Archives

Spring 2024

Designing Your Voice: Synthetic Sounds From Circuits (ITPG-GT 3046)

Course Description: In this 14-week course, students will explore sound design fundamentals through modular synthesizers, leveraging the capabilities of microcontrollers. Modular synthesizers are a type of electronic musical instrument used to generate, manipulate, and shape sound through the interconnection of individual modules, or components. This course is designed to equip students with the skills and creative prowess required to craft their own unique devices that adhere to the Eurorack design format; a popular modular synthesizer standard. The curriculum blends the art of sound design with the technical aspects of hardware synthesizer architecture, building skills so that by the end of this course students will have the competence to bring their sonic visions to life in physical form through thoughtful interaction. By harnessing the modular nature of these components, students will work independently, taking into consideration the designs of their peers to ensure seamless compatibility between their devices, resulting in a distinct ‘voice’; a term used to describe a collection of components that define the signal path of a synthesizer. The first half of the course will focus on sound design coding techniques utilizing the Teensy microcontroller, with the second half dedicated to developing tangible hardware design skills. Prerequisites: Intro to Physical Computing No sound design/musical experience is required.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

ITPG-GT 3046-000 (14811)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Mon9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Physical Computing & Experimental Interfaces)

Designing for Messy Humans (ITPG-GT 3047)

“How can we create services – digital or otherwise – that scratch psychological itches in ways that take into consideration the uncontrollable nature of users? In this course, we marry the art of design with the science of psychology. The offspring of this match is complicated, unexpected and never predictable – but indelibly informed by both its binary and analogue parentage. Leaning on a variety of international case studies that tickle our human passion for enquiry, for storytelling, for sensation, and for sense-making, plus short philosophical readings about the nature of the indefinable, each class will dissect what we know about something inherently human (from beauty to joy to elegance), and how technologists and machine-makers have tried to predict it. We will spend time in this course reverse engineering black boxes and imagining how they could have been designed otherwise. The final project will be an “”””engine”””” or machine – mock-up, paper design or working prototype – that proposes to produce the solution to a messy human question every single time. The course will be divided into three thematic sections of three classes each: a theory week, an analysis week, and a prototyping week. Each thematic section will examine single-topic human “needs” frequently designed for in apps and tech. Students will be expected to take part in group discussions, and brainstorming sessions that will imagine systems that could achieve that topic. Latterly, the last session will be workshops, in which students will work together or alone on their own projects based on one topic of their choice.”

Graduate

Class #
Section #
Meets

Class #: 15334
Section #: 001
Meets: R 12:20-2:50p

Graduate IMA Electives Spring 2026 Spring 2027
Spring 2024

Designing Curiosity Portals (ITPG-GT 3008)

By exploring and dissecting the field of STEM education, we will research how STEM education currently exists with clear biases and gatekeeping. Through that we intend to create a framework to challenge the biases and design more inclusive and accessible pathways. As a class we will engage in discussions around spaces (community/public spaces and private spaces), STEM as an inclusive element, and definitions of accessibility. The hope is to yield an experience where students can observe, inspire (or get inspired) by mundane things around their day to day lives and connect them to STEM experiences that might seem rather oblivious. Students will create assignments in dialogue with “making with everyday objects”, STEM pedagogy practice, social/emotional learning in spaces, and human-centered design. Students will be exposed to STEM literacy pedagogy, will curate a pop-up space, practice comprehensive user-testing, and reconstruct the framework around accessible and universal design. Students will engage in critical thinking, critiques, visiting artist lectures, field trips and class discussions. About Sharon De La Cruz: https://www.sharonleedelacruz.com/about-me, https://khushbukshirsagar.weebly.com/about.html

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

ITPG-GT 3008-000 (14799)01/26/2024 – 05/03/2024 Fri12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by De La Cruz, Sharon

Graduate
Spring 2024

R&D Studio: Feature, Smart, and Super Phones (ITPG-GT 3009)

In this special format studio class, students will investigate techniques and frameworks to challenge the socioeconomics of planned obsolescence. We will research, design, and develop projects that rethink our strained relationship with smartphones and re-imagine the future of “old” devices. This is a production-heavy, four-credit course, where students will contribute to original research, and develop projects that combine HCI, design, and critical theory. Prerequisites include an open mind, the drive to make, and graduate-level Physical Computing.

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

ITPG-GT 3009-000 (14800)01/23/2024 – 04/30/2024 Tue3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Galvao Cesar de Oliveira, Pedro

Graduate
Spring 2024

Therapeutic Sensory Immersion – VR Focused (ITPG-GT 3006)

The use of digital technology in mental health treatment, recovery, support, and prevention is rapidly gaining acceptance. For instance: The FDA recently approved the VR therapeutic EaseVRx to treat pain. Researchers recently found that exposure to natural environments in VR can provide emotional well-being benefits for people who cannot access the outdoors. Strobing lights can be tuned to stimulate temporary harmonic brain wave patterns usually only found in people who have been meditating for decades. Apps which help you track your mood could facilitate gaining knowledge and awareness of one’s mood patterns and thus help maintain emotional well-being. ASMR videos are reported to be effective in inducing sleep for those susceptible to insomnia, and assuaging a range of symptoms, including those associated with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. This class will focus on the use of technology to activate any and all of our senses to aid in mindfulness and meditation, distraction therapy, body awareness and acceptance, and more, via the use of tools and techniques shown to have a direct impact on our physiology as well as supportive and accessible user experience design with broad applications in other areas. Prerequisite: Basic coding and physical computing About Brian Lobser: http://light.clinic

Interactive Telecommunications (Graduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

ITPG-GT 3006-000 (14797)01/26/2024 – 05/03/2024 Fri6:00 PM – 8:00 PM (Evening)at Brooklyn CampusInstructed by Lobser, David

Graduate
Fall 2020 Spring 2024

Magazines, Art, and Public Culture (CEH-GA 3028)

This course examines magazines as collaborative sites for artists and writers internationally, leading the way to a global, networked cultural sphere. We will consider periodicals as both commercial and artist-driven enterprises and as material objects to be studied through the lens of the history of photography, journalism, and design.

Center for Experimental Humanities (Graduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2024)

CEH-GA 3028-000 (10923)01/22/2024 – 05/06/2024 Tue11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Cole, Lori

Graduate IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies)

Food and the City (FOOD-UE 1050)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates:

Food is all around us. It influences who we are and how we related to our surroundings. This course explores food in the city from multiple points of view. Students observe and analyze various aspects of food in the city, from personal experiences to large social issues such as gentrification and food insecurity, and examine the cultural, social, and political aspects of food systems. Students acquire familiarity with basic ethnographic skills and methods such as interviews, observations, visual ethnography, and virtual ethnography Liberal Arts Core/CORE Equivalent – satisfies the requirement for Society & Social Sciences for Steinhardt students.

Food Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2023

Performance and Technology (PERF-UT 304)

On blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Ello, Tumblr, email, SoundCloud, YouTube, and more, we are constantly performing using technology. Performance Studies has long been concerned with technology, but it is only recently concerned with questions brought to the fore by new technologies and new technological practices, particularly on the Internet. This survey course requires us to consider the relationship between Performance Studies as a discipline (one that incorporates performance theory, critical theory, feminist theory, queer theory, and other theoretical genres) with technology, particularly the Internet. Open to Non-Majors.

Performance Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Global Media Capstone (MCC-UE 1220)

Specifically for students in the Global Media Scholars program, this course is the required culminating experience taken in the senior year, alongside a travel component during the January term. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies, and will be site-specific based on the country chosen for January travel.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2025)

MCC-UE 1220-000 (8121)09/02/2025 – 12/11/2025 Tue2:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Fleetwood, Nicole

Fall 2025 Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Fall 2024 Spring 2023

Social Impact: Advertising for Social Good (MCC-UE 1051)

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter and #metoo, the field of social good advertising has rapidly expanded as brands seek social relevance, governments and nonprofits look to inform, and activists try to persuade. In this course, students will learn to plan and execute powerful social advertising campaigns, while thinking critically about the blurred lines between advertising and information, and branding and politics, in what Sarah Banet-Weiser calls “Shopping for Change.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2024)

MCC-UE 1051-000 (14065)09/03/2024 – 12/12/2024 Wed11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Railla, Jean

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate

Global Media Seminar: Britain and Europe (MCC-UE 9457)

Credits: 4
Duration: 14 Weeks
Dates:

With an emphasis on British and European news and journalism, this course explores globalization from a wide range of theoretical frameworks including political economy, cultural analysis, theories of representation, and critical race and postcolonial studies. It considers how technologies, diasporic and transnational communities, and international institutions impact global communications, and how these networks and organizations are challenging, re-imagining and re-shaping social, cultural and geographic boundaries via mediated discourse.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Fall 2024 Spring 2021

History of Computing (MCC-UE 1170)

This umbrella course focuses on specific time periods, technological developments and cultural contexts relevant to understanding the development of digital computing technology over the course of the 20th century and into the 21st. This course familiarizes students with the social forces and techno-cultural innovations that shaped the computing industry. Specific themes may include: personal computing; Cold War computing; computing and globalization; the quantified self; computational aesthetics; artificial intelligence and machine learning; computing and gender.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2024)

MCC-UE 1170-000 (14061)09/03/2024 – 12/12/2024 Mon,Wed3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (Late afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Hassein, Nabil

IMA Electives IMA Electives (Legacy Structure - Seminar/Studies) Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Fall 2024

Visual Culture/Science and Technology (MCC-UE 1411)

This course examines the imagery of science and technology, the role of visuality in the construction of scientific knowledge, artistic renditions of science, and the emergence of visual technologies in modern society. It looks at how visuality has been key to the exercise of power through such practices as cataloguing and identification; the designation of abnormality, disease, and pathologies; medical diagnosis; scientific experimentation; and the marketing of science and medicine. We will examine the development of the visual technologies in the emerging scientific practices of psychiatry and criminology; explore the sciences of eugenics, genetics, pharmacology, brain and body scans, and digital medical images of many kinds; the marketing of pharmaceuticals, and the emerging politics of scientific activism.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 14 Weeks

Sections (Fall 2024)

MCC-UE 1411-000 (14031)09/03/2024 – 12/12/2024 Tue,Thu12:00 AM – 1:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Washington SquareInstructed by Almenara, Maria Paz

Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Undergraduate

Middle East Media (MCC-UE 1341)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Wed

This course examines contemporary media in (primarily Arab parts of) the Middle East and media about the Middle East, and Islam within the U.S. it analyzes the role played by these media in representing and reproducing the perceived rift between Islam and the West. Readings and media examples focus on the politics of culture, religion, modernity, and national identity as they shape and intersect with contemporary geopolitical events, cultural formations, and media globalization.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Inquiry Seminar (MCC-UE 1200)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu

MCC Research Inquiry Seminars, taken early in the major, expose students to the department’s culture of scholarly inquiry. Course topics reflect faculty research interests, offering students a chance to explore emerging issues in the field of media studies.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Spring 2026 Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Spring 2024 Spring 2025

Ethics and Media (MCC-UE 1028)

Students who plan on pursuing careers in the media (professional and academic) will be faced with difficulty choices that carry with them potent ethical repercussions, choices that practical training does not properly equip them to approach in a critical and informed manner. The purpose of this course is therefore twofold: 1) to equip future media professional with sensitivity to moral values under challenge as well as the necessary skills in critical thinking and decision making for navigating their roles and responsibilities in relation to them; and 2) honing those same skills and sensitivities for consumers of media and citizens in media saturated societies.

Media, Culture & Communication (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2025)

MCC-UE 1028-000 (8303)01/21/2025 – 05/06/2025 Mon,Wed8:00 AM – 9:00 AM (Morning)at Washington SquareInstructed by Cormier, Robert

Undergraduate
Fall 2023 Spring 2025

Youth in the Middle East (ACS-UH 2613X)

Roughly one third of the Middle East population today is between 15 and 29 years old – a demographic “bulge” which has brought Middle Eastern youths at the forefront of media and government concerns both at the regional and global scale. But from the figure of the young jihadist to that of the Arab spring revolutionary, dominant perceptions of these youths often fall into highly polarized archetypes. Moving the focus away from politics and religion, this course explores the everyday worlds of Middle Eastern youths and the complex interactions – with institutions, peers and family members – which characterize their daily lives. By analyzing multiple youth cultures divided along the lines of gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation, or social class, students will address the diversity of Middle Eastern youths and question the universality of age categories. A large space will also be devoted to the voices of Middle Eastern youths themselves, from Egyptian literature and Emirati cinema to Moroccan hip-hop. These cultural productions will allow students to look at the way Arab youths use globalized artistic genres to address regional issues and express their fears, hopes and desires.

Arab Crossroads Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Sections (Spring 2025)

ACS-UH 2613X-000 (4460)01/21/2025 – 05/09/2025 Tue,Thu12:00 AM – 2:00 PM (Early afternoon)at Abu DhabiInstructed by Assaf, Laure

Cultures and Contexts Undergraduate

Management & Organizations (BUSOR-UH 1003)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu
Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Tue,Thu

Why do some organizations succeed while others flounder? Whether it be as an employee within a traditional for-profit business, or within one of the wide spectrum of alternative career paths, all of us will ultimately be a part of organizations. This course will help illuminate the key processes and factors that determine why organizations function as they do, drawing upon the fields of management, strategy, sociology, and psychology in the process. Specific topics covered include: Corporate strategy and achieving competitive advantage, Organizational structure and design, Organizational and national culture, Leadership, Motivation and incentives, Groups dynamics, Power & politics within organizations, including a discussion of persuasion & influence and social networks, Judgment and decision-making.

Business & Organizational Studies (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 Liberal Arts & Sciences - Electives Societies & the Social Sciences Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Introduction to Creative Writing (LITCW-UH 1003)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Wed

This workshop introduces the basic elements of poetry, fiction, and personal narrative with in-class writing, take-home reading and writing assignments, and substantive discussions of craft. The course is structured as a workshop, which means that students receive feedback from their instructor and their fellow writers in a roundtable setting, and that they should be prepared to offer their classmates responses to their work.

Literature & Creative Writing (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 General Elective Spring 2026 Undergraduate

Elementary Arabic 1 (ARABL-UH 1110)

Credits: 4
Duration: 15 Weeks
Dates: Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu

This course is designed for learners with no prior knowledge of Arabic. Students who have studied Arabic before or who have prior knowledge of Arabic are required to take a placement test. This is a full semester (or equivalent session) course during which students first learn the Arabic alphabet, then move on to work on the sentence and paragraph levels. It is an interactive course designed to build the student’s abilities in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. At the end of the semester students should be able to carry on a short conversation; ask and answer questions; introduce themselves and others; provide simple biographical information; interact in simple daily life situations; ask for assistance; express likes and dislikes; read short texts; and gain a basic understanding of Arab culture. Types of tasks and assignments required for this course include daily homework assignments, periodic quizzes, brief presentations, short essay writing, and a final exam.

Arabic Language (Undergraduate)
4 credits – 15 Weeks

Fall 2025 General Elective Spring 2026 Undergraduate