Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Category Archives: Undergraduate
Courses for All IMA Students
Novels of Youth In and After Colonialism (IDSEM-UG 2040)
This seminar takes as its central topic the relationship between youth and empire. What does it mean to come of age in a world-system when the key decisions that shape your life might be made in far-off countries that you have never seen? And conversely, why have writers in societies that have recently achieved political independence been drawn to narrate that political transformation through the lens of stories about growing up? We will read a range of different texts and genres, including realist novels, modernist fiction and autobiographical narratives by formerly enslaved people. We will think together about the strengths and limits of these various forms, considering the ways that authors have attempted to reckon with the existential uncertainty of living in a global society. Likely readings will include Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease; Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations; Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince; Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea; Olive Schreiner, The Story of an African Farm; and Indra Sinha, Animal’s People.
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2024)
IDSEM-UG 2040-000 (21100)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Mon,Wed9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Vargo, Gregory
The Novel and Society: Victorian Secrets (IDSEM-UG 1726)
In the twenty-first century, the Internet arguably makes secrecy impossible, but the exposure of secrets is already an important theme in many 19th-century British novels. In part, this reflects a society in which identity seems increasingly malleable through greater social class mobility, the questioning of traditional gender roles, and imperialist opportunities. In these novels, fake identities conceal a murderer and a madwoman, among others. And the societal constraints inspiring the fictional secrets also led the authors to keep secrets of their own. Beloved author Charles Dickens, the father of 10, had a 13-year love affair with a woman who was 18 when they met. But does the novel genre, particularly the “realist” Victorian novel, with its emphasis on an omniscient narrator and intersecting plots, have a special relationship to secrets? We attempt to uncover the answer by studying Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte (1847), Great Expectations (1861), by Charles Dickens, George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1871-2), and Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887). Theory and criticism include selections from Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality, Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2025)
IDSEM-UG 1726-000 (10251)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Wed2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Foley, June
History of Italian Fashion (IDSEM-UG 9200)
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
The Modern Arabic Novel (IDSEM-UG 1478)
Colonialism left indelible marks on the cultures and societies of its colonized subjects. While nation-states have emerged, the colonial legacy and its various effects continue to haunt post-colonial societies and the modes in which they represent their history and subjectivity. The novel is a particularly privileged site to explore this problem. This course will focus on the post-colonial Arabic novel. After a brief historical introduction to the context and specific conditions of its emergence as a genre, we will read a number of representative novels. Discussions will focus on the following questions: How do writers problematize the perceived tension between tradition and modernity? Can form itself become an expression of sociopolitical resistance? How is the imaginary boundary between “West” and “East” blurred and/or solidified? How is the nation troped and can novels become sites for rewriting official history? What role do gender and sexuality play in all of the above? In addition to films, readings (all in English) may include Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Naguib Mahfuz, al-Tayyib Salih, Abdelrahman Munif, Ghassan Kanafani, Elias Khoury, Sun`allah Ibrahim, Huda Barakat, Assia Djebbar, and Muhammad Shukri.
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2025)
IDSEM-UG 1478-000 (10038)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Tue3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Antoon, Sinan
Narrative Investigations II: Realism to Postmodernism (IDSEM-UG 1289)
In this class we will continue to explore the concept of narrative and the way writers interrogate literary and social conventions. As we consider how stories shape our notions of history, love, social class, and sexual identity, we will examine how the thinking of readers, and stories, changed from the nineteenth century to the twentieth. We will follow the emergence of a new form of narration, whose protagonists include not only characters, but also time, place, the city, the reader, and language itself. We will read Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, James Joyce’s Ulysses, as well as essays on film and narrative theory.
Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2022)
IDSEM-UG 1289-000 (20665)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Tue,Thu9:00 AM – 10:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Pies, Stacy
Television Now: Mapping An Original Show (ARTS-UG 1568)
This workshop studies the new, groundbreaking formats and genres of television storytelling by experiencing the unique creative process through which an original series makes its way to the screen. Together, we will break down the early proposals developed by the original show creators to present the episodes, narrative arcs and character profiles of their series, and we will compare them with the fully produced pilot. In-class screenings will include Squid Game, Euphoria, True Detective, the end of the f*** world, Rick & Morty, Breaking Bad, Mr. Robot and Stranger Things. The participants will be guided through the process of creating a unique series proposal, which includes the pitching of a pilot episode, the development of a first season outline, and the establishment of the series’ visual and narrative tone.
Arts Workshops (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 3 Weeks
Sections (January 2022)
ARTS-UG 1568-000 (1563)01/03/2022 – 01/21/2022 Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu2:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Cristiani, Pedro
The Contemporary Broadway Musical: Rent to Hamilton (and Beyond) (ARTS-UG 1058)
Located at the intersection of songwriting, storytelling, creativity, and commerce, the Broadway musical is one of New York City’s most significant and singular cultural artifacts. While this art form has a long and storied history, it continues to evolve dramatically in terms of aesthetics, audiences, content, and economics. In this arts workshop (open to artists, producers, and fans), we will take a look at some of the most influential shows to play the Great White Way over the last twenty-five years, with a focus on both how they are constructed and how they have impacted the field (and society). How does a musical get made? How do librettists, composers, and lyricists synthetize their visions to speak with one creative voice? How does a show like Hamilton become a worldwide phenomenon, and what keeps a hot property like Spider-Man from reaching its potential? Shows examined will include: Rent and The Lion King (shows that serve as the unofficial gateway to this new generation); Passing Strange and In the Heights (and the ground-breaking 2008 season); The Book of Mormon (and its film precursor South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut); Spider-Man; Fun Home; and yes, Hamilton. Weekly responses will include original scenes (or songs), casting breakdowns, design proposals, and other creative output, as well as some traditional essays.
Arts Workshops (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2022)
ARTS-UG 1058-000 (23280)01/24/2022 – 05/09/2022 Wed3:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Diaz, Kristoffer
Art, Activism, and Beyond (ARTS-UG 1644)
This workshop interrogates the relationship between art and activism by focusing on the following movements: (1) Occupy Wall Street; (2) Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee, (3) Gulf Labor Artist Coalition and its direct action wing, Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.); (4) the Direct Action Front for Palestine (5) Black Lives Matter and Movement for Black Lives, (6) No Dakota Access Pipeline, (7) #MeToo, and (8) Decolonize This Place. These case studies, alongside course readings and discussions, will help us to situate contemporary art in a historical and political context—a moment of rupture that is informed by ongoing histories of racism, colonialism, and debt. We will then move on to question how this moment might inform our own art practice, interrogating how, as contemporary artists, we might produce art that does not simply add flair to political work, but that engages in a dialectical practice—moving between theory and research, as well as action and aesthetics—and that considers how practice and process might become the work itself. A major component of the course will be a project that students plan and execute during the semester. Choice of practice and medium will be open, but possibilities might include work that is performative, visual, or conceptual, employing photography and/or digital media, text, film, painting, or sculpture. Readings will include: Berardi, After the Future; Cesaire and Kelly, Discourse on Colonialism; Hardt and Negri, Declaration; Tuck and Yang, Decolonization is not a Metaphor; and McKee, Strike Art! Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition.
Arts Workshops (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Keeping It Real: Realism in Writing and Acting on Stage (ARTS-UG 1007)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Thu
Arts Workshops (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Topics in Recorded Music: David Bowie (REMU-UT 1143)
David Bowie’s life and work offer a template for how to survive and continue to evolve as a musical artist. David Bowie has kept the music industry, his fans and the world guessing throughout a career that spans over four decades. Bowie himself put his secret best in his prophetic 1972 song, “Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes”; a multi-talented performer, writer and visual artist, Bowie has played his career like an instrument, selecting trends of every generation to process, absorb and adapt into successive phases of his ever-evolving chameleon persona. In this day of ceaseless multiple media, Bowie’s most recent, and typically perverse, coup was keeping secret the recording of his 2013 album, The Next Day, over a two-year recording period. The manipulative bravado of knowing when and how to keep a star’s inaccessibility and mystery, or to expose oneself, as Bowie did on TV in his own darkest days, has given David Bowie a singular, enduring mystique, glamour and respect. Examining the arc of his work is a window into significant scenes of every decade since the 1950s, and offers insight into: the British Blues scene that produced the Beatles and the Rolling Stones; the hippy free festival counter-culture; r’n’b; futurism; electronica;glam and gender games, improvisation; soul; funk; dance; disco; minimalism; ambient; avant-garde theater; and above all, the endlessly evolving sound of US and UK young clubland, including recent jungle and garage, to which Bowie consistently returns to recharge and find a new direction to make his own.
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Fall 2025)
REMU-UT 1143-000 (18004)10/22/2025 – 12/11/2025 Tue5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Goldman, Vivien
Topics in Recorded Music: Gaming (REMU-UT 1155)
Fortnite’s concerts with Marshmello and Travis Scott. Open Pit’s DIY music festivals in Minecraft. League of Legends’ K-pop and hip-hop groups. Indie label Monstercat’s deals with Rocket League and Roblox. Sony Music’s gaming imprint Lost Rings. Grand Theft Auto’s 75 billion minutes of in-game music listening. “Fantasy record label” apps like FanLabel that allow fans to assemble their own “brackets” of artists that they think will do best on the charts. These are just a handful of examples of how music and games are increasingly overlapping as industries, experiences and cultures. There are strong mutual incentives at play: Game developers are blooming into full-fledged media brands and are looking to the music business for both financial and cultural capital, while music companies are looking to diversify their revenue, experiment with more interactive technologies and tap into the power of highly engaged communities online. In the process, this merging of entertainment worlds is also rewriting conventional wisdom of what it means to be an artist, a performer, gamer and especially a fan. This course will give students the critical frameworks and vocabulary to dissect how games are being incorporated into every corner of the music industry — from the moment music is created, to the strategies that inform how music is then disseminated, marketed, monetized and performed. We will draw from a combination of theoretical readings and real-world case studies to dissect video games that center music in their player experience on the one hand, and musical projects that draw direct inspiration from games in their approaches to design, marketing, business and fan engagement on the other hand. Because this field is relatively new, many of these case studies may emerge in real time as the course unfolds. This course will be reading-, writing- and play-intensive, with required and suggested games and soundtracks for students to play, watch or listen to every week. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to workshop their own creative, marketing and/or business strategies for hybrid music/game projects, walking away with a concrete plan of action for incorporating the fast-paced gaming industry into their own careers.
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2023)
REMU-UT 1155-000 (14332)03/21/2023 – 05/08/2023 Tue6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Burke, Christopher
Topics in Recorded Music: Taylor Swift (REMU-UT 1174)
The name “Taylor Swift” has become synonymous with a number of big ideas. To some in the music industry, the eleven-time Grammy winner (including three Album of the Year awards) defines 21st century country music’s pivot to pop radio. To others, Taylor Swift is the pop star of the 2010s (with the album sales and chart history to back it up— With sales of over 200 million records worldwide, Swift is one of the best-selling music artists of all time). When deployed pejoratively, however, the name “Taylor Swift” can signal anything from white privilege to white feminism to white taste in an era of intersectionality and Black Lives Matter conscientiousness. Taylor Swift may be a loaded phrase for some, but the career of Taylor Swift is more simply an embodiment of music’s American Dream. Raised on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania, teenage Swift would move to Nashville and become one of the most lauded young songwriters in history. Her music was infatuated with love, innocence and romantic fantasias that would sour in the natural way those fairy tales do as a young woman grows up. By her early twenties, she was a full-fledged pop icon, having ditched Music Row for producers like Max Martin and Jack Antonoff, and tabloid fame. Along the way, there were feuds, squads and political discourses aplenty. Swift has encountered the type of controversies that would destroy most pop stars’ careers and acclaim. But at age 31, she has never been more awarded or acclaimed as a singer-songwriter. Meanwhile, her impact is felt in the success and style of younger singers/songwriters like Olivia Rodrigo, Conan Gray, Phoebe Bridgers and Clairo. This course proposes to deconstruct both the appeal and aversions to Taylor Swift through close readings of her music and public discourse as it relates to her own growth as an artist and a celebrity. Through readings, lectures and more, the class delves into analyses of the culture and politics of teen girlhood in pop music, fandom, media studies, whiteness and power as it relates to her image and the images of those who have both preceded and succeeded her. We’ll also consider topics like copyright and ownership, American nationalism and the ongoing impact of social media on the pop music industry.
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2025)
REMU-UT 1174-000 (17008)01/21/2025 – 03/11/2025 Tue5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Spanos, Brittany
Topics in Recorded Music: Indigenous Pop Around the World (REMU-UT 1175)
In 2021, New Zealand pop star / singer-songwriter Lorde released a five-song EP of tracks from her Solar Power album, rerecorded in the indigenous Māori language. Five years prior, pop stars like Pharrell Williams, Dave Matthews, Radiohead, and Sia raised their voices at Standing Rock, North Dakota in support of the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline—one of many increasing threats to the sovereignty of Indigenous Nations. Their celebrity presence was key to attracting mainstream media coverage. However, those artists were largely following the lead of Native hip-hoppers like Supaman, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, and Prolific, who’d already been at Standing Rock since the start of the protests, rallying their own communities. This course will engage students around the growing globalization of Indigenous Peoples movements that intersects culture, politics, and economics. These days, Indigenous musicians like Aboriginal Australian rapper Baker Boy and Canadian First Nations vocalist Jeremy Dutcher are gaining in visibility, topping critics’ year-end Best-Of lists and taking home awards. This “Creative Natives” wave is being felt far outside of music, too: Tzotzil fashion designer Alberto López Gomez from Chiapas, Mexico was featured in New York Fashion Week; Māori filmmaker Taika Waititi won an Oscar for JoJo Rabbit; influential art critics heralded White Mountain Apache music performance artist and film scorer Laura Ortman at the 2020 Whitney Biennial, and Seminole/Muscogee Creek showrunner Sterling Harjo’s Reservation Dogs is the new hit on FX/Hulu. Over the course of seven weeks, students will engage with a wide range of international Indigenous performers and music(s) they may have never heard before—from Māori metal to Saami yoik-rap, Quechua huanyo-pop, Inuit throatsinging, Maasai hip-hop, Hawaiian reggae, Tokelauan dance-pop, and even Tuareg rock. Meanwhile, they will discover how Indigenous artists have not only achieved national, even international, acclaim in popular mainstream music genres, they are increasingly “indigenizing” them with languages, instruments, and vocal techniques from their own cultural traditions. We will also look at some Indigenous stars who broke barriers to achieve mainstream fame as singular personalities and cultural ambassadors: artists like Yma Sumac, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and more. And also, we’ll survey the impact of Indigenous artists and music on the both the mainstream recording industry, as well as the growth of Indigenous-directed business entities doing things on their own terms. Through readings, lectures, and class discussions, students will be introduced to important scholarship on Indigenous identity, (de-)colonization, cultural appropriation, aesthetics, and so on. Any student interested in socio-cultural movements, roots music trends, arts-centered activism, and the ways in which music introduces audiences to the messages within each of these—especially regarding themes like climate justice, human rights, social inclusion, and sovereignty issues—will benefit from taking this class. Students can also expect to leave the course with a greater awareness of, and hopefully appreciation for, the growing global presence and popularity of Indigenous sounds, voices, and views.
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Fall 2025)
REMU-UT 1175-000 (18033)09/02/2025 – 10/21/2025 Tue5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Veran, Cristina
Creative Music Entrepreneurs in Historical Context (REMU-UT 1201)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Topics: Led Zeppelin (REMU-UT 1115)
In name alone, Led Zeppelin carries mountains of meaning: the most successful and arguably the most influential rock band of all time. The creators of a mythic, mystical, guitar-based style that gave birth to the sounds and iconography of heavy metal. Song-crafters whose studio mastery, utilizing recording technology of the day, generated some of the most enduring rock recordings of their era, establishing standards that still define a stylistic and emotional extreme of popular music. The four British musicians who came out of the electric blues scene of the late ‘60s, recording and touring as a unit for a mere twelve years, together achieved a legendary stature that requires much study to fully appreciate more than thirty years after their demise. This course will consider the history of Led Zeppelin from a variety of perspectives: social and stylistic context; the nuts and bolts of their music—live and in the studio; the hows and whys of the band as a business. Using books, articles, videos, and a generous sampling of music, the course will follow their arrival in the final, psychedelic heyday of swingin’ London of the ‘60s; through their roots in folk and acoustic blues and later experimentations with Indian and North African music, and their rise in an era that was hungry for a heavier, more bombastic sound. The course will include special focus on the group’s technical leader and visionary, guitarist Jimmy Page, who came with prior credits as a sessionman and guitarist in the blues-rock band the Yardbirds, as well as other major players in the Zeppelin story—engineer Glyn Johns, manager Pater Grant—who helped build the sonic and popular juggernaut that the band became. In-class guest speakers will be featured, many who participated or witnessed the Led Zeppelin phenomenon, as well as a screening of the group’s concert film The Song Remains The Same.
Recorded Music (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 7 Weeks
Sections (Fall 2023)
REMU-UT 1115-000 (21549)09/05/2023 – 10/24/2023 Wed6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Kahn, Ashley
Queer and Trans Game Studies (MCC-UE 1043)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Revolution and Media (MCC-UE 1352)
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed
Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks
Human Computer Interaction (CS-UY 4543)
Credits: 3
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Credits: 3
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed
Computer Science (Undergraduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks
Performing Voice and Talking Machines (OART-UT 25)
This course will introduce students to technologies for speech synthesis and speech recognition from the point of view of performance art. Through weekly assignments and in class lectures, we will explore voice interfaces and their role in technology, design, art, and culture. We will begin with understanding human speech, and then delve into computer speech. We will learn how to program existing technologies such as p5.js to create our own talking machines. The class will research the current limitations and biases of these technologies and models, and respond by leveraging these constraints as ground for performative expression. Students will be required to develop a performative piece as their final project, this could be a live performance, an interactive installation piece, or a performative object or tool. Students are encouraged to bring their interests into the classroom and apply the course into their practice. Prior knowledge of computer programming will be helpful, however, it is not required. NYU is a global community. You are welcome to bring your own language, your accent, and your spoken identity into the class.
Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks
Sections (Fall 2023)
OART-UT 25-000 (13600)09/05/2023 – 12/15/2023 Wed1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Kananuruk, Tiriree