Category Archives: Liberal Arts & Sciences – Electives

All Liberal Arts Elective Courses: Quantitative Reasoning, Physical Science OR Life Science, Societies & the Social Sciences, Expressive Culture, General Liberal Arts Electives

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

This 14-week class introduces students to the history of innovative entrepreneurs and institutions in American recorded music. We recount the stories and make arguments about famous executives, managers, producers, performers, DJs, and journalists/publishers from the dawn of the music business until the present day. We study how and why the fields, fiefdoms, and empires built by these impressive and sometimes controversial icons have transformed the course of popular music. Along the way, students become well versed in the history of 20th and 21st century recorded music, and in various music genres and styles; and we place the art and business of creating and selling recorded music in historical, political, cultural and social context. Throughout, we look at approaches to crafting successful oral and written arguments about popular music with clear, compelling writing about sound.

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

Introduction to Studio Art (ART-SHU 310)

This course will be an introduction to studio art for students, to traverse both cultural and temporal barriers of visual arts. Students will examine the content of artwork, and build various skills to translate ideas into reality. Class time will be devoted to individual projects and critiques, lectures, and group discussions. This course is open to all students with or without an art background. Note that attendance in the first class meeting is mandatory, otherwise you will be dropped from the course. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: general elective

Art (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)


ART-SHU 310-000 (17746)02/07/2022 – 05/13/2022 Wed5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Late afternoon)at ShanghaiInstructed by Edelstein, Barbara · Zhang, Jian

The Cultural Poltics of Bad Taste (IDSEM-UG 1738)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Fri

This seminar investigates the ideological, political and historical parameters of “taste” in popular culture. Through examination of media artifacts that exemplify “trash,” the course examines how “taste” is constituted as a cultural category that reflects, produces and maintains the social structures of American society. What is meant by designations such as “good” and “bad” media, “high and “low” art, “offensive” or “artistic” and who is empowered to make these distinctions? How do “bad objects” reveal the ideological basis of “taste,” and what is their relationship to “legitimate” art forms? Does “trash” pose a challenge to cultural standards of taste and “the mainstream?’ What is the relationship between “bad” art and spectatorship and why might audiences find “trash” so enthralling? Readings are drawn from Bourdieu’s Distinction , Glynn’s Tabloid Culture , Ross” No Respect , and the anthology Trash Culture , while screenings include cult films such as Freaks, Pink Flamingos, Plan 9 From Outer Space,South Park, and The Room , and a selection of reality TV programs, music and viral videos.

Interdisciplinary Seminars (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Politics of Portraiture (OART-UT 826)

This course explores the pictorial articulation of individual human likeness and its fiction in the public forum. The art of portraiture has survived its own origins in myth making and archetype building. The human image, or icon, forever landmarks the voices, textures, physicality, spirituality, symbols, politics, aesthetic concerns and military contexts, religious rituals, government, calendar ceremonies, daily functions, heroic acts and social disorders of diverse cultures throughout recorded history. It is the history of creation, the story of romance, the mark of progress, the record of royalty and the profile of democracy. It is the revolution of fine art and a catalyst of discipline. Imaging the individual in the public eye is the story of humankind. This course bridges the worlds of the oral and written mythologies which inhabit and empower us and the creative manifestation (conscious and unconscious) of these ancient archetypes into contemporary art, media and design. Students will critically rethink the implied and material presence of portraiture in everyday life. Students will gain practical knowledge and insight into the origins and potential power of the archetypes which permeate our collective unconscious.

Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)


OART-UT 826-000 (14196)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Thu2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Cameron, Donna

Media Moguls in the 20th Century (OART-UT 562)

This course attempts to track the American entertainment industry from its plebian origins through its rise to becoming the predominant mass entertainment culture in the world. Students discover the origins of the production practices that are employed in the entertainment industry today by following the legendary characters, movie moguls, and media titans of the early 20th century and the companies they built. The emphasis is on the way the visionaries of the time impacted seemingly risk-averse systems to invigorate and sometimes completely revolutionize them. These innovative men and women include, but are not limited, to Louis B. Mayer, George Lucas, Maya Deren, Shirley Clark, Nam Jun Paik, Lucille Ball, Russell Simmons, Clive Davis, Julie Taymor, and Steve Jobs.

Undergraduate

Business in Film (MULT-UB 122)

This course explores how films are vehicles for understanding business. In doing so, it also explores some key issues facing the business community. For example, the class examines the impact of business on society, the ethical obligations of firms, the power and role of firms as social organizations, the impact of the globalization of business and how different cultures come together in global firms. To better understand these topics, students view important films covering these issues, which are paired with scholarly or popular works focused on the same issues.

Multidisciplinary (Undergraduate)
1 credits – 5 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)


MULT-UB 122-000 (11038)

Multi-disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice of Group Work in Arts (OART-UT 1017)

Whether you are a filmmaker looking to better understand how to build a cohesive and productive film crew; a theatre maker excited about building a performance project or theatre company; a multi-media artist looking for ways to innovate your ideas for artistic work in collaboration with others; an artist looking for tools for building an artistic ensemble, or a multi-disciplinary artist looking to take your creative work out into communities as social practice, this combination lecture/activity-based class provides you with tools for better understanding how to enter into and engage others in collective creative work of purpose. Multi-Disciplinary Arts Practice with Community Groups: Theories and Practice explores the challenges and benefits of making artistic work with others and the tools needed to create meaningful collaborative projects. In this class we interrogate definitions of community and group, explore the balance between group process and producing an artistically excellent project, and examine the processes of creating artistic work with others to strengthen our own artistic voices while helping raise the creative voices of others. With its focus on social practice, this course provides a foundation for working with small group structures in a variety of community settings and professional creative work environments. The course satisfies a CA major requirement as well as a social science requirement for all other Tisch students.

Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)


OART-UT 1017-000 (18613)09/02/2025 – 12/11/2025 Thu2:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Bitel, Mary

The Language of Film (FMTV-UT 4)

Language of Film is an introduction to the craft, history and theory of filmmaking and film-watching. The main challenge facing all filmmakers is to show the story: in other words, to visualize the drama. Over the past century, narrative, experimental and documentary filmmakers have developed a variety of creative strategies and techniques designed to give their audiences compelling, multi-sensorial experiences. The goal of this class is to explore how filmmakers in different historical and cultural settings have contributed to the evolution of film as a powerful, complex and captivating art form.. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors.

Undergraduate

Major Texts in Critical Theory (ENGL-UA 712)

Major texts in critical theory from Plato to Derrida, considered in relation to literary practice. The first half of the course focuses on four major types of critical theory: mimetic, ethical, expressive, and formalist. The second half turns to 20th-century critical schools, such as Russian and American formalism, archetypal criticism, structuralism, psychoanalytic criticism, feminism, reader theory, deconstruction, and historicism.

English (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Foundations in Painting: Painting in Practice and Theory (ART-SHU 211)

Painting is an incredibly versatile medium and its dynamic evolution across cultures and through millennia continues up until the present. The medium’s relevance and capacity for reinvention are evidenced in the work of a number of contemporary painters who have incorporated inventive materials and/or methods into their practice to both push its limits and explore contemporary concerns. In this class, students will get an introduction to the fundamental technical, formal, and conceptual principles of painting. Using watercolor, gouache, and acrylic, students will explore color theory, composition, texture, form, and surface using a wide range of techniques. Through selected readings, students will also examine the theoretical questions and historical precedents that have informed painting’s development, see how they relate to or have been challenged by the work of contemporary painters and be able to connect select concerns to their own practice. In addition to acquiring basic technical skills and conceptual know-how, students will also gain competency in art critiques and writing artist statements. Prerequisite: None. Fulfillment: general elective

Art (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2022)


ART-SHU 211-000 (19569)02/07/2022 – 05/13/2022 Mon1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at ShanghaiInstructed by Kramer, Maya

Microeconomics (MG-UY 2524)

The course is an introduction to microeconomics. It assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. The course examines the fundamentals of microeconomics needed by technologists, relying to a considerable extent upon mathematical expression and representation. The principle topics covered are price theory, production and cost theory, the theory of the firm and market theory, including the practical relevance of these to the management of technology-intensive enterprises. The role of the state and of government regulation will be considered as a special topic. Students who take this course cannot receive credit for ECON-UA 2 or FIN-UY 2003. | Prerequisite: MA-UY 1024 or MA-UY 1054 or MA-UY 1324 or an approved equivalent.

Management (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)


MG-UY 2524-000 (18845)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Tue,Thu10:00 AM – 11:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by D’Emic, Michael

World Dance Cultures (OART-UT 701)

This class used to be called History of Dance. This course explores why and how dance acts as a vital participant in cultural practices around the world. Looking back through the perspective of present research, we will examine how dance is inherently a reflection of the culture it represents. A wide overview of dance and its myriad purposes will be covered, from a means of worship in India, Turkey, and Haiti; its inclusion in the rituals of Bali; noh and kabuki theatrical traditions of Japan; fertility and death ceremonies of the Wodaabe, Yoruba, and Dogon tribes of Africa; the healing zar dances of North Africa, and the rituals/activism of Native American tribes. The presentation of court dance as a symbol of power will be examined in Hawai’i, Java, and Cambodia, as well as in Catherine de Medici’s Renaissance pageants and in the French Baroque spectacles of Louis XIV’s Versailles and the Paris Opera. The inevitable impact of politics on dance will be examined in viewing the bloody genocide of Cambodia’s Royal Dancers; the propagandist works of China’s Cultural Revolution; the French Revolution’s influence upon Romantic ballets such as La Sylphide and Giselle; and how the repression of a Gitano culture led to the emergence of flamenco in Spain. In addition to written texts and video documentation, we will review examples of related art forms (visual arts, music, and drama).

Open Arts Curriculum (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2022)


OART-UT 701-000 (14352)09/01/2022 – 12/14/2022 Mon5:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Beaman, Patricia

Statistics for The Behavioral Sciences (PSYCH-UA 10)

No prerequisite. PSYCH-UA 10 and 11 may be taken in either order. Bauer. Offered every semester. 4 points. Students gain familiarity with data description, variance and variability, significance tests, confidence bounds, and linear regression, among other topics. Students work on psychological data sets, learn approaches to statistical prediction, and learn to interpret results from randomized experiments.

Psychology (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

History of Children’s Television (FMTV-UT 1022)

Through lectures, discussion, program viewing, projects, guests, and our own lives, this course explores the state of children’s media for pre-schoolers to adolescents. The goal is to understand how we all have been affected by the media and how we can determine change for the next generation. We will consider the role television, videos, and the internet play in regard to family and peer relationships, education and social issues. We will also examine the broadcasting and cable industry as well as the success and failure of the government and such media groups as ACT (Action for Children’s Television) in regulating content of children?s programs. Assignments will include interviews of pre-schoolers and adolescents, website presentations, critique of children’s programs, and a proposal for children’s media. This course allocates as History & Criticism for Film & TV majors.

Undergraduate

Intro to Foods and Food Science (NUTR-UE 85)

Introduction to the foods of various world regions and the techniques used to prepare them through hand-on food preparation, demonstrations, lectures and field trips.

Nutrition & Dietetics (Undergraduate)
3 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2023)


NUTR-UE 85-000 (10938)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Mon4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Mortillaro, Lourdes


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12408)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12409)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Tue9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12410)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Tue4:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12411)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Wed9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (11672)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Wed1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12412)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Wed4:00 PM – 7:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12413)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Thu9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by


NUTR-UE 85-000 (12414)01/23/2023 – 05/08/2023 Tue1:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by