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Visual and Environmental Studies Courses

• VISU S-21 Drawing Into Painting
• VISU S-34z Summer Seminar—The Book as Art: Working with Letters, Ink, and Paper
• VISU S-60 Mixed Media
• VISU S-66 Works on Paper
• VISU S-72 Film History and Social History: American Dreams and Nightmares 1933-1956
• VISU S-76 Nazi Cinema: Film and Propaganda
• VISU S-107 Scrutinizing the American Environment: The Art, Craft, and Serendipity of Acute Observation
• VISU S-151 Art and Technique of Fiction Film Directing
• VISU S-159 Cinematic Vision: Scriptwriting for Production
• VISU S-160 Crucial Issues in Landscape Creation and Perception
• VISU S-186 Study Abroad in Venice, Italy: Beginnings and Endings in the Fiction Film—The Case of Modern Italian Cinema
• VISU S-194 Study Abroad in Korea: Engaging Korean Culture Through Korean Cinema

VISU S-21 Drawing Into Painting (31904)

Drawing has always been important in the history and practice of painting. In recent years it has taken on a more significant role and is often the central focus in the work of many contemporary artists. This course establishes a strong basis in drawing through an emphasis on a wide range of materials, methods, and concepts that in turn establish an integrative approach to the practice of painting. The making of images is central to the purpose of the course, and is constructed through imaginative and critical relationships to objects gathered from urban environments. Individual and group critiques are conducted on a consistent and ongoing basis. (4 credits)

VISU S-34z Summer Seminar—The Book as Art: Working with Letters, Ink, and Paper (32585)

This seminar meets in the Bow and Arrow Press, a vintage letterpress studio in Adams House. We work with lead type to explore language as both a verbal and visual medium, in which words might spell out poetry as readily as they represent a swarm of birds. We ask the following question: what is possible when language becomes a visual art? We work through seven creative problems, and in the process make a modern alphabet book, extract a poem out of other poems, and discover what defines unique in the age of mechanical reproduction. The final project gathers the class's work into handmade books. (4 credits)

VISU S-60 Mixed Media (31905)

This course introduces contemporary art through slide and video presentations and assigned readings. Students create two- and three-dimensional works for critique using materials that reflect the practices and concerns of contemporary art. (4 credits)

VISU S-66 Works on Paper (32083)

This course introduces artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries who use a broad variety of themes, approaches, and techniques for the creation of works on paper. Students create works on paper for critique that reflect this expansive and experimental view of drawing itself. (4 credits)

VISU S-72 Film History and Social History: American Dreams and Nightmares 1933-1956 (32683)

This course traces film's growth in the United States as an art form, an industrial commodity, and a socio-historical force. We consider features made in North America shortly before and after World War II, concentrating on the different (and dynamic) ways in which films respond to psychological desires, social needs, and material circumstances. (4 credits)

VISU S-76 Nazi Cinema: Film and Propaganda (32784)

*** VISU S-76 has been CANCELED. ***

VISU S-107 Scrutinizing the American Environment: The Art, Craft, and Serendipity of Acute Observation (32785)

A course in the making, perception, and future of the American environment, emphasizing contemporary views in advertising, news media, geography, amateur and professional photography, all as related to ordinary Americans, especially farmers, the military, investors, urban and suburban residents, children, and above all, travelers. Topics range from streets, villages, railroads, shopping malls, and schools to back yards, energy-efficient site design, malls, urban neighborhoods, riverfronts, crossroads, and highways. The course emphasizes the "big picture" visual understanding of United States built form, the myriad ways individuals see differently and why, the way thoughtful observers find all sorts of secret knowledge, and why looking acutely often produces glimpses of the future of things and cultural shifts. (4 credits)

VISU S-151 Art and Technique of Fiction Film Directing (32595)

This course is an introduction to the complex art of film directing from script to screen, one scene at a time. Students watch and analyze films such as Sophie's Choice and Days of Heaven, as well as produce several short film exercises themselves. By the end of the course, students should have a firm grasp of the scene as a unit of a feature film, as well as the basic vocabulary and tools at a filmmaker's disposal. (4 credits)

VISU S-159 Cinematic Vision: Scriptwriting for Production (32845)

This is an advanced production course designed to provide a step-by-step examination of production elements and techniques necessary to make outstanding media works, including the initial production concept, script, production plan, cinematography, casting, art direction, and audio design. The course offers students the opportunity to improve skills in each of these elements by visualizing them in the original script. Students write, direct and shoot a five-to-ten minute original digital video piece. Works produced may be of any genre: fiction, documentary, or experimental. Prerequisites: successful completion of a basic production course or its equivalent; competence in Final Cut Pro or a comparable editing system. Admission is decided on an individual basis: a production reel or digital sample that demonstrates adequate production skills may be submitted to Dr. Steinberg prior to class or on the first day of class. (4 credits)

VISU S-160 Crucial Issues in Landscape Creation and Perception (30352)

This is a lecture/slide/video course emphasizing the chief forces now shaping American understanding of everyday form, such as the manipulation of aesthetic standards by advertising and Hollywood imagery; the perfection of powered flight and the aerial view; the importance of snapshot photography in relation to home video; the post-1960s fascination with outdoor privacy; contemporary and potential spatial disorientation resulting from computer-aided electronic media; the post-1920 retreat of well-educated people into wilderness; the shaping of gender roles and self-image through clothing design and fashion shifts; and the long-term impact of national advertising campaigns on American notions of quality, uniqueness, proportion, and pleasure as reflected in ordinary visual realms. (4 credits)

VISU S-186 Study Abroad in Venice, Italy: Beginnings and Endings in the Fiction Film—The Case of Modern Italian Cinema (32868)

See Study Abroad for more information.

VISU S-194 Study Abroad in Korea: Engaging Korean Culture Through Korean Cinema (32866)

See Study Abroad for more information.

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