Open Classrooms

Visual Art, Artists, & Cultures

Sonja Drimmer, History of Art and Architecture
10:10 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Integrative Learning Center, Room S231

The discipline of art history and the tools of visual analysis it employs. Focus on issues such as Classicism, "primitive" art, realism, and modernity, presented in roughly chronological order. Discussion of these issues in relation to contemporary visual culture.

(#large class #active lecturing #controversial topics #critical thinking)

Research Forum

Pari Riahi, Architecture
11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Olver Design Building, Room 225

This course explores a variety of approaches to research in architecture, helping students develop their interests and configure methods and processes that will allow them to advance in their thesis projects. While exploring the landscape of research, in writing and drawing, issues of agency, creativity, and positionality are discussed to situate each student’s interest within a larger and more nuanced fabric of social, cultural, and environmental landscape.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Reading skills #Critical thinking #Student presentations)

Race, Sexuality, and The Law in Early America

Anne Kerth, W.E.B. Du Bois Department Afro-American Studies
2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. New Africa House, Room 26 * room change

What is race? What is sexuality? How did early American history shape the legal structures that would come to define racial and sexual identities and possibilities? And how do modern American ideas about race and sexuality reflect historical legal conflations of race and sexuality? In this course, students will examine how African, European, and Native American ideas about race and sexuality influenced the development of colonial, early republican, and antebellum America, with a special focus on the evolution of American legal frameworks undergirding racial and sexual hierarchies. Topics covered include initial encounters between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans; the birth and evolution of racial slavery; interracial sex and marriage; citizenship and belonging; and legal and extra-legal racial and sexual violence.

(#Small class #discussion-based class #reading skills #critical thinking)

Fundamentals of Acting

Gina Kaufmann, Theater
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bromery Center for Arts, Room 204

"Beginning Techniques Acting", required for Theater Majors, but open to all majors, is a professionally-focused introduction to the process of acting. Students explore the techniques every actor uses to create life on stage.  The emphasis is on spontaneity; ensemble building; listening and responding; objectives, actions and obstacles; and given circumstances. While these are foundational skills for performers, they are also the skills needed for empathetic and charismatic communication in any field.

(#Group work #Small class #Kinesthetic learning #Listening skills)

Mystical Literature

Jessica Barr, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Herter Hall, Room 113 (changed from 108)

This class will explore mystical literature of a variety of religious traditions. Reading these texts as literary expressions of union or contact with the transcendent, we will analyze the ways in which they seek to capture what is usually considered to be an inexpressible, non-verbal experience. Readings will draw from the mystical traditions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Reading skills #Critical thinking)

Seminar on Plato's Republic

Vanessa de Harven, Philosophy
10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. South College, Room E301

Plato’s Republic is an intricate and sophisticated work of ethics, moral psychology, metaphysics, epistemology, and, of course, politics. Over the course of the semester we will undertake a close reading of this powerful dialogue, and discover Plato’s enduring relevance to society and the human condition. The triumphs and woes of the Athenian democracy are not far from our own. There is much talk of justice, but virtually no agreement as to what justice even is. Plato asks, What is justice and morality, anyway, and why is it good for us? What is the nature of the human being, and what does its good consist in? It turns out that an answer to one is an answer to the other: justice is the healthy condition of a human soul, an admirable state of character consisting in the fulfillment of human nature. It is good because it generates and preserves the best state of the best part of you, and this is happiness.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Reading skills #Critical thinking #Active lecturing)

Jazz Dance

Lauren Cox, Music and Dance
4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Totman, Room 204

Experience Jazz rhythms through movement while learning about the basic elements and history of Black Sanctuary Practices in the Americas. Come prepared to move, as this class will take you through a warm up, touch upon cleansing rituals and teach authentic solo jazz combinations.

(#Active Lecture)

Art & Code

Roopa Vasudevan, Art
9:05 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Studio Arts Building, Room 240

This studio course explores the creative possibilities of code-based art. Students explore interactive artwork using both analog and digital processes; learn computer programming fundamentals in an arts context; and gain an understanding of procedural, generative, and algorithmic logic as seen within a range of art and design practices. While we will be working in the Web browser with p5.js, a JavaScript framework built with artists and designers in mind, the skills learned in this class can be applied to a variety of programming languages and softwares. Lectures, discussions, and demonstrations provide a conceptual, aesthetic and technical foundation in code-based art as a creative practice. Emphasis is on the development of creative studio projects that demonstrate independent experimentation with the tools and concepts explored in class.

(#Student presentations)

Intermediate Italian II

Melina Masterson, Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. Herter Hall, Room 205

Italian 240 consists of continued study of the structural and communicative components of Italian language and has the goal of further developing proficiency at the intermediate level. Building upon the intensive review of basic grammar completed in elementary Italian, students will develop mastery of essential grammatical forms, increase knowledge of specialized vocabulary, further explore Italian history and culture, and strengthen oral and written communication skills.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Group work #Reading skills #Critical thinking)

Fundamentals of Speech Sounds

Joe Pater, Linguistics
11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Hasbrouck Laboratory, Room 242

This course provides an introduction to the rich diversity of the sounds of the world’s languages and the different ways that they are used across those languages. Students learn how to analyze individual sounds and their patterning in a language. Skills include transcription of sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet, description of sounds in terms of their production, acoustic measurement of sounds, analysis of sound patterns in terms of constraints and rules.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Group work #Critical thinking)

Caribbean Literature: The Sea Is History

Rachel Mordecai, English
1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m.  South College, Room W205

Contemporary works from the English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking literatures of the Caribbean, comprising a mixture of "canonical" and emerging authors. Major themes: history and its marks upon the Caribbean present; creolization; racial identity and ambiguity; colonial and neo-colonial relationships among countries; gender and sexuality.

(#Small class #Discussion-based class #Group work #Reading skills #Critical thinking)

Wind Ensemble

Matthew Westgate, Music and Dance
10:10 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. Bromery Center for Arts, Room 36

The UMass Wind Ensemble is the premiere wind, brass, percussion performance ensemble at UMass.

(#Large class-50 #Group work #Critical Thinking #Student presentations #Creative problem solving #Artistic expression)

Water, Oil and Blood: The Middle East in Global Policy

David Mednicoff, Judaic and Near Eastern Studies
10:00 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.  Integrative Learning Center, Room S311

This course uses three basic substances central to contemporary society, water, oil and blood, as charged metaphors for issues that help define the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. How has water in and out of the MENA region been pivotal to its history? How much does oil in the MENA shape its internal and external politics? How do ties of blood and the spilling of blood influence the region? More generally, how do we make sense of a part of the world that evokes strong disagreements, and too often, stereotypes?

(#Large class #Discussion-based class #Group work #Critical thinking #Active lecturing #Controversial topics)

Africa Since 1500

Elizabeth Jacob, History
1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Herter Hall, Room 206

This survey course examines African history from the 16th century to the present. It focuses on three major developments in African history: slavery and the rise of global capitalism; colonial conquest and rule; and decolonization and the end of empire. As we study African-authored speeches, essays, art, and literature, we will explore how African women and men experienced these periods of complex political, economic, and cultural change. Throughout, we will pay particular attention to the “making” of African history. Who writes African history? Whose voices are centered? Whose voices are marginalized?

(#Discussion-based class #active lecturing #reading skills #critical thinking)

Greek Archaeology

Shannon Hogue, Classics
2:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Herter Hall, Room 111

This course will introduce students to the fundamental methods of archaeology, including excavation, survey, and dating techniques, as a means of systematically gathering evidence regarding ancient societies. Students will then learn methods of analyzing and interpreting archaeological evidence to understand the social institutions and human behavior during major periods of ancient Greek history, from the Late Bronze Age through the Classical period (1700 BC – 323 BC). Through our chronological study of ancient Greece, students will learn about major questions in Greek archaeology and how modern scholars have attempted to address them.

(#Group work #Active learning #Critical thinking)