a variety of technical theatre disciplines, including scenery, lighting, sound, props, and costumes. Students will explore each technical element through a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and workshops, and will demonstrate their learning through group projects and other hands-on activities. 
Students may not receive credit for TH 2500 and either EN 2222 or TH 2222.

This advanced workshop in creative writing allows for sustained attention to the writing of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, or multiple genres. Investigation will also focus on the reading and discussion of exemplary literary works, with an emphasis on contemporary practice. Regular writing exercises and class visits from established authors will help to create a community of writers grounded in diverse methods. This course may be repeated for different genres.

This course examines the concept of “strange” and the figure of the “stranger” in a wide range of written and visual texts, from Shakespeare to Albert Camus to the 2017 horror/comedy film Get Out. We will focus on depictions of religious, racial, gendered, and other forms of alienation and otherness, from both an insider’s and outsider’s perspective. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Take a vacation from the rational, quantifiable, and verifiable, and dip your toes into the ineffable. Unbridled, boundary-bending, and binary-busting, supernatural literature makes space for lived (and undead) experiences outside the mainstream. This course will examine the following questions: How are supernatural stories culturally situated? How is language used in supernatural texts, and when and why does it break down? What can we learn about the “real” through studying the fantastic? Course content will vary with each offering. Potential areas of focus might include magical realism, the supernatural and folklore, the gothic and gender, the gothic and race, the contemporary ghost story worldwide, and monstrosity and the grotesque. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course examines the poetries and poetics of various modern and contemporary American traditions, focusing on schools and styles from the Modernists and Objectivists through the Black Arts Movement, Confessional Poetry, the New York School, and the San Francisco Renaissance. Attention will also be given to recent innovations in digital poetry, multiethnic poetry, and performance poetry. The course will include poets such as Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Bishop, A.R. Ammons, Joy Harjo, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Myung Mi Kim, and Saul Williams. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

EN faculty with expertise in American literature will select one or more authors to focus on in this course. Examples of such authors are James Baldwin, Octavia Butler, William Faulkner, Anne Sexton, and August Wilson. These authors often criticize the political and social status quo, addressing inequities in matters of class, gender, race, and sexuality. The intention is for students to focus on such authors in depth, in preparation for their final seminar or practicum. Faculty offering the course will indicate which authors they intend to present on the HUA website well before student signups, to permit efficient program planning. This course will be offered in 2022- 23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course may be repeated for different topics.

Participants in this seminar will examine the English novel from its origins in the eighteenth century to its twentieth-century forms, exploring the rich variety of ways a writer may communicate a personal and social vision. The novels treat love, travel, humor, work, adventure, madness, and self-discovery; the novelists may include Fielding, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Wodehouse, and Woolf.

This course offers a deep exploration of the vibrancy of Black American life and thought through the lens of African American literature. Students will actively and critically read selected African American texts considering the historical contexts in which they were produced as well as analyzing their formal elements. While the course will focus on Black American experience in the United States, it will do so in dialogue with the larger diasporic Black experience. The topics will rotate regularly, alternating between close examination of different authors, genres, themes, or movements while preparing students for the HUA capstone experience. Examples of authors are Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson. Examples of genres are slave narratives, sermons, autobiographies, dramas, spirituals, blues, and drama. Examples of themes are race and the law, freedom struggles, and intersections between race and class, gender, and sexuality. Examples of movements are the Black Arts Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Black Lives Matter Movement. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course investigates American literature as it relates to a specific theme, issue, controversy, or question. Attention might center upon topics from childhood and friendship to captivity and freedom, and from immigration and labor to law and war, drawing on or even focusing more decidedly upon aspects of identity including but not limited to class, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexuality Authors might extend from nineteenth century exemplars including Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman to twentieth and twenty-first century figures such as Philip K. Dick, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Richard Wright. This course may be repeated for different topics.

Intensive language course that explores topics such as self, family, and community in German-speaking contexts. The course addresses the questions “Who am I?” and “How does my immediate environment shape my identity?” By working alone and in small groups with level-appropriate texts in German such as short readings, music, images, and videos, students develop their interpretive, interpersonal and presentational competence at a survival level in meaningful everyday contexts.

Broadens the themes of Elementary German I from one’s immediate environment to aspects of everyday life related to work and leisure (e.g. food, shopping, living accommodations). Students develop their interpretive, interpersonal and presentational competence in meaningful contexts by working intensively with longer authentic texts in German such as websites, catalogs, short prose texts, music, images and videos. Through communicative tasks and presentations in small groups related to everyday life, students develop skills necessary to negotiate a variety of cultural settings in the German-speaking world.

Builds on the foundation of Elementary German by moving from the level of immediate everyday contexts towards broader cultural phenomena. Students investigate cultural practices, attitudes and products related to a variety of topics such as health and hygiene, environmental protection, travel and transportation, childhood, work, and education. Work with language supports interpretations of short texts (written, viewed, and heard), small-group interactions that navigate real-life situations, and presentations on key cultural products of the German-speaking world.

This course bridges the intermediate and advanced levels by preparing students to interpret longer texts (written, viewed, and heard) about the German-speaking world’s history, contemporary life, and visions for the future. In small groups, students navigate meaningful real-life situations in order to develop the advance-level skill of narration in all time frames (past, present and future), as well as the historical knowledge to contextualize the cultural products and practices of the German-speaking world.

The first course in the second-year sequence explores innovation in social, political, and scientific contexts in the German-speaking world. Students interpret increasingly sophisticated media (news segments, interviews, short literary texts, historic documents, songs, etc.), realize complex communicative tasks in meaningful contexts, and present on various cultural products and historical events. At the end of this course students will be able to use written and spoken German to narrate complex events in multiple time frames. Special emphasis on the development of written communication skills.

How are national identities communicated, contested, and settled? This course foregrounds the diversity of German culture as disseminated through various media. Students will interpret and present on longer texts (e.g. film, music, literature), and discuss these in the form of complex written and oral discourse. At the end of the course students will be able to communicate in German about topics and issues (e.g. history, citizenship, migration) central to cultural discourse in the German-speaking world. Special emphasis on the development of written communication. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum Requirement.

Conducted entirely in German, the course presents an overview of the development of modern Germany and its culture since the founding of the Second Empire. Background readings in German and English provide the basis for in-class discussion of selected authentic German texts of various kinds: literary works, official documents, political manifestos, letters, and diaries. At least one film will be shown. A number of recurring themes in German culture will inform the content of the course: authoritarianism versus liberalism, idealism versus practicality, private versus public life. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

The content of the seminar will change from year to year. The course will focus either on a single author, a form (e.g., lyric poetry, fairy tales, graphic novels), a literary movement (e.g., Romanticism, New Objectivity, Pop), or a particular literary problem (e.g., translation, writing and genocide, exile). This course may be repeated for different topics. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement. This course will be offered in 2025-26, and in alternating years thereafter.

Since its beginnings in the early 20th century, film has been a powerful medium for popular entertainment as well as a potent expression of society’s dreams, fears, and values. Films made in the German-speaking countries are no exceptions, from early expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari through Nazi documentaries like Triumph of the Will to today’s feature films such as Grizzly Man and Run Lola Run! Many German directors have achieved international renown. This course, conducted in German, will examine representative German-language films from various perspectives: historical, socio-political, and thematic. Films will be shown in German with English subtitles. The course will include weekly screenings, discussion sessions, and substantial written assignments. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. Some sections of this course may be offered as Writing Intensive (WI).

An introduction to the history of the American city as an important phenomenon in itself and as a reflection of national history. The course will take an interdisciplinary approach to study the political, economic, social, and technological patterns that have shaped the growth of urbanization. In addition to reading historical approaches to the study of American urban history, students may also examine appropriate works by sociologists, economists, political scientists and city planners who provide historical perspective.

In this introductory course, we will trace the history of the United States and the world from the late nineteenth century to the present. A global approach to U.S. history offers new perspectives on international relations, war, migration, labor, race, gender, and democracy. By exploring case studies from around the world, we will also practice crucial historical skills: asking questions about change overtime, finding evidence about the contexts of decision-making, and presenting arguments in an engaging form.This course is excellent preparation for any of WPI’s international project centers.

An introduction to historical analysis through selected periods or themes in the history of America before the Civil War. A variety of readings will reflect the various ways that historians have attempted to understand the development of America.

This course introduces students to the major currents that have defined modern European History. Themes and topics will vary and may include the philosophical impact of science on modern thought, the development of liberalism and socialism, the crisis of culture in the twentieth century. Students read selections on major episodes in European history and develop their skills in critical thinking, analysis, oral and written argument. No prior knowledge of European history is required. Some sections of this course may be offered as Writing Intensive (WI).

An introduction to the questions, methods and source materials that shape historical studies of science and technology. Sections vary in content and emphases; some may explore the interplay of science and technology across time, while other sections might exclusively develop themes within either the history of science or the history of technology. Students can receive credit only once for HI 1330, 1331, or 1332.

Why do people organize and protest to change the world around them? This course takes a topical approach to introduce the historical questions, intersectional methods, and contemporary sources that shape the study of social movements on the political left and right. Balancing the exploration of the ideological, political, and economic roots of protest movements and the identities, strategies, and technologies that inspire individual and collective action, this course examines the varied responses that protest movements elicit from society and the structures of power from suppression to realization to cooptation. Although protests movements, such as abolitionist, populist, white supremist, Civil Rights, Black Power, feminist, gay liberation, anti-war, environmental, socialist, labor, and/or alt-Right movements, under consideration in this course will change, students can only receive credit for it once.

This introductory course reviews the history and legacies of Atlantic systems such a colonialism and migration that have connected Africa, the Americas, and Europe from the sixteenth century to the recent past. Taking a transregional approach to historical inquiry, the course places the Atlantic Ocean at its geographic center and explores the diverse people, cultures, ideologies, institutions, economies, and other phenomena that have traversed this ocean basin and connected the regions that line its shores. The course pays special attention to the technological, social, and political innovations, the systemic inequalities, and the heterogeneous notions of belonging that have emerged from transatlantic interactions and exchanges. The course can provide students with preparation for HUA depth in Global History and International and Global Studies as well as work at overseas project centers in regions often incorporated into Atlantic Worlds. No prior background is required.

An introduction to the questions, methods, and source materials that shape historical studies of the environment. This course will explore the influence of nature (i.e., climate, topography, plants, animals, and microorganisms) on human history and the reciprocal influence of people on nature.

This course surveys the interplay of social, economic, demographic, political and cultural forces in shaping the growth, decline and occasional rebirth of urban spaces. Emphasis is placed upon building chronological narratives while attending to the themes, approaches, and sources historians use to reconstruct the tangled infrastructures, stratified economies, segregated spaces and political/ administrative structures of cities. Geographies will vary across sections and topics may include Industrializing Cities, Race and Urban Space, Post-Industrial Cities, Urban Technological Infrastructures, or Social Justice in the City. Students can receive credit only once for HI 2310.

This course surveys early American history up to the ratification of the Constitution. It considers the tragic interactions among Europeans, Indians, and Africans on the North American continent, the growth and development of English colonies, and the revolt against the Empire that culminated in the creation of the United States of America.

This course surveys American history from the Presidency of George Washington to the Civil War and its aftermath. Topics include the rise of American democracy, the emergence of middle-class culture, and the forces that pulled apart the Union and struggled to put it back together.

This course surveys the transformation of the United States into an urban and industrial nation. Topics will include changes in the organization of business and labor, immigration and the development of cities, the peripheral role of the South and West in the industrial economy, politics and government in the age of “laissez-faire,” and the diverse sources and nature of late 19th- and early 20th-century reform movements.

This course surveys the major political, social, and economic changes of American history from 1920 to the present. Emphasis will be placed on the Great Depression, the New Deal, suburbanization, McCarthyism, the persistence of poverty, the domestic effects of the Vietnam war, and recent demographic trends.

This survey of American diplomatic history begins with World War I and World War II, continues through the early and later Cold War periods, including the Vietnam War, and concludes with an overview of 9/11 and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It includes traditional political and diplomatic history, but also broader conceptions of American foreign relations such as culture, economic development, and environment. It addresses the question of American empire, and stresses understanding U.S. policy and actions through a broad international perspective. This course is excellent preparation for any of WPI’s overseas project centers. Some sections of this course may be offered as Writing Intensive (WI). This course will be offered in 2022-23 and in alternating years thereafter.

This course treats law as a powerful social, economic and political phenomenon that cannot be fully understood apart from its history. Through a focus upon a particular theme and chronology, each section surveys the role of law (constitutional, statutory, regulatory and common) and legal institutions in shaping American society and culture, as well as how the law and its institutions have been shaped by individuals, advocacy groups, and broader social, cultural and political forces. Different sections of this course might explore constitutional law and social change (e.g. civil rights, abortion, and same sex marriage); criminal law and mass incarceration; law and the construction of race; law and gender; or patents, copyrights and intellectual property. This course may be repeated for different topics, and students who took HI 2317 may take HI 2318.

A survey of the major developments in European history from the nineteenth century to the present. The course will focus upon those factors and events that led to the formation of modern European society: revolutions, nationalism, industrialization, world wars, the Cold War, the creation of the European Union. No prior knowledge of European history is required. Especially appropriate for students interested in WPI’s global Project Centers in Europe. Students may not receive credit for HI 2320 and HI 2322.

A survey of some of the most important revolutionary movements of the twentieth century. We may consider topics such as racial, nationalist, feminist and non-violent revolutionary ideologies, communist revolution, the “green” revolution and cultural revolution. No prior knowledge of the history of revolutions is expected. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course takes a thematic approach to the history of European empires. Units focus upon important events and moments in European imperialism and decolonization from the perspective of both the colonizers and colonized. Specific topics may include slavery and emancipation, imperial racism, the civilizing mission, religious motivations, violence, gender and empire, disease and poverty, environmental degradation, empires at war, and postcolonial legacies. Especially appropriate for students interested in projects centers located in Europe or formerly colonized areas. No prior knowledge required.
Students may not receive credit for both HI 2324 and HI 2329.

This course surveys the interplay of science, technology and culture in American national development. Emphasis is placed upon building chronological narratives while attending to the themes, approaches, and sources historians use to explore Americans’ enthusiastic but sometimes controversial embrace of science and technology. Chronologies and themes will vary across sections covering topics such as Science, Technology and Culture in Early America; Science, Technology in Industrializing America; Science and Technology in Post-1945 America; and Technology and Culture in the Rise of Urban America. This course may be repeated for different topics. No prior coursework or background in the history of science and technology is required.

This course examines the historical origins of contemporary global crises and political transformations. Students keep abreast of ongoing current events through periodical literature and explore the underlying long-term causes of these events as analyzed by scholarly historical texts. Topics will vary each time the course is taught but may include such topics as the following: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Democratization in Africa, the Developing World and Globalization. No prior knowledge of world history is required. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will explore two thousand years of Asian participation in an international system, in Asia and with the rest of the world. Whether ruled by Chinese, Turks, Mongols or Manchus, China has been the political and cultural center of East Asia. Understanding the role of this superpower is critical to Asian and world history. The course will focus on themes such as the cosmopolitan experience, the early development and application of ‘modern’ ideas such as bureaucracy, market economy, and paper currency, and the centrality of religious ideology as a tool in statecraft. No prior knowledge of Asian history is required. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

The Caribbean has been globally imagined and described as an everlasting Garden of Eden where the land, bodies, and cultures of its inhabitants are open to be consumed in various ways and where visitors can satisfy all their desires. In addition, hurricanes and other natural disasters have made headlines around the world, casting the region as a space of inevitable doom. But there is more to the story. In fact, the relationship between the U.S. and the Caribbean reveals an even more complex narrative characterized by imperialism, racism, migrations, and geopolitical strife. Through case studies, this course will interrogate the impact of U.S. imperialist stance in the Caribbean, as well as Caribbean peoples’ responses to that stance. By mapping out the many ways in which the histories of the U.S. and the Caribbean intersect, we will shape our own understanding of this relationship and assess its significance today.

This course surveys the major developments, research enterprise, controversies and cultural contexts of particular scientific fields while also engaging students in examining the questions, methods and sources that inform the history of science. Sections will vary in topic, focusing on the history of a subset selected from among the following fields: astronomy, cosmology, mathematics, biology, medicine, ecology, evolutionary ideas, the earth sciences, chemistry, physics, or the human sciences. This course may be repeated for different topics. No prior coursework or background in the history of science is required.

This course surveys the methods and sources that historians adopt to answer three questions central to environmental history: How have constantly changing natural environments shaped the patterns of human life in different regions? How have different human cultures perceived and attached meanings to the natural and built worlds around them, and how have those attitudes shaped their social, economic political, and cultural lives? Finally, how have people altered the world around them, and what have been the consequences of change for natural and human communities alike? Sections will vary in content and emphases alternating between North American, regional, or global approaches. This course may be repeated for different topics. No prior coursework or background in environmental history is required.

This seminar course examines topics related to gender and history. It seeks to examine gender-related theories and analytical concepts in the context of the historical periods and social movements from which contemporary ideas about gender emerge. Specific themes and topics will vary by section and instructor, and may include: gender and war, cultural history of gender, gender and intersectionality, gender and colonialism/decolonization, issues of sexuality, women’s history, and issues of masculinity, among others. No prior background is required. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2021-22 and in alternating years thereafter.

This course focuses on modern capitalism as an economic, social, and cultural formation in global perspective. As capitalism has radically changed the way humans live and work, critics have articulated their various discontents. Topics to be discussed include colonialism, enslavement, industrialization, social movements, automation, climate change, and global inequality. In addition to our readings, students will directly engage with the rich materials on global labor history available at WPI and in Worcester. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar course examines topics in the cultural, socio-economic and political history of modern Europe. Topics may vary each year among the following: sport and society, film and history, nationalism, gender and class, political economy, environmental history Readings will include primary and secondary sources. This course may be repeated for different topics. No prior background is required. Students may not receive credit for both HI 3321 and HI 2921. This course will be offered in 2024-25 and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar course examines topics in the history of Latin America. It bases those topics on issues in the region that are of critical importance in the present, and it outlines the historical origins and interrogates the historical contexts of those issues. Topics and course materials may vary each year depending on the issues addressed. The broad themes with which these topics may engage include: science, technology, and development; energy, sustainability, and the environment; inequality and social justice; migration and mobility; U.S.-Latin American relations; democracy, populism and nationalism; the Cold War and the post-Cold War global order. Readings will include primary and secondary sources. No prior background is required. This course will be offered in 2021-22 and in alternating years thereafter.

A seminar course on analysis of selected aspects of social organization in American history, with emphasis on the composition and changing societal character of various groups over time, and their relationship to larger social, economic, and political developments. Typical topics include: communities, families, minorities, and women. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This seminar course considers the social, political, and intellectual history of the years surrounding American independence, paying particular attention to the changes in society and ideas that shaped the revolt against Great Britain, the winning of independence, and the creation of new political structures that led to the Constitution.

In this advanced seminar course, students will explore one aspect of twentieth-century U.S. history in more depth. Topics vary each year but may include political movements such as the New Deal or the Civil Rights Movement, an aspect of American foreign policy such as the Cold War, a short time period such as the 1960s, a cultural phenomenon such as consumption, or a geographical focus such as cities or New England. The course will require substantial reading and writing. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

In this seminar course, students will explore one aspect of U.S. or global environmental history in more depth. Topics vary each year but may include environmental thought, environmental reform movements, comparative environmental movements, natural disasters, the history of ecology, built environments, environmental justice, New England environmental history, or the environmental history of South Asia or another region of the world. The course will require substantial reading and writing. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2022- 23, and in alternating years thereafter.

A seminar course on the relationships among science, technology, and society in European culture, examined through a series of case studies. Topics from which the case studies might be drawn include: global scientific expeditions, mapmaking, and European imperialism; the harnessing of science for industrial purposes; the role of the physical sciences in war and international relations; the function of the science advisor in government; the political views and activities of major scientists such as Einstein. Students will use primary sources and recently published historical scholarship to analyze the case studies. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar will examine a particular issue or theme in the history of American science and technology. Topics will vary from year to year, but may include: technology and the built environment; science, technology and the arts; communications of science and scientific issues with the larger public; technology and scientific illustration; science in popular culture; science and the law; or close examination of episodes in the history of American science and technology such as the American Industrial Revolution; science and technology in the years between the world wars; the Manhattan Project; science and the culture of the Cold War; or science, technology and war in American history. This course will require significant reading and writing. This course may be repeated for different topics.

A seminar course on the relationships among science, technology, and society from cultures outside Europe and North America, examined through a series of case studies. Topics from which the case studies might be drawn include: Chinese medicine and technology; Arabic mathematics, medicine, and astronomy; Indian science and technology (including, for example, metalworking and textile production); Mayan mathematics and astronomy; Polynesian navigation; various indigenous peoples’ sustainable subsistence technologies (e.g. African agriculture, Native American land management, aboriginal Australian dreamtime). This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar course examines topics in the history of European imperialism, colonialism, and the postcolonial aftermath. Topics vary each year among the following: culture and imperialism, the expansion of Europe, the economics of empire, travel and exploration narratives, imperialism in literature and anthropology, decolonization in Asia and Africa, postcolonial studies. Readings will include primary and secondary sources. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar course examines topics in the cultural, socio-economic, religious and political history of East Asia. Topics vary each year and may include the following: nationalism and the writing of history, travel and exploration narratives, cross-cultural contact, the role of religion and ideology in political history, development and the environment in Asia, film and history, and the place of minorities and women in Asian societies. This course may be repeated for different topics.

The Pacific Ocean covers a third of our earth’s surface. Home to over a thousand languages and thousands of years of rich histories, the Pacific has been and continues to be one of the most diverse regions of cultural, social, economic, and environmental interaction. The course focuses on both local connections to the Pacific, such as the New England whaling industry, and global issues, such as the impact of climate change on Pacific islanders. Other topics to be discussed include the environment, oceanic navigation, arts, colonialism, race, and migration. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

How do medicine, disease, health, and healing shape our experience of what it is to be human? What do literature, poetry, popular culture, or religious and spiritual traditions have to do with modern medical practices and institutions? This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of medical humanities, and its core set of concepts, questions, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks. The course will bring together and familiarize students with work from diverse fields of study, including comparative literature, the visual and performing arts, history of medicine, cultural studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, ethics, and philosophy. Potential course topics include the production and circulation of medical knowledge, embodied experiences of illness and affliction, cross-cultural perspectives on sickness and healing, the social and interpersonal dimensions of illness, illness and medicine in popular culture, and the ways in which humanistic inquiry can enhance and improve contemporary medical practices. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This survey course introduces students to the content and contours of Africana Studies as a discipline and highlights its genealogy, development, and future challenges. The course focuses on the black experience in its historical and current unfolding in the Americas, particularly the United States, the Caribbean, Canada, and Latin America. It also gives attention to how members of the Diaspora have engaged with Africa, and to how Africans have responded to the history of enslavement, colonialism, racism, and globalization. In this course, scholarly literature, film, music, photography, and artwork will be used to develop a critical understanding of the experience of Afro-descended peoples around the world.

This interdisciplinary course introduces students to a number of basic American Studies methodologies. Emphasis will vary according to the instructor, but usually the course will cover the following: the textual and contextual analysis (at the community, national, and transnational levels) of literary works; the relationships between the literary, performing, and visual arts in a specific time period; the analysis of radio, film, television, and digital media forms at the level of production and reception; the mediation and remediation of cultural, social, and political history. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This foundational course offers an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of gender, sexuality and women’s studies. The course fosters critical examination of gender, sexuality and women and asks how the interlocking systems of oppression, including colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ethnocentrism, shape people’s lives, and how individuals and groups have worked to resist these oppressions. Potential course topics include histories of gender activism, gender, sexuality and their relationships to the law, religion, reproduction, education, technology, and mental health, globalization and transnational experiences, and the role of popular culture. No prior background is required. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Topics in Medical Humanities provides students with opportunities to investigate the human (cultural, religious, historical, philosophical) dimensions of medicine, illness, and healing, from various perspectives in the humanities. Specific themes and topics will vary by section and instructor, and may include both historical and contemporary concerns, consideration of local, national, and/or global scales, and interdisciplinary methods and pedagogies drawn from a range of fields, such as comparative literature, the visual and performing arts, history of medicine, cultural studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, ethics, and philosophy. Students will analyze interactions between human beings and their environments, the production and circulation of medical and psychiatric knowledge, and historical, sociological, artistic, and literary considerations of medicine, health, and healing. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course provides an introductory window into the history and theory of film, and may cover genres from short films, silent films, animated films, documentary films, and experimental films to historical and literary adaptations, science fiction films, screwball comedies, thrillers, and westerns. In addition, attention may be given to representative directors, significant theories of film, national traditions of filmmaking, and recent convergences between film forms and digital media. Directors covered may include Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, and Alfred Hitchcock. Film theorists covered may include Stanley Cavell, Sergei Eisenstein, and Trinh T. Minh-ha. This course will be offered in 2022-23 and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will examine works of film from multiple continents, drawing on film criticism and theory and attending to the development of film industries in several different cultural contexts and national traditions. Some iterations may turn on a broader survey, others on more particular engagements with wider inflections. For example, an offering emphasizing African film might attend not only to films made on the African continent but also to films emerging from the African diaspora in the Americas, and an offering emphasizing Italian film would also attend not only to the films made on the Italian peninsula but also to films emerging from the Italian diaspora in Australia and the United States. This course will be offered in 2021-2022, and in alternating years thereafter.

The study and practice of STEM-inism centers the equal participation and representation of all social groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In particular, this course highlights the concepts, theories, and practices of feminism into its understanding of STEM-inism as a field of inquiry. This course provides an overview of the history of female and non-binary contributors and contributions to this field of study and practice, ranging from Hypatia to Ada Lovelace to NASA visionary Katherine Johnson to queer and trans STEM visionaries Martine Rothblatt, Joan Roughgarden, and Lynn Conway. This course may also consider the following topics: the gender gap in STEM fields, biases in medical research, sexual harassment, eugenics, reproductive justice, transgender rights, and contemporary social movements. The course will also incorporate a deliberate analysis of intersecting identity categories, including race, class, sexuality, religion, and ability. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Bringing together transnational, postcolonial, and indigenous feminist and queer lines of thought, this course provides a global perspective on the interdisciplinary field of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. Motivated by the idea that marginalized peoples - including women, those who identify as non-binary, and ethnic, religious, and economic minorities - share common experiences of exclusion and common stories of resistance, this course fosters critical examination of the relationship between gender, sexuality, feminism, colonialism, and racism. It may consider this intersection through case studies from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East with particular attention to places that host WPI project centers. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course is required of students accepted to off-campus Humanities and Arts centers and programs. The course introduces students to methods for site-specific research, project-design, and analysis related to humanities and arts study. It also develops HUA disciplinary skills appropriate both to the projects students have selected and to the culture of the project center where they will be working. Students learn to develop project objectives, milestones, and deliverables in their topic areas related to their forthcoming onsite work and expectations. Students make presentations, write an organized project proposal, and develop a deliverable design for reporting their project findings. This course is a pre-requisite for off-campus Humanities and Arts project center study only. This credit will not count toward the Humanities and Arts requirement.

This course uses interdisciplinary, thematic, and case study approaches to explore sexuality in the modern world. It takes as its starting point the understanding that sex and power are interrelated and that they manifest differently in different social and cultural contexts (including spaces and places to which WPI students may travel as part of their global projects experience). Further, this course recognizes that the categorization, experiences, and treatment of queer persons and bodies and non-normative sexuality have changed over time and space, as have sexual mores and conceptualizations of “purity” and “deviance,” which are linked to class, race, dis/ability, and power relations within and between states. This course may include the study of the history of sexuality in the United States and globally; national and international activism around sexual liberation and LGBTQ+ pride; religion and sexuality; the relationship of LGBTQ+ activism to other civil rights movements; sex work; sexual violence; cultural representations of queer and non-normative sexualities, and “anti-genderism” and authoritarian populism. The expected enrollment is 20, and the course type is Lecture/Discussion. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course will provide students participating in a HUA Project Center with a framework for investigating a particular cultural site, and to define a unique set of humanities and arts learning goals through experiential learning. Experiential learning means learning from experience or learning by doing. Experiential education immerses learners in an experience and then encourages reflection about the experience to develop new skills, new attitudes, or new ways of thinking. This course is structured in a self-directed manner in which students select a humanities/arts topic or theme, explore and experience arts and cultural sites related to that theme, then engage in self-reflection and self-evaluation of their learning.

Investigations into film studies that address specific directors, genres, national/regional traditions, periods, theories, and/or theorists. Attention might center upon Hitchcock, Kurosawa, or Varda; on the documentary, the romantic comedy, the science fiction film, or the western; on Cuban, Italian, Korean, or West African film, on the silent-to-sound transition of a century ago, or the traditionally- to digitally-animated transition of this century; on apparatus, or auteur, or feminist, or psychoanalytic film theory; or via the work of Cavell, Deleuze, Mulvey, or Žižek, for example. This course may be repeated for different topics. This course will be offered in 2024-25, and in alternating years thereafter.

This seminar serves as the culmination for a student’s Humanities and Arts Requirement. The seminar provides opportunities for sustained critical inquiry into a focused thematic area. The seminar seeks to help students learn to communicate effectively, to think critically, and to appreciate diverse perspectives in a spirit of openness and cooperation through research, creativity, and investigation. The specific theme of each seminar will vary and will be defined by the instructor. Prior to enrolling in the seminar, a student must have completed five courses in Humanities and Arts, at least two of which must be thematically related and at least one of which must be at the 2000-level or above.

The practicum serves as the culmination for a student’s Humanities and Arts Requirement. The practicum provides opportunities for sustained critical inquiry into a focused thematic area. The practicum seeks to help students learn to communicate effectively, to think critically, and to appreciate diverse perspectives in a spirit of openness and cooperation through research, creativity, and investigation. The specific theme of each practicum will vary and will be defined by the instructor. Prior to enrolling in the practicum, a student must have completed five courses in Humanities and Arts, at least two of which must be thematically related and at least one of which must be at the 2000-level or above. Consent of the instructor is required for enrollment.

Each fall the American Antiquarian Society and five Worcester colleges sponsor a research seminar at the Antiquarian Society library. The seminar is conducted by a scholar familiar with the Society’s holdings in early American history, and the seminar topic is related to his or her field of research. Selection is highly competitive. The ten participating students are chosen by a screening committee made up of representatives of the five participating colleges: Assumption College, Clark University, College of the Holy Cross, WPI, and Worcester State College. The seminar topic and research methods combine several disciplines, and students from a wide variety of majors have participated successfully in this unique undergraduate opportunity.

Through Latin American and Caribbean films, and other media sources, this course studies images, topics, and cultural and historical issues related to modern Latin American and the Caribbean. Within the context and influence of the New Latin American Cinema and/or within the context of the World Wide Web, radio, newspapers, and television the course teaches students to recognize cinematographic or media strategies of persuasion, and to understand the images and symbols utilized in the development of a national/regional identity. Among the topics to be studied are: immigration, gender issues, national identity, political issues, and cultural hegemonies. Taught in advanced level Spanish. May be used toward foreign language Minor, or Major. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

The basis of this course is a comparative study and analysis of specific Latin American and Caribbean business practices and environments, and the customs informing those practices. ID 3526/SP 3526 focuses on countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. The course’s main objective is to study communication strategies, business protocol, and negotiation practices in the countries mentioned above. Through oral presentations and written essays, students will have the opportunity to explore other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Taught in advanced level Spanish. May be used toward foreign language Minor, or Major. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

The course focuses on the linguistic concepts, terminology, and grammar involved in business and technical Spanish. Students will be required to produce and edit business documents such as letters, job applications, formal oral and written reports, etc. The objective of this course is to help students develop the basic written and oral communication skills to function in a business environment in Latin America and the Caribbean. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

A survey of Caribbean literature and arts that takes a multimedia approach to examining the different voices that resonate from the Spanish Caribbean and what appears to be a constant search for identity. By studying the works of major authors, films, music and the plastic arts, we will examine the socio-cultural context and traditions of this region in constant search for self-definition. Special attention will be given to the influential role ethnicity, colonialism, gender and socio-economic development play in the interpretation of works from Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Venezuela as well as those of the Caribbean diaspora. This course is taught in Spanish. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Through Spanish films, and other media sources, this course studies images, topics, and cultural and historical issues that have had an impact in the creation of a modern Spanish nation. This course focuses on current political and ideo-logical issues (after 1936), the importance of Spanish Civil War, gender identity, and class, cultural and power relationships. This course is taught in Spanish. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This course introduces students to the field of Latino studies, paying particular attention to the cultural productions of U.S. Latinos in film, theater, music, fiction writing and cultural criticism. At the same time that this course reflects upon a transnational framework for understanding the continuum between U.S. Latinos and Latin American/Caribbean communities, we closely examine more U.S. based arguments supporting and contesting the use of Latino as an ethnic-racial term uniting all U.S. Latino communities. We examine the ways in which U.S. Latinos have manufactured identities within dominant as well as counter cultural registers. In this course, special attention is given to the aesthetics of autobiography and to how Latino writers experiment with this genre in order to address changing constructions of immigration, language, exile, and identity. This course is taught in English. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This course will introduce key narrative concepts and skills necessary to craft linear and branching experiences in games and interactive media. These lessons can be of fundamental value to all interactive media and any development role. Topics covered may include world-building, writing within intellectual property, lore creation, environmental storytelling, and quest design. Students will work in small groups throughout the course to provide feedback and practice reciprocal creative roles in narrative creation. 

Students may not receive credit for both 2450 and IMGD/WR 3400.

This writing-intensive course reinforces narrative skills to achieve proficiency in  character creation and dialogue for interactive media, including a survey of character writing techniques across different media and an examination of what changes when interactivity is added. Coursework will involve major forms of game writing, suitable for inclusion in a portfolio. Topics covered may include character exposition, development of rich playable and non-playable characters, short voice-over audio, interactive dialogue and interactive character arcs, and game character design. 

Students may not receive credit for both IMGD/WR 3450 and IMGD/WR 2400.

An introduction to the main concepts, tools, fields of study, global problems, and cross-cultural perspectives that comprise international and global studies. No prior background is required. Especially appropriate for students interested in any of WPI’s global Project Centers.

This course will explore Asia through an interdisciplinary approach. We will examine tradition and modernity in some or all of four cultural regions—South Asia (India), East Asia (China),Southeast Asia (Vietnam or Thailand), Inner Asia (Tibet)—and globalization in Japan and/or Hong Kong. We will explore the cultural traditions of these various regions, paying special attention to history, religion, society. We will also consider modern developments in these same regions. The impact of colonialism, nationalism, revolution, industrialization and urbanization on the lives of Asian peoples will be illustrated through films and readings. No prior knowledge of Asian history or culture is expected.
Students may not receive credit for HU 1412 and INTL 1200.

This course reviews the past and present of South America, Central America and the Caribbean through an interdisciplinary approach. It examines historical and contemporary issues related to social mobilization, cultural innovation, political activism, economic development, and environmental sustainability through the critical analysis of books, films, and creative arts from and about the region. It also presents an overview of Latin American relations with other parts of the world through the region’s experiences with global culture, migration, imperialism, dependency, and entanglements with the United States. This course is especially appropriate for students who expect to complete their HUA, IQP, and/or MQP at WPI project centers in Latin America. No prior knowledge is expected.

This course examines the major theoretical and methodological approaches that characterize global studies. Since the end of the Cold War, new forms of transnational integration, interdependence and conflict have been considered examples of globalization. Yet this period is not the first to undergo such transformation, and the “global” is often experienced in disparate ways around the world. This course examines the diverse ways of understanding globalization in the past and present. No prior background is required. Especially appropriate for students interested in any of WPI’s global Project Centers.

What is justice during an era of globalization? What are the rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups, nations, or supranational organizations in a world of profound inequalities of wealth or disparities of power? This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to historical, literary, religious, and ethical debates about global justice as well as the political and practical responses by various actors in the global South and North. Themes will vary each time the course is taught and may include globalization and distributive justice, climate justice, migration, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, human rights, ideology, reparations, racial or gender equity, nationalism and internationalism, and global democracy. No prior background required. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course uses interdisciplinary, thematic, and case study approaches in the examination of modern Latin America. It draws from the Latin America’s diversity to explore topics in the past and present that are critical for students’ development of a more advanced understanding of the region and its residents. The course may include the study of topics such as cultural production, nationalism, urban and rural development, migration, social and racial inequality, democracy, and social justice through the disciplines of history and global studies, literature and creative arts, social sciences, environmental studies, and others. Examples and case studies from the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries will be drawn especially from locations in Latin America where WPI maintains Global Project Centers. Students may not receive credit for both INTL 22IX and INTL 2310. This course will be offered in 2022-23 and in alternating years thereafter.

Latin America and the Caribbean are center stage in discussions about the inequalities and injustices of our current global ecological crisis. This course offers a two-fold approach. 1) It examines historical and contemporary processes producing—and contesting—environmental injustices in Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. 2) It analyzes the role of this region in the politics and policy of global environmental inequalities, including the region’s relationship with the United States, China, and other major international actors in issues such as climate change and sustainable development. This course is especially appropriate for students interested in environment and sustainability issues and international/global affairs, and for students who expect to complete their HUA, IQP, and/or MQP at WPI Project centers in Latin America or the Caribbean.

This interdisciplinary course takes a thematic approach to modern Africa. Topics and themes will vary each time the course is taught, and may include African kingdoms, the influence of Islam, the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, imperialism and decolonization, democratization, the politics of language, or African literature and art. Examples and case studies will include locations where WPI has programs in this diverse and dynamic region. No prior background required. Students may not receive credit for both INTL 2410 and HU 2441. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This interdisciplinary course takes a thematic approach to the Middle East, North Africa and Mediterranean region. Themes and topics will vary each time the course is taught, and may include religion and culture, national, ethnic and linguistic identities, the Mediterranean as a contact zone, U.S. political and economic involvement in the region, postcolonialism, war and conflict, migration, forced displacement and refugees, human rights, religious freedom, popular culture, the politics of Islam and secularism, the regional intersections of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, representations of Islam and other religions in visual culture, gender and media, and the circulation of U.S. culture. Examples and case studies will include locations where WPI has programs in this diverse and dynamic region. No prior background required.

This interdisciplinary course takes a thematic approach to contemporary Europe, especially since the establishment of European Union’s single market and common currency. Topics and themes will vary each time the course is taught and may include expansion of the EU and Euro, the impact of the free movement of goods, capital, services and people, migration and refugees, populist and nationalist movements, uneven development between regions within Europe, postcolonial relations with other parts of the world, and debates over national heritage and cultural change. Examples and case studies will include locations where WPI has programs in Europe. No prior background is required. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of Russian language, current events and culture. Students will be expected to steadily build essential vocabulary, learn basic grammar and forms of address; they will also review major events of Russian history from the rule of Peter the Great to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet era developments - all of which are key to understanding of Russia today. All through the course, students will have assigned media topics ranging from the student life in Russia, to aerospace exploration to agricultural breakthroughs and political turmoil. Materials under study will include Russian language textbooks and grammar guides, current media, and film. This course is appropriate for students interested in all WPI’s project centers in Eastern and Central Europe. This course will be offered in on-line format. Students may not receive credit for HU 2230 or HU 223X and INTL 2520.

This seminar course takes an interdisciplinary approach to historical and contemporary topics in global studies. Topics vary each year and may include international development, global inequality and justice, global public health, war and terrorism, international organizations and governance, humanitarianism and human rights, travel and tourism, the Anthropocene, climate change. This course may be repeated for different topics. No prior background is required. Especially appropriate for students interested in any of WPI’s global Project Centers.

Global projects are often life-changing and many students want to make sense of their experience and deepen global learning after returning to campus. This course provides opportunities for self-reflection about global experiences, for connecting with peers to share stories, and for translating these experiences into skills and future professional opportunities, which may include internships, scholarships, post-graduate study or employment. Students completing this seminar will have reflected on their global experiences, articulated and identified transferable skills garnered while away, and integrated these reflections into future academic plans, personal aspirations, or career goals.

In this capstone seminar in International and Global Studies, students will reflect on what they learned in previous global experiences and critically analyze contemporary global issues. The seminar aims to develop habits of lifelong learning as students articulate strategies for translating global experiences and expertise into personal values and professional opportunities in their future careers.

The goal of this course is to provide international students for whom English is not their native language the necessary skills for academic success through reading and writing assignments. Students will focus on developing vocabulary, critical reading, paragraph, and essay writing skills. Emphasis is also given to a review of English grammar through intensive written and oral practice to promote accurate and appropriate language use. Strongly recommended for first-year international non-native English speakers. Admission determined by Writing Placement or consent of the instructor.

This course is for international students who want to develop their academic writing skills through a sequence of essay assignments, with emphasis on rhetorical and grammatical issues particular to second language learners (ESL). Students will concentrate on producing coherent paragraphs, developing short essays in a variety of rhetorical modes, and improving mechanics (grammar and punctuation) and vocabulary usage. Both personal and academic writing assignments provide practice in the process of writing and revising work for content and form.

This course focuses on the speaking and listening skills that are necessary in an academic setting. Students practice formal and informal communication skills, including listening comprehension, pronunciation, and conversational and presentation skills. Students are encouraged to practice oral/aural exercises with the class as a whole and in small groups. Class work will build language skills and personal confidence levels.

In this course students will practice analytical reading, writing, and thinking intensively, through a variety of exercises and assignments. Emphasis is placed on using various methods of organization appropriate to the writer’s purpose and audience. Students will read and discuss a selection of non-fiction texts; these readings will form the basis for writing assignments in summary, critique, synthesis, and persuasion. The course also stresses the ability to understand, use, and document college-level non-fiction readings as evidence for effectively formulating and accurately supporting a thesis. This course is for international students who have already studied grammar extensively and need to refine the ability to produce acceptable academic English.

The goal of this course is to provide non-native English language students the skills to work with the highest levels of academic and professional reading. Students will develop active and critical reading skills by annotating self-selected academic journal articles, research reports, current news reports and autobiographical literature. Students will create annotated bibliographies, summaries, literature reviews, and critical reaction papers. Students will learn to analyze, synthesize and cite multiple sources when doing academic work. Students will also increase their vocabulary of high-level academic and professional terms. Note: Students who have taken ISE 282X may not receive credit for this course. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternate years thereafter.

This course, for international non-native English speakers, examines how the varieties of this global language can define identity, reflect social structures, and create and maintain power differentials. The course examines discourse, coded language and labels, accents, and strategies for communicating across cultures. We will explore the effects of World Englishes on our own minds, our classroom, our campus, our local community, and the global stage. This course satisfies the Inquiry Seminar requirement. Note: Students who have taken ISE 380X may not receive credit for this course. This course will be offered in 2021-2022, and in alternate years thereafter.

This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary music studies by focusing on the people who create musical meaning: performers, composers, listeners, patrons, writers, and more. As we analyze significant musical works, we will also learn about the broader cultural, historical, and social contexts in which they appeared, and the people involved in their creation – including women and people of color, who are often minimized in discussions of music history. Historical examples will be juxtaposed with contemporary musical works from an array of genres, allowing students to compare today’s musical cultures to past ones. Students will also analyze the role of music in their own lives.

This course introduces basic music theory concepts and helps students develop aural skills. Course topics include scales, intervals, chords, harmonic progressions, and rhythm. Activities include both written work in music notation and ear training exercises.

This course, designed for students who have little or no previous experience in music, will present an approach to the study of music that includes studying some concepts of music theory (rhythms, scales, keys, intervals, harmony). The course will also include a study of some of the great masterpieces though listening, reading, and discussion.

This course provides a historical survey of Western music from Medieval through Baroque periods with an emphasis on understanding stylistic traits and theoretical concepts of the eras. Topics include Gregorian chant and secular monophony; evolution of musical notation; development of polyphonic music; and vocal and instrumental genres such as mass, motet, madrigal, opera, cantata, sonata, and concerto, among others.

Students may not receive credit for both MU 2720 and MU 2001.

This course provides a historical survey of Western music from the Classical period to the present with an emphasis on understanding stylistic traits and theoretical concepts of the eras. Topics include the development of genres such as sonata, string quartet, concerto, symphony, symphonic poem, character piece, Lied, and opera; and 20th century trends of impressionism, primitivism, atonality, serialism, minimalism, aleatory music, and electronic music. Students may not receive credit for both MU 2721 and MU 2002.

Through an introduction to the musical contributions of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and others, students are exposed to the chronological development of the language of jazz. Each jazz era is examined in detail including the musical and social contexts which helped define it. Participants are expected to build aural skills with the goal of identifying specific historical periods through the recognition of particular musical characteristics. Students examine in depth one artist of their choice.

Students who have earned credit for MU 2719 cannot receive credit for MU 2010.

This course will explore the uniqueness of American popular music and its origins in the music of Africa and the folk music of Europe. Particular emphasis will be given to the origins and history of rock ‘n roll examining its roots in blues and early American popular music.

Students who have earned credit for MU 2722 cannot receive credit for MU 2020.

This course will investigate the sonic organization of musical works and performances, focusing on fundamental questions involved in the process of composition: How do I connect different ideas? How can I make a larger work out of smaller parts? How can I vary statements to create interest without compromising coherence? Where do I start? A progressive series of composition projects will build techniques in relevant areas including rhythm, harmony, melody, and form. Exercises in mechanics will be complemented by contemplation and discussion of artistic, aesthetic, and philosophical ideas that are equally important in the compositional process. We will examine the relationship between musical works and how they are communicated as instructions to others (e.g., orally, as symbols, prose, graphic images, or computer programs). Weekly listening, reading, and composition assignments draw on a broad range of musical styles and intellectual traditions from various cultures and historical periods.

Students who have earned credit for MU 2723 cannot receive credit for MU 2100.

Students will study specific characteristics of instruments and the voice to enable them to successfully arrange vocal and instrumental music. Students will need to possess a basic knowledge of music theory. Students may not receive credit for both MU 3002 and MU 2101.

This course will present ways to facilitate musicianship through the use of technology. Course topics include an introduction to music notation software, MIDI and audio recording, signal processing, and interactive music system programming. The course will address past, current, and emerging trends in music technology as they relate to facilitating an understanding of musical concepts. Students may not receive credit for both MU 2300 and MU 230X. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will explore automatic mechanical (electro)acoustic instruments, the people who design and build them, and the music that they make. The subject is inherently interdisciplinary, so activities will engage with historical, musical, and technical matters. The history of automatic mechanical instruments reaches back centuries: we will study past designs so that we can better contextualize modern efforts, which have progressed alongside increasing computational power and machine sensing abilities. We will consider the music that has been composed using such instruments including the works of Anthiel, Nancarrow, Ligeti, Gann, and Metheny. In doing so, we will develop the analytical tools required to understand such music and will illuminate relationships between electromechanical capabilities and musical ideas. The technical components of this course will introduce students to principles involved in instrument design, actuators, electronic circuits, microcontrollers, and musical programming environments. We will do all of this with our minds open to the question of how we can design new machines to make new kinds of music.

Students who have earned credit for MU 2801 cannot receive credit for MU 2301.

The Glee Club is one of WPI’s choral ensembles and the oldest student organization on campus. Glee Club performs many styles and periods of the vast repertoire of music featuring tenor and bass voices. Several times each year the Glee Club and Alden Voices (soprano and alto voices) join forces as the WPI Festival Chorus to perform major works of the repertoire. The Glee Club regularly performs on campus, throughout the Worcester area, and takes international and domestic tours. Rehearsals are held weekly. No audition is required. The course is open to all who are interested and sing in the tenor and bass range.

Alden Voices is one of WPI’s choral ensembles and also functions as a student organization on campus. Alden Voices performs many styles and periods of the vast repertoire of music featuring soprano and alto voices. Several times each year the Alden Voices and the Glee Club (tenor and bass voices) join forces as the WPI Festival Chorus to perform major works of the repertoire. Alden Voices regularly performs on campus, throughout the Worcester area, and takes international and domestic tours. Rehearsals are held weekly. No audition is required. The course is open to all who are interested and sing in the soprano and alto range.

The Chamber Choir is WPI’s smaller, audition-based, choral ensemble. This ensemble explores specific stylistic techniques as pertains to the music of the Renaissance, Baroque, twentieth century, jazz, and extended vocal techniques (electronic, digital and experimental). The ensemble meets weekly. Students are expected to be of the highest vocal caliber and should possess advanced sight-reading techniques. Open to all who are interested. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The Jazz Combo is a small ensemble that performs frequently on campus and on tour, playing jazz arrangements written for a small ensemble with major emphasis on improvisation. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble, know how to read music, and have experience with improvisation. This is an auditioned group. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The Jazz Ensemble is an intermediate level ensemble that performs traditional and contemporary big band literature with an emphasis on stylistically appropriate interpretation and performance practice. The ensemble performs frequently on campus and on tour. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble and to know how to read music. This is an auditioned group. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The Stage Band is an advanced level ensemble that performs traditional and contemporary big band literature with an emphasis on stylistically appropriate interpretation and performance practice. The ensemble performs frequently on campus and on tour. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble and to know how to read music. This is an auditioned group. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The African Drumming Ensemble meets weekly and performs both on campus and at community venues. Students of all experience levels are welcome to join. Auditions are not required for this ensemble, nor is the ability to read music. Traditional West African percussion styles are the primary focus of the ensemble, but other styles of music are also part of the ensemble’s repertory.

The Orchestra performs music for both a string ensemble and full orchestra on campus and on tour. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble and to know how to read music.

The String Quartet is an audition-based, select ensemble. Members are required to also participate in Orchestra. The quartet meets weekly and performs both on campus and on tour. Students are expected to be of the highest caliber of string players and know how to read music. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The Concert Band is a large ensemble that performs several concerts a year as well as on tour. Membership is open to those who play traditional wind, brass or percussion instruments. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble and to know how to read music.

The Brass Ensemble performs frequently on campus and on tour and is open to students who perform on trumpet, trombone, euphonium, French horn, tuba, or tympani. Renaissance antiphonal music is included in the repertoire. Rehearsals are held weekly. Students are expected to perform with the ensemble and to know how to read music. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

The Percussion Ensemble is an audition-based, select ensemble. The Percussion Ensemble performs a wide stylistic range of music from opera overtures to twentieth century minimalist compositions, to Caribbean songs. The ensemble meets weekly and performs on campus during the school year. Students must know how to read music. Permission of the instructor is necessary to register.

Students electing to complete their Humanities and Arts Requirement in music may, for one of their five courses, undertake 1/3 unit (normally at 1/12 unit per term) of private vocal or instrumental instruction. (Supplemental ensemble work is also strongly recommended.) The student must receive prior approval by a member of the WPI music faculty, and the instruction must be beyond the elementary level. Lessons involve a separate fee. Note that the maximum of 1/3 unit credit for lessons may be earned in addition to 1/3 unit credit for performance (see condition A or B below). Additional work, either in performance or lessons, may be acknowledged on the WPI transcript but will carry no WPI credit. Private lessons: voice, piano, organ, winds, brass, strings, and percussion. Students who sing or play a traditional band or orchestra instrument at the intermediate level or better may enroll for any of the ensembles listed. Students will register at the beginning of A term and receive 1/6 unit at the end of B term for participation in both terms. Students may also register at the beginning of C term and receive 1/6 unit at the end of D term for participation in both terms. Students may apply up to 1/3 unit of performing ensembles to the Humanities and Arts course requirement.

This course will introduce students to the basic elements of conducting, such as gesture, music analysis, score preparation, and rehearsal techniques. Each section of the course is paired with a large ensemble to provide practical experience and opportunities between the areas of choral, band, orchestral, and jazz music. Course meeting times include during and outside of these set rehearsal times.

Fundamentals II is a course on music theory at the advanced level beginning with secondary dominants and modulations and working through 19th-century chromatic harmony.

This course examines harmonic and melodic relationships as applied to jazz and popular music composition. Students are introduced to a wide range of jazz improvisational performance practices. Topics include compositional forms, harmonic structures, major and minor keys, blues, modal jazz, and re-harmonization techniques. Students are expected to have a basic knowledge of reading music.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3730 cannot receive credit for MU 3110.

This course will use music as a device to examine issues such as war, racial discrimination, refugee / homelessness, rehabilitation, and personal suffering. Works to be examined may include: Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem – critique and reactions to the World Wars; James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados – a work highlighting the tragedies of political repression in Latin America; and Joel Thompson’s Seven Last Words of the Unarmed – a piece of social justice that humanizes the black men who were unarmed, yet killed by authority figures. Along with the music, there may also be discussion of individual artists who have been outspoken about social issues, such as Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s, Dimitri Shostakovich under Stalin’s rule, and contemporary pop and jazz artists.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3510 cannot receive credit for MU 3201.

This course introduces students to selected musical cultures of the world, e.g., Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, from the ethnomusicological perspective by examining their musical styles as well as cultural and social contexts. Students will be expected to read materials in interdisciplinary areas, including musical ethnographies. No prior background in music is necessary.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3001 cannot receive credit for MU 3230.

This course will address concepts of composition through the use of technology. Students will examine existing compositions in electronic music, art music, popular music, film, multimedia, games, and more, and compose new works within these genres. Students will present newly composed works each class and discuss their aesthetic values, musical functions, and technical underpinnings.

Students who have earned credit for MU 3620 or MU 362X cannot receive credit for MU 3300.

This course examines topics in Music Technology in which the application of MIDI and MIDI systems play a significant role. Topics may vary each year among the following areas: sequencing, live performance, composition, and film scoring. Students can take MU 3301 only one time for credit, but a student interested in taking another version can take a second one as an ISU.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3614 cannot receive credit for MU 3301.

This course examines topics in Music Technology in which Digital Sound plays a significant role. Topics may vary each year among the following areas: digital editing, audio recording, film scoring, game audio, sound effects, audio production, theatrical sound, and surround sound. Students can take MU 3302 only one time for credit, but a student interested in taking another version can take a second one as an ISU.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3615 cannot receive credit for MU 3302.

This course examines topics in Music Technology in which Interactive Programming plays a significant role. Topics may vary each year among the following areas: real time performance controllers, algorithmic composition, interface design, sensor technology, and gesture detection. Students can take MU 3303 only one time for credit, but a student interested in taking another version can take a second one as an ISU.

Students that have earned credit for MU 3616 cannot receive credit for MU 3303.

This course provides an overview of key concepts, methods and authors in both fields. These introduce the student to the types of reasoning required for the pursuit of in-depth analysis in each discipline. Emphasis on topics and authors varies with the particular instructor.

This course provides an overview of key concepts, methods and authors in both fields. These introduce the student to the types of reasoning required for the pursuit of in-depth analysis in each discipline. Emphasis on topics and authors varies with the particular instructor.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy inquiring into the nature and conditions of knowledge and truth. Epistemologists ask such questions as: How should we define knowledge? Is knowledge generated by reason or experience? How has knowledge of nature been represented in Western philosophy and science? Is knowledge objective? What constitutes adequate justification for holding a belief? Do attributions of epistemic credibility vary among knowers from different social, cultural, and economic locations? How do power and ideology shape our experiences of the world? Students explore questions such as these and others as they submit their own beliefs about the nature of knowledge to philosophical examination. The course readings and situating context for inquiry will vary each time the course is taught, with each iteration focusing on a particular period or school of philosophical thought. Possible contexts include seventeenth century philosophy or other periods in the history of philosophy, critical theory, pragmatism, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and feminist philosophy. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course examines metaphysical and moral questions that philosophers have raised about social and political life. Among questions treated might be: What are the grounds, if any, of the obligation of a citizen to obey a sovereign? Are there basic principles of justice by which societies, institutions and practices are rightly evaluated? What is democracy, and how can we tell if an institution or practice is democratic? To what degree do economic institutions put limits on the realization of freedom, democracy and self-determination? Readings might include excerpts from the works of Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Marx, as well as numerous contemporary philosophers. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

The purpose of this course is to evaluate the social impact of technology in the areas of biology/biotechnology, biomedical engineering and chemistry. The focus of the course will be on the human values in these areas and how they are affected by new technological developments. The course will deal with problems such as human experimentation, behavior control, death, genetic engineering and counseling, abortion, and the allocation of scarce medical resources. These problems will be examined through lectures, discussions and papers. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course examines the meanings of social categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, and species. What are the philosophical and religious foundations of the categorizations of beings operative in our contemporary cultures? How do attributions of same and different, normal and abnormal, rational and irrational, human and nonhuman shape social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion? Are social categories real, constructed, or both? This course focuses primarily on intersectional approaches to oppression and identity that see social categories such as gender, race, and class as mutually constitutive rather than separable. Course readings span a range of philosophical and religious traditions including Continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, Latina/o studies, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, and environmental studies. Students may not earn credit for both PY 2716 and RE 2716. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course examines the meanings of social categories such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, nationality, and species. What are the philosophical and religious foundations of the categorizations of beings operative in our contemporary cultures? How do attributions of same and different, normal and abnormal, rational and irrational, human and nonhuman shape social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion? Are social categories real, constructed, or both? This course focuses primarily on intersectional approaches to oppression and identity that see social categories such as gender, race, and class as mutually constitutive rather than separable. Course readings span a range of philosophical and religious traditions including Continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, Latina/o studies, feminist theory, queer theory, critical race theory, disability studies, and environmental studies. Students may not earn credit for both PY 2716 and RE 2716. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course will focus on the following questions: What is the scope of the current environmental crisis? What does this crisis reveal about the philosophical presuppositions and dominant values of our intellectual worldviews and social institutions? How can existing social theories help explain the environmental crisis? What implications does the crisis have for our sense of personal identity? What moral and spiritual resources can help us respond to it? Readings will be taken from contemporary and historical philosophers and naturalists.

This course focuses on two important movements in nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, existentialism and phenomenology. Readings might include works by Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and Fanon, as well as contemporary readings by feminist, critical race, and queer theorists working within these traditions. Students will also encounter some of the great works of existentialist fiction and cinema. Themes that may be explored include the relationship between self and other, the tension between freedom and responsibility, the possibility of ethics after World War II, and the problem of ethical and political commitment in an alienating world.

This course is an in-depth consideration of the meaning, value, and consequences of scientific inquiry. Questions explored may include: Does science yield truth? Are the results of scientific inquiry more a reflection of the workings of the human mind than of those of the external world? Do pivotal scientific concepts like gene, electron, photon, species, and ecosystem point to entities that actually exist? Does the history of science, which includes many refutations of theories once believed to be true, raise questions about whether currently accepted theories should be trusted? By what methods does a scientific community validate knowledge claims and how are these processes affected by social, political, and economic contexts? Does a scientist have a responsibility to conduct morally conscientious research? How does the development of technology affect our spiritual and moral characters? In what ways is science similar to religion and in what ways is it different? The focus of this course may vary each time it is offered from an examination of science in general to an investigation of the foundations of specific branches of science such as physics, biology, environmental science, or social science.

This course offers a general introduction to modern moral theory. What makes one action wrong, and another right? What are our moral duties towards others? Do moral values change over time, making beliefs about right and wrong simply “relative,” or are moral values objective, holding true for all people, everywhere, at all times? Should emotions play a role in ethical deliberation, or should we aspire to be purely rational when engaged in moral thought and action? Is it okay to cheat on an exam, so long as everybody else does it? Do we have a right to use animals in laboratory experiments? Is eating meat ethical? Is it wrong to share a racist or sexist joke? Should abortion be legal? Students will learn how to apply key moral concepts to real-world problems and situations after closely studying several moral theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, and feminist care ethics. Other topics covered include moral relativism, psychological hedonism, and ethical egoism.

This course offers a general introduction to modern moral theory. What makes one action wrong, and another right? What are our moral duties towards others? Do moral values change over time, making beliefs about right and wrong simply “relative,” or are moral values objective, holding true for all people, everywhere, at all times? Should emotions play a role in ethical deliberation, or should we aspire to be purely rational when engaged in moral thought and action? Is it okay to cheat on an exam, so long as everybody else does it? Do we have a right to use animals in laboratory experiments? Is eating meat ethical? Is it wrong to share a racist or sexist joke? Should abortion be legal? Students will learn how to apply key moral concepts to real-world problems and situations after closely studying several moral theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, and feminist care ethics. Other topics covered include moral relativism, psychological hedonism, and ethical egoism.

Spirituality is a philosophical perspective which stresses the role of virtue in happiness and morality; a psychological perspective on emotions and desire; and an essential dimension of religious life. Found in all religions, it is also personally important for the tens of millions who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” This course will investigate the many dimensions of spiritual thought and practice, focusing on questions such as: What Similarities/differences exist among the spiritual teachings of traditional religions? What is a spiritual experience, a spiritual lesson, a spiritual life? What is the role of spiritual practices such as yoga, meditation, and prayer? What is the place of spirituality in medicine (e.g.,meditation as treatment for stress), our relation to nature (e.g., the experience of a sunset), and political life (e.g., Gandhi, King, spiritual environmentalism)? Beyond scientific knowledge, technological expertise, and common sense, is there such a thing as wisdom? This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in philosophy and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. Emphasis on topics and authors will vary with instructor, but will typically involve the study of: a particular philosopher (e.g., Plato, Marx, Dewey, Arendt); a particular philosophical tradition (e.g., Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, Buddhism, Feminism); a particular philosophical problem or topic (free will, globalization, consciousness, social movement, justice); or a particular philosophical classic (Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s The Leviathan, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex). The topical theme of the course will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in philosophy and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. Emphasis on topics and authors will vary with instructor, but will typically involve the study of: a particular philosopher (e.g., Plato, Marx, Dewey, Arendt); a particular philosophical tradition (e.g., Pragmatism, Analytic Philosophy, Buddhism, Feminism); a particular philosophical problem or topic (free will, globalization, consciousness, social movement, justice); or a particular philosophical classic (Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s The Leviathan, Beauvoir’s The Second Sex). The topical theme of the course will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course will focus on philosophical questions concerning the following topics: the existence and nature of God; the compatibility of God and evil; the nature of religious faith and the relationship between religion, science and ethics; interpretations of the nature of religious language; the philosophically interesting differences between Western and Eastern religions; philosophical critiques of the role of religion in social life. Authors may include: Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard, Buber, Tillich, Daly, Nietzsche and Buddha. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in religion and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. The focus will vary, but the material will be drawn from a particular religious thinker, a particular religious tradition or a particular historical or contemporary problem. The topical theme of the class will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

This course is organized around an advanced or specialized topic in religion and provides preparation for HU 3900 Inquiry Seminars in philosophy and religion. The focus will vary, but the material will be drawn from a particular religious thinker, a particular religious tradition or a particular historical or contemporary problem. The topical theme of the class will be provided as a modified course title in the course description posted online. This course may be repeated for different topics.

The purpose of this course is to examine how the two institutions of religion and culture interact and mutually influence one another. To do this a variety of definitions of religion and culture will be presented as well as an analysis of how religion interacts with such cultural phenomena as economics, politics, the state, war and the basic problem of social change. The purpose of this is to obtain a variety of perspectives on both religion and culture so that one can begin to articulate more clearly the different influences that occur in the development of one’s own personal history and the culture in which one lives.

This course examines the ways in which religious problems of meaning have been encountered in the context of the eclipse of religion in Western culture from the Enlightenment to the present. The class emphasizes challenges presented to traditional belief systems by modern thought in areas such as the sciences, psychology, textual criticism, and historical events, as well as some religious responses to those challenges. How do religions respond to the limits of human intellectual capacity, limits of human endurance, and limits of moral comprehension?
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

The primary aim of this course would be student literacy in global religions. The course examines, from historical, doctrinal, scriptural and/or philosophical perspectives, major world religious and spiritual traditions. Attention will be given to the social context in which these religious traditions developed and will examine their continuing influence. Students taking RE2725 should not receive credit for RE2723 or RE2724, since RE2725 replaces them.

This course will consider, from historical, doctrinal, spiritual and/or philosophical perspectives, either one religious tradition (Islam, Daoism or indigenous traditions, for example) or a constellation of traditions in the same time period or place. Attention will be given to the social context in which these traditions developed and their continuing influence. This course may be repeated for different topics.

Patriarchal religious traditions are often characterized by masculine images of the Divine, cisgendered male religious authority, male-authored scriptures and a heteronormative gendered division of religious practices. As a result, men and cultural masculinity are differently valued than women and cultural femininity; this male-female binary leaves little room for practitioners who identify as nonbinary. In this discussion-focused course, we will engage representations of gender and sexuality in different traditions and their impact on larger social contexts from philosophical, theological and ethnographic perspectives. Among the questions we will explore: Why does the idea of a female or feminine YHWH, God or Allah bother us? Can feminine representations (such as the Devi, Shakti or Shekhinah) or nonbinary representations (such as two-spirit people in indigenous communities) facilitate gender equity? Do mystical traditions (such as the Zohar or Sufism) encourage gender fluidity? How do religions influence sexuality; how does sexuality intersect with creation myths and cosmogonies? Why is a Buddhist nun expected to bow to a Buddhist monk; why does the Catholic Church not recognize women, nonbinary and / or queer priests? This combination of theoretical and methodological conversations will offer students a forum in which to recast assumptions about individual and collective identity that permeate our cultural systems and structures.

A very intensive course that will introduce the student to the basic grammar of Spanish, emphasizing the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. It will also introduce the student to different aspects of Hispanic cultures in the U.S. and in Spanish-speaking countries. Students who have taken Spanish in high school are urged to take a placement exam before enrolling in either level of Elementary Spanish. To enroll in this course, you must obtain written permission from one of the Spanish professors. This course is reservedfor those students with only one year of high school Spanish or with no previous experience. This course is closed to native speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers except with written permission from the instructor.

A continuation of Elementary Spanish I. This course is closed to native speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers except with written permission from the instructor.

A course designed to allow students to improve their written and oral skills, expand their vocabulary and review some important grammatical structures. Students will also read short stories and poems by some of the most representative Spanish American and Spanish authors, such as Horacio Quiroga, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriela Mistral and Ana Marfa Matute. This course is closed to native speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers except with written permission from the instructor.

A continuation of Intermediate Spanish I. This course is closed to native speakers of Spanish and heritage speakers except with written permission from the instructor.

A course that continues to improve students’ language skills while deepening their understanding of Hispanic cultures. Some of the topics studied are: the origins of Hispanic cultures in Spain and Spanish America; family; men and women in Hispanic societies; education; religion. This course is closed to native speakers of Spanish except with written permission from the instructor.

A continuation of Advanced Spanish I. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement. This course is closed to native speakers ofiSpanish except with written permission from the instructor.

An introduction to various aspects of life in Latin American countries from early times to the present. Focusing on the social and political development of Latin America, the course will reveal the unity and diversity that characterize contemporary Latin American culture. Typical topics for study include: the precolumbian civilizations and their cultural legacy; the conquistadores and the colonial period; the independence movements; the search for and the definition of an American identity; the twentieth-century dictatorships; and the move toward democracy. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This course, taught in the Spanish language, focuses on the major literary movements in Spanish America, from the “Modernista” movement at the turn of the century to the Latin American “Boom” of the 1960s to the political literature of the ‘70s and ‘80s. The work of representative authors, such as Ruben Dario, Julio Cortazar, Rosario Castellanos, Elena Poniatowska, will be discussed. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This course is an introduction to various aspects of life in Spain, from early times to the present. The main focus is on Spain’s social, political, and cultural development and its experience of diversity within its European context. Typical topics for study include: The Reconquista and the Arab influence in Spanish culture, the Spanish monarchy, its evolution into a democracy, the development of modern politics, the importance of the Spanish Civil war, and the influence of writers (such as Federico Garcia Lorca), painters (such as Pablo Picasso), and art in general in modern Spanish culture. This course is taught in Spanish. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This course introduces students to the study of Spanish literature through analytical readings of essays, poetry, drama, and fiction of representative Spanish writers from medieval to contemporary times. The selected authors to be studied reflect Spanish society’s cultural and political efforts conducive to a nation building process. Among the topics to be covered are: Literary and artistic movements, nationalist and religious discourses, cultural miscegenation, gender issues, regional, political and class conflicts, the role of the intellectual, and strategies for the construction of identities. This course is taught in Spanish. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter. This course satisfies the Inquiry Practicum requirement.

This upper-level Spanish course explores the many ways in which Latin American authors, artists, filmmakers, photographers, and thinkers have responded to environmental concerns from colonial times to present day. Starting with Europeans’ first impressions of the New World, we will grapple with the interplay between local cultures and the expansion of global capitalism in Latin America by analyzing literary and cultural representations of, for instance, resource extraction of rubber, wood, and petroleum in the Amazon (Brazil, Perú, Ecuador); maquiladora contamination and environmental migration in the borderlands (U.S.-Mexico); water defenders and neoliberalism (Chile, Bolivia); indigenous social movements in defense of land & nature (Ecuador); eco-feminist parallels between oppression of women and nature (Honduras, Colombia); and natural disasters, especially in the age of the Anthropocene (Mexico, Puerto Rico). We will explore these issues and more to unearth the role of Latin American cultural production in bearing witness to and generating awareness of environmental crises. While always accounting for the region’s complex and interwoven history of coloniality, inequality, and dependency, we will look for environmental justice solutions proposed at the intersection of art and activism. Several questions will guide our interpretations, which will be grounded in ecocritical theory: what do the studied works aim to achieve by appealing to harmony between the human and the non-human? What similarities or differences exist across countries, contexts, and genres? And how does Latin America’s ecological consciousness differ from that of other peripheries and centers? This course would be especially beneficial to students interested in project work at WPI’s Project Centers in Latin America and the Caribbean and would count toward the HUA Requirement in Spanish, International and Global Studies, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course explores past and present intersections between the arts and sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean through a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach. The purpose of this course is to examine areas or interaction between the arts, films, and literature with selected areas of knowledge related to STEM. In this manner, Latin America and the Caribbean are represented as in a creative and critical dialogue with aspects of Modernity and Modernization. This course is especially appropriate for students who expect to complete their IQP and MQP at WPI project centers in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

This course captures student participation in club theatrical productions. \ Course requirements and syllabus are available from the instructor. Students may not enroll themselves in this course; anyone participating in a credit eligible club production will be invited to request credit; those who do will be enrolled by the instructor. This course may be repeated for credit on different productions. Only 2/3 units of credited production work (TH 1800 and TH 2800) may be counted toward the Humanities & Arts Requirement. 

This course is designed to give students fundamental tools and techniques for acting in the theatre. These include concentration, relaxation, imagination, observation, communication, sensory awareness, and basic script analysis. Drawing on the “Stanislavski Method,” and using character analysis and scene study, it will include exploration of objectives, tactics, obstacles, action, conflict, subtext, and characterization. It will do this through in-class exercises, as well as monologue and scene work from a variety of plays. Beyond acting skills, the student will learn valuable skills in public speaking and in conveying clear, complex ideas.

Students may not receive credit for TH 2100 and TH 1100.

This course will explore the principles and practices of theatrical design including script analysis, research, concept development, and collaboration. Students will learn to engage in theatrical storytelling through a variety of design disciplines (scenery, costumes, lighting, sound), and will develop a basic understanding of how these elements fit together. Students may not receive credit for TH 2400 and TH 111X.

This course captures student participation in departmental theatrical productions. Depending on the size of their role, students may earn 1/3 unit, 1/6 unit, or no credit. Course requirements & syllabus are available from the instructor. Students may not enroll themselves in this course; anyone wishing to participate in a departmental production should contact the Theater faculty during the previous semester. This course may be repeated for credit on different productions. Only 2/3 units of credited production work (TH 1800 & TH 2800) may be counted toward the Humanities & Arts Requirement.

In this course, students will learn to examine plays as works of literature and blueprints for performance. Through reading, discussion, and analysis, students will explore how playwrights engage social issues, respond to cultural trends, and provide entertainment through the medium of drama. Each offering will focus on works of dramatic literature within a specific period, genre, theme, or culture, such as: Modernism, Restoration, Musicals, Melodrama, Science Plays, LGBTQ+ Stories, Latinx Writers, or South African Drama. Students may repeat this course for credit with different topics.

This course examines a selection of Shakespeare’s plays, specifically addressing issues of performance. We will approach the plays through close reading; in relationship to the historical, cultural, and theatrical context in which they were written and originally produced; through viewing and analysis (film and live performance); and as they have been and can be interpreted for performance. We will explore the relationship between text and performance in a practical way with performance exercises and staging scenes from the plays. We will also consider how production elements (design elements including setting and costumes, casting, direction and performance choices, etc.) create and convey meaning and shape audience response. 
Students may not receive credit for EN 3225 and TH 3220
This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternating years thereafter.

Playwright. Wright – a maker. She creates a world on the stage through action, dialogue, and character. In this course, students will learn to write for the theatre – to make plays – through study, discussion, and practice. Working from foundational ideas of the well-made play, it will draw upon various analytic theories of theater to examine the structure of plays. Through exercises and studio-type critique, students will create and develop their own plays.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Students may not receive credit for TH 3240 and TH 2219.

This course will use the multidisciplinary approach of theatre studies to examine specific theatrical traditions, movements, or approaches. Through reading/viewing, discussion, and practical exercises, students will explore the interactions of various theatrical sub-disciplines (such as directing, design, playwriting, acting, etc.) as well as the relationship of performance to adjacent fields such as sociology, geography, history, and politics. Each offering will focus on a specific type of performance, such as: Documentary Theatre, Audience-Driven/Interactive Performance, Theatre for Social Change, Religious & Ritual Performance, Puppetry, or Physical Theatre. 

Students may repeat this course for credit with different topics.

This course examines the principles and practice of theatrical lighting design. Students will develop skills in all parts of the design process, from play analysis and visual research to system design and cueing. Through class discussion, hands-on activities, and creative design projects, students will develop their abilities to recognize, develop, communicate, and execute lighting design ideas. Though primarily focused on live performance (theatre, dance, opera, music, etc.), this course will also teach ideas and skills applicable to other mediums (architecture, film/TV, animation, etc.). Students may not receive credit for TH 3400 and TH340X.

This course will immerse students in the scenic fabrication process for a department theatre production. As members of the show’s crew, students will plan, build, paint, install, and eventually remove all scenic elements, in collaboration with the show’s technical staff and design team. Additionally, students may learn about the design process and other related activities. Students will demonstrate their learning by participating in the build process and other assigned projects. Students may not receive credit for TH 3510 and TH 320X.

To complete the Theatre Minor, students must engage in a faculty-supervised, research-driven investigation of a specific topic within theatre. This experience is typically paired with a significant role on a departmental production. Course requirements & syllabus are available from the instructor. Students may not enroll themselves in this course; anyone wishing to complete a minor capstone should contact the Theatre faculty during the previous semester.

This course is designed for students who wish to work intensively on their writing. The course will emphasize the processes of composing and revising, the rhetorical strategies of written exposition and argumentation, and the reading and citation practices central to academic inquiry. In a workshop setting, students will write a sequence of short papers and complete one longer writing project based on multiple source texts; learn to read critically and respond helpfully to each other’s writing; and make oral presentations from written texts. Where applicable, the topical theme of the class will be provided via the Registrar’s office.

This course will examine the appropriate dissemination of scientific information in common science writing genres such as science journalism, consulting reports and white papers, and policy and procedure documents. In a workshop setting, students will write and revise documents th at promote broad understanding of scientific research and analysis of specialized knowledge. Course lectures and discussions investigate ethics of scientific reporting and teach students how to recognize deceptive texts and arguments (both quantitative and qualitative). The course is reading and writing intensive and is intended for students with backgrounds in a scientific discipline who are interested in applying their disciplinary knowledge.

This course will apply classical and modern rhetorical concepts to analyze various texts and speeches in order to identify the means of persuasion to a particular end. Students will write short analytical papers that critically assess various rhetorical and communicative approaches. The goal of this course is to enable students to see rhetoric in action in order to both engage with the material critically as well as produce effective discourse to meet various situations.

This course will cover basic principles of prose style for expository and argumentative writing. Students will learn to evaluate writing for stylistic problems and will learn revision strategies for addressing those problems. The ultimate goal of the course is to help students write sentences and paragraphs that are clear, concise, and graceful. In the first part of the course, students will review parts of speech, basic sentence types, and sentence and paragraph structure in order to understand how sentences are put together and the impact their construction has on readers. Then, through hands-on writing exercises and extensive revision of their own and others’ writing, students will learn strategies for tightening their prose (concision), achieving “flow” (cohesion and coherence) and improving usage (language specificity and precision).

Generative AI is transforming the practices of writing and communication. It also generates new questions about authorship, responsibility, creativity, authenticity, and other rhetorical constructs that affect us equally as citizens and professionals. This course offers the foundations of critical AI literacy. It aims to help students develop a robust understanding of what this transformation means, and what kind of new sensibilities and skills are needed in response to an AI-led transformation. The course focuses on: 1) technological and cultural trends that shape the perception of generative AI, 2) ethical concerns emerging from the use of generative AI in professional and nonprofessional contexts, and 3) effective and responsible practices of using generative AI in writing and other forms of communication. In addition to reading assignments, students will have the opportunity to experiment with generative AI and assess its limits and possibilities. The assignments include critical annotations, fact-checking procedures, creative workflow processes, ethical analyses, and interaction design inquiries.

This course emphasizes the standard written genres of professional, workplace communication. Students will analyze the history, purposes, conventions, and social consequences of a variety of business communications, focusing on digital and print correspondence, reports, and proposals directed to internal and external audiences. Students will learn about the culture of a professional environment and the role of writing in structuring identity and relationships within that context. Classes will be conducted as interactive writing workshops in which students assess and respond to rhetorical scenarios and sample texts from a variety of professional worksites. Students will create portfolios, producing professional writing samples they may use on the job market.

This course explores how visual design is used for purposes of identification, information, and persuasion. It looks at many modes of visual communication, such as icons, logos, trademarks, signs, product packaging, infographics, posters, billboards, ads, exhibits, graffiti, page layout, films, television, videogames, and web sites. The course provides an overview of the history of graphic design movements, as well as analytical tools to understand how visual design encodes messages and the role visual communication plays in contemporary culture. Students will write about and create a number of visual media in this project-centered class.

Feature films are at the heart of a motion picture industry that requires a partnership of multiple disciplines working in unison: acting, directing, filming, and producing. But none of this can happen without the first step—screenwriting. In this course, students will learn to write for mainstream feature and short films, from ideation to synopses and beat sheets to the pages of an original screenplay. While this course will focus on short and feature film screenplays, the knowledge can also apply to other screenwriting forms such as documentaries and web series. Students will combine the creative with the technical, not only studying storytelling through film but also applying the structured authoring required by film producers and screenplay competitions for a feature or short film script. This course will be offered in 2024-25, and in alternating years thereafter. Students may not receive credit for both EN/WR 2410 and EN/WR 241X.

Feature films are at the heart of a motion picture industry that requires a partnership of multiple disciplines working in unison: acting, directing, filming, and producing. But none of this can happen without the first step—screenwriting. In this course, students will learn to write for mainstream feature and short films, from ideation to synopses and beat sheets to the pages of an original screenplay. While this course will focus on short and feature film screenplays, the knowledge can also apply to other screenwriting forms such as documentaries and web series. Students will combine the creative with the technical, not only studying storytelling through film but also applying the structured authoring required by film producers and screenplay competitions for a feature or short film script. This course will be offered in 2024-25, and in alternating years thereafter. Students may not receive credit for both EN/WR 2410 and EN/WR 241X.

Writing in the Life Sciences will provide students with an introduction to academic writing within the disciplines that comprise the Life Sciences.
Topics will include:

• Ethics and research integrity as it pertains to research design, documentation, reporting, and communicating results to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• Fundamentals of writing in the Life Sciences including definitions and technical vocabulary, technical style, documentation, revising and editing
• Human factors that influence health including social determinants of health and health disparities
• Important documents in the Life Sciences including literature reviews and synopses, laboratory reports, proposals, and research presentations.

The course will also include writing for non-specialist audiences and newer methods of science communication including social media.
Students may not receive credit for both WR 2500 and WR 250X.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Teaching Writing introduces students to the theory and practice of written composition. Students research and read about the writing process and how best to support it through the practice of explicit teaching and tutoring. They learn specific strategies that can support writers as they plan, draft, and revise written work in a number of genres, and they study effective ways to provide helpful feedback on drafts. They also learn about and practice navigating the social, political and interpersonal dynamics of the teacher/tutor-student relationship through a tutoring internship at the Writing Center and through assignments prompting them to develop lesson plans and instructional handouts. This course will help students improve their own writing and read their own and others’ writing more critically. It will be especially useful for those who plan to teach or tutor writing in the future. This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.

Rhetoric concerns both the art of mastering the available means of persuasion and the study of how oral, written, and visual communication projects the intentions of individuals and groups, makes meanings, and affects audiences. The purpose of this course therefore is two-fold. It is intended to help students become more effective communicators by learning about the rhetorical situation and various rhetorical techniques, and it is designed to help them understand how various forms of communication work by learning some of the philosophies and strategies of rhetorical analysis.

Technical writing combines technical knowledge with writing skills to communicate technology to the world. This course introduces the fundamental principles of technical communication, and the tools commonly used in the technical writing profession. Topics include user and task analysis, information design, instructional writing, and usability testing. Students learn to use the technical writing process to create user-centered documents that combine text, graphics, and visual formatting to meet specific information needs. Students create a portfolio of both hardcopy and online documentation, using professional tools such as FrameMaker, Acrobat, and RoboHelp.

This writing workshop focuses on the purposed and genres of writing about disease and public health. We will consider how biomedical writers communicate technical information about disease and public health to general audiences; how writers capture the human experience of disease and health care; how writers treat the public policy implications of disease; and how writers design publicity to promote public health. We will examine such genres as the experimental article, news reports, medical advice, profiles, commentary, and public health messages.

This course will examine how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Students will develop a personal and theoretical understanding of the cultural origin of people’s values, ideologies, habits, idiosyncrasies, and how they affect communication across cultural, racial, ethnic and gender lines. Through observing, studying and experiencing incidents of cross-cultural communication, they will begin to examine and develop skills that are necessary for effective understanding and for successful communication among majority and minority groups. This course will be offered in 2022-23, and in alternate years thereafter.

This methodology course introduces students to issues in the study of writing such as the history and uses of literacy, the relationship of thought to language, the role of writing in producing knowledge, and research on composing. The focus of the course will be on professional and academic writing. In this project-based class, students will develop research questions, construct a relevant method study, and carry out that study. The purpose of this course is to add to students analytical approaches to writing and communicative situations.

Medical Writing will provide students with advanced opportunities to create clinically-oriented documents about disease, treatment, and medical research. Students will learn how to develop, structure, and present medical reports that integrate anatomy and physiology, disease history (including associated human and environmental factors), epidemiology, clinical presentation, differential diagnosis, and prognosis. The course will operate as a series of student projects in which students create scientific documents from major disease categories. The course will be focused on disease characterization for more advanced audiences and preparation for future graduate and professional writing in medicine or the life sciences.
Students may not receive credit for both WR 4210 and WR 421X.
This course will be offered in 2021-22, and in alternating years thereafter.