2018-2019 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
Courses
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SPAN 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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STAT 4600 - Big Data Statistics I
Big Data Statistics I, together with Big Data Statistics II, provides an overview of techniques drawn from the fields of advanced machine learning, datamining and statistics. The goal of these two courses is to prepare students with an intellectual framework for problem solving.
Big Data Statistics I emphasizes the understanding of descriptive and diagnostic methodologies to identify key aspects of a business question, from data collection to the formulation and testing of hypotheses. As such, this course is essentially a data science course with an emphasis on statistical methodologies. At the same time, the course emphasizes the practical aspects of business analytics by embedding the methodologies in applications and by underlining the general objective of improving the speed, reliability, and quality of decisions. The course uses real-life data sets as illustrations, and R and Python to build answers to business questions.
Prerequisites: STAT 4450 and MIS 4550
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered annually
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STAT 4650 - Big Data Statistics II
Big Data Statistics II, together with Big Data Statistics I, provides an overview of techniques drawn from the fields of advanced machine learning, datamining and statistics. The goal of these two courses is to prepare students with an intellectual framework for problem solving.
Big Data Statistics II emphasizes the use of mathematical modelling and scenario optimization to reach optimal business decisions. As such, this course is essentially a data science course with an emphasis on statistical methodologies. At the same time, the course emphasizes the practical aspects of business analytics by embedding the methodologies in applications and by underlining the general objective of improving the speed, reliability, and quality of decisions. The course uses real-life data sets as illustrations, and R and Python to build answers to business questions.
Prerequisites: STAT 4450
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered annually
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STAT 5910 - Directed Research
For a directed research course, a student and professor design a self-study course based around a common research interest shared by both. A directed research must be approved by the professor and the Associate Dean of GSOM. It can be designed as either a 0.5 unit or 1 unit course. The Directed Research Course Request Form should be completed and submitted to Associate Dean Andrea Aiello (aaiello@clarku.edu). For questions or additional information, contact your academic advisor. This directed research is done in the subject area of statistics.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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TA 012 - How to Act Right-On/Off the Stage FYI
How to Act Right is primarily a basic acting course but with an added research component. The content of the course is presented and explored through lectures and exercises. The students take their newly informed grasp of the art of acting and working from their experience with dramatic structure, character development and improvisation they break into research teams and explore acting throughout their everyday life and culture. Some possible topics would include acting and Presidential politics, the acting process in undercover work, acting and role playing in Psychology, and acting as metaphor in Literature, Philosophy and Spiritual Traditions. The training approach in the course is integral. Because acting demands that its practitioners utilize all aspects of their beings, students will work to develop their many levels of simultaneously, i.e. physically, emotionally, cognitively and spiritually.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: na
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TA 109 - Contemporary Women Playwrights
This course is designed to introduce the student to the works of major women playwrights of the past 100 years. While there is some focus on the early part of the 20th century, the primary study will be of plays written in the past 30 years. In studying the plays, a number of different points of view and reference will be considered including that of the playwright, actor, director, historian and dramaturge. The student is encouraged to formulate a personal opinion of these plays and dramatists.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered biannually
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TA 111 - Voice and Diction
An intensified phonetic approach to articulation and voice production with some emphasis on speech for the stage and for public occasions. Several laboratory sessions will be provided for individual coaching by the instructor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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TA 112 - The Creative Actor
Through a series of workshops, the student becomes familiar with the basic tools necessary to the art of acting. The approach is based on the techniques of Stanislavski, Viola Spolin, Joseph Chaikin, Robert Cohen and original exercises, including an introduction to basic voice and movement for the actor.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every semester
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TA 126 - The Physical Theater/Environmental Studio
Study of designed environment and structure as it relates to performance and the physical theater as well as contemporary installation projects. Study of public spaces, theater architecture and site-specific work.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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TA 129 - Scenic Design
Fundamentals of set design theory; basic mechanical and conceptual solutions for theatre; development of presentational and research skills. Development of digital drafting, hand drafting and modeling skills. Course will focus on practical projects and creation.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall
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TA 132 - Modern Repertory
In this class students will make a piece of choreography from beginning to end, directed by the instructor. This piece will be performed informally at the end of the semester. The class will start with a group warm-up that will lead into a rehearsal, in which students will both learn material given to them by the instructor, and also create their own material to be used in the choreography. Permission of instructor required. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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TA 133 - African Inspirations: A Dance Collaboration
“African Inspirations” uses the music-movement relationship to explore connections between traditional African dance and Western dance principles. Students will learn Pearl Primus’ interpretations of two African dances-“Fanga,” a dance of welcome, and “Bushasche,” a war dance for peace-and develop small group pieces based on this material, re-interpreted through their own bodies and new rhythmic “conversations.” Musicians-particularly percussionists and singers-are welcome to join the project, as the course is accessible to novice and experienced dancers alike. No prerequisites. Offered Bi-annually.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring 2014
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TA 144 - Drama of the Western Tradition
Surveys the traditional dramatic canon of the western tradition. Course readings will include plays by Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Jonson, Ibsen, Yeats, Synge, and Friel (among others).
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: varied
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TA 153 - Modern Drama
This is a course designed to introduce the student to the major dramatic writers from the 19th century to the present. In studying the plays, a number of different points of view and reference will be considered including that of the playwright, the actor, the director, the historian, the dramaturge. The student is encouraged to formulate a personal opinion of these plays and dramatists. The major focus of the course is the text and the student’s understanding and interpretation of the work. However, a strong emphasis will also be placed on the performance aspect of these plays. This can take many forms, including coordination of our efforts with theatre classes on campus, field trips to theatres nearby, use of video, and even staged readings of the scripts in class. Fulfills the Verbal Expression requirement. You must have been placed at the Verbal Expression level to choose this seminar.
Course Designation/Attribute: VE
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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TA 201 - Seminar of Oscar Wild
This seminar outlines the life, trials, and work of Oscar Wilde, perhaps the most talented writer in the history of the English language. We will review not only the impressive canon of his plays but also his essays, children’s stories, and novels. Finally, the seminar will review the trial of Oscar Wilde, his role as a reluctant gay activist, and his influence on celebrity worship and the modern artist.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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TA 203 - The Play and its Stages
A critical approach to the dramatic text based on historical and material conditions of performance. Considers the changing ways that meanings are made through styles and conventions of performance (including set, costume, mask and vocal delivery), which are specific to historical and cultural moments. Playwrights considered may include Sophocles, Shakespeare, Racine, Molière, Chekhov, Ibsen, Brecht, Genet and Beckett. Scene work.
Course Designation/Attribute: AP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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TA 205 - The Political Play
This course explores plays and playwrights dealing with a wide range of political topics written within the past 30 years. The plays will be analyzed through both a dramaturgical and historical context. A number of issues will be considered including aids, race, war, the holocaust, the Middle East, sexuality, and illness. Above all, we will analyze and discuss what it is that makes a play political?
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically.
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TA 211 - Performance Philosophy
This course will serve as an introduction to an exciting new academic field called Performance Philosophy. Performance Philosophy is an international network of performers and researchers exploring the relationship between Philosophy and Performance, and is represented with a steadily increasing number of publications, performances, conferences and websites.
Approaching the works as artists, we will consider, engage, and confront selected works of philosophers Nietzsche, Plato, Sophocles, Hamlet, Samuel Beckett, the authors of the Cloud of the Unknowing and the Tao Te Ching, Robert Sardello, John Cage, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze and Allan Kaprow, not to write more discourse, but through this ‘contagion’ create vital new art works.
The course meets all day Fridays, with a seminar in the morning and the studio for developing new work in the afternoon. Though this course is offered as an elective in Theatre, the course is open to V&PA majors and to all Philosophy majors who have enough experience in an artistic discipline to sustain a working project throughout the semester. Students will have an opportunity to develop independent projects or work collaboratively on a site-specific performance piece under the direction of the instructor. Admission by interview.
This course may be repeatable for credit.
Prerequisites: Permission required. Permission obtained through interview with professor.
Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically
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TA 212 - Actor as Thinker
A conceptual approach to acting theory and its application. Student develops a greater understanding of script analysis, characterization, style and the relationship of the actor to the audience. A basic course for all students who intend to continue in acting and directing, and a prerequisite for TA 213 - Studio and TA 219 - Directing Seminar . Limited to 15 students
Prerequisites: TA 112 .
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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TA 214 - Shakespeare in Action
This acting course concentrates on the major works (Hamlet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, etc.), giving the actor an introduction to Shakespeare. The actor is encouraged to maintain the same approach and techniques used in other scene work, while adding the challenge of verse and heightened language. The focus of the class is to take a Shakespearean play and create the illusion of the first-time performance.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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TA 216 - Stage Management
This course explores the many duties of a stage manager. Many different skill sets are presented and analyzed including managing rehearsals, working with actors, directors, and designers. Students also gain experience at managing the performances on stage while working box office and front of house staff. Students may be assigned work on a V&PA production.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered Periodically.
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TA 217 - Teaching Creativity: The Main South Workshop
A class where a small group of students will learn the basic skills of teaching theatre. Clark students will run a weekly session with 12-15 students from a Worcester high school creating a theatre workshop. The students will learn how to teach improvisation, acting, and playwriting. Clark students will be mentored in curriculum and instruction techniques. By Permission Only
Prerequisites: TA 112
Anticipated Terms Offered: fall & spring
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TA 219 - Directing Seminar
Introduces the principles of directing for the stage through theory, practical application and discussion. Students study problems of interpretation and concept; the role of the director as creative and interpretive artist; and relationship to designer, stage manager and actors. Additional lab time is required.
Prerequisites: TA 212 or instructor permission.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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TA 220 - Film Study for Acting Training
This is an acting course that is not for actors. (Well, not just for actors.) Are you a Screen Studies major and writing about film performance? Would you like to understand the Acting process from an insider’s view? You will look at and understand film performance in a completely new way. Are you a liberal arts student that has taken Creative Actor? That’s great, but Improv is only half the story. You still have no knowledge or technique to approach a script. Are you a photography student that works with live models? How do you talk to them to get the look you are after? (Hint: just telling them what you are looking for will not do it.) Are you interested in Directing on stage or on any of the various screens? Good actors work from the inside out. You need to understand their process to work with them. Same is true if you are a writer and are thinking you might want to try your hand at a screenplay or a script for the theatre. In other words if you ever think you are going to get anywhere near actors or much less thinking about being one, you need this course. This is not a how to act on film course. This is a how to act period, course. It uses film to elucidate the acting process to achieve excellence in your performance and your understanding and ability to write and talk about it. You then can apply it to either stage, screen, image or article.
This is a performance class. You have to be there. Your attention and participation is mandatory. Getting the notes will never be sufficient. Besides approved religious observances, you will be allowed one absence. Missed classes after that will result in loss of a letter grade.
You will be asked to choose a role from a dramatic work to apply all in class acting exercises and out of class textual analysis. If you have not chosen a role by the second week, one will be assigned to you.
Grades will be determined by the student’s engagement with and discussion of the class material (lectures and exercises mostly based on material from the e-textbook FLIXACTING by Joe Olivieri and Catherine Telford and Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen) and the quality of their performance and supplemental written work. ‘A’ students will demonstrate excellence in all three areas. Excellence in two will result in a ‘B.’ Excellence in none will result in a ‘C’ or lower.
Students are also required to attend at least three cultural events on or off campus this semester. At the beginning of the semester, you will be given a list of possibilities highlighted from the Higgins School of Humanities Calendar of Events as well as other sources. You may be asked to write a paper or give a brief report/analysis on your experience.
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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TA 221 - Avanced Improvisation
An extension of Creative Actor, students are challenged to experience and experiment with different forms of Improvisation. Students will put on shows, watch professional improvisation, and synthesize this knowledge into their definition of improvisation for the stage. Creative Actor is a pre-requisite.
Prerequisites: TA 112
Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
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TA 225 - Advanced Theatrical Design Projects
Advanced-level projects in design. May be repeated for credit.
Fall 2018 Topic: Light and Sound
Students will explore numerous hands on applications of Light and Sound Design. Including video games, films, podcasts and theater productions. Students will work with Qlab, Vector Works, 3D surface mapping and moving lights.
Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically
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TA 226 - Advanced Production Projects
Introduces the business and practical execution of theater productions. Students learn techniques in organizing and managing different areas and departments. Requirements include participating in a supervisory position on a department show. Positions in outside theaters accepted for credit.
Spring 2018 Costume Design
This is a sewing fundamentals class in which you will learn how to hand sew, operate a sewing machine, prepare fabric for garment construction, read a pattern, identify various basic stitches, cut garments using patterns, and construct garments with both sewing machine and hand sewing techniques. The culmination of learning these skills will be making a sewing project (you will chose your pattern and fabric and the instructor will approve it or direct you to a more appropriate choice), during the class time with the assistance of the instructor.
Pre-requisite for this class is the costume design and history course or permission from the instructor. Various levels of sewing ability are able to be in this class from absolute beginner to amateur, since each project will be individually geared. The class is capped at 8 students because of sewing machine availability.
This is a studio class, most class work will be done in class.
Prerequisites: TA 125
Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically
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TA 230 - Playwriting
Students learn basic techniques of stagecraft including dialogue and character development, as well as dramatic structure and the technical elements of a play. Students will write every week and complete assignments to be read in class.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
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TA 236 - Playwriting II
This is a course for advanced playwrights who want to bring their work to a higher level. As a result, much is expected in terms of productivity and quality. Students will write a minimum of 10 new pages per week, in addition to rewrites that are suggested in and out of class. New pages will be read and critiqued in class each week. There will be an open discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the piece from the perspectives of both performer and writer. The goal is to strengthen this relationship through constant work and critique. Every month, students will give a public performance of some of the scenes written for class. By semester’s end, each student will have completed one full-length play and a complete act of another full length.
Prerequisites: Playwriting I is a prerequisite. Permission is also required.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
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TA 246 - The Great American Art Form: A Study of Musical Theater
A thorough investigation of the history, structure ad performance of American musical theatre. Lectures and demonstrations will be augmented with films and recordings. Students will prepare and present scenes and songs from selected musical plays, illustrating integration of libretto, score, and dance in American musical theatre.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every three years
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TA 297 - Honors
Students receive variable credit for advanced research & readings in the honors program.
Fall 2013 Topic: Like Sisters Project
The Seminar
The Consciousness and the Arts Seminar will take an historical look at the evolution of consciousness and how it manifests in the ever changing forms of painting, music, theatre and literature. The books studied and the concepts learned will then form a common language and a pool of shared understanding that we will draw on in making artistic decisions while working on……like sisters. This course will also have an experiential component where we will study methods and learn techniques to develop attention and mindfulness. We will also look at how these form the foundation for the development of creativity.
The seminar will meet Fridays. The morning sessions will consist of lectures and discussion of that week’s assigned book, article, film, music or paintings. The class will be then invited to continue the discussion over lunch in a private room off the dining hall. The afternoon session will be reserved for practical work developing the …………….like sisters project. This will consist of rehearsal and/ or meeting in your production groups with your project mentor. The proposed groups:
1. Actors
2. Musician/composers
3. Design
4. Dancers/Improvisational actors
5. Research Group/dramaturgy film archival studies
6. Project documentarians
The Project
The …………like sisters project will be an original theatre piece based on the Three Sisters by Chekhov. The piece will consist of theatre, dance, music and film. A live collage examining the End of Empire in politics and consciousness. The context will be expanded beyond Chekhov and the end of Tsarist Russia to include fall of the Austro-Hungarian, British, and eventually American empires through the incorporating texts by Joseph Roth, Robert Musil and Richard Tarnas and Chalmers Johnson.
Anticipated Terms Offered: na
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UDSC 245 - Going Local: Community Development and Planning
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to theories, debates and practical strategies regarding the development of urban communities. Students gain an enhanced understanding of the complexities inherent to the concepts of community and participation. They critically analyze “community” as a set of social relations, as a local economy, as a built environment, and as a political organization. Students begin to recognize the importance of race, gender, age, class, identity, and culture in working with communities. Finally, they examine the roles and effectiveness of the methods, models and strategies used by informal neighborhood organizations, banks, private developers, local nonprofits, and government agencies in rebuilding communities and their economies. Case examples and articles from across the United States will be used. Worcester’s neighborhoods-which provide excellent examples of physical, social, and economic development strategies-will be highlighted throughout this course.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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UDSC 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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WGS 110 - Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies
In this course we will explore the ways in which ideas about femininity and masculinity have shaped women’s lives-locally and globally, in the present and historically-and how some women have challenged, even transformed, those meanings and the social relationships that flow from those two potent ideas. Among the topics that may be considered are: beauty, war, sports, politics, women’s movements, sexuality, race, work, violence, fashion, family, globalization, feminism, creativity, religion, media and girlhood.
Note: WGS 110 is open to all students in all majors. The content varies by semester, reflecting the instructor’s individual field of study and expertise. As an introductory course, preference is given to incoming first-year students and students entering their sophomore year. Juniors and seniors may register only by permission of the instructor.
Course Designation/Attribute: GP
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall
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WGS 120 - Popular Culture: American Orientalism
What is popular culture? What makes something popular and what makes it ‘cultural’? Are there such things as ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, and, if so, what do they even matter to the study of popular culture? How did popular culture become integral to American life and collective experience? Does it impact the ways we perceive ourselves in relation to others locally and globally? WGS 120 is designed to address these and other questions.
Beginning with an analysis of popular culture as a defining characteristic of America and Americans, students are ask to consider the interrelationships between popular culture; including film, literature, television, and visual cultures, and depictions of the U.S. as an “imagined community” in relation to distant, even dangerous, ‘others.’ WGS 120 takes seriously the premise that popular texts do not simply reflect already-existent ideas and beliefs about gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity, culture, region, and religion, but rather play a critical role in the production of events, peoples, and places, their cultural significance and political import. Students will examine how questions of popular culture are always already questions of identity, place, politics, history, and economics. To do so, students will be introduced to the interdisciplinary study of popular culture through critical cultural studies approaches to questions of ideology and representation.
Focusing on the evolution of orientalism and its role in shaping representations of the “Middle East” in the Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries, WGS 120 will provide students with a topical examination of cultural-historical processes of islamophobia and xenophobia in the creation, dissemination, and consumption of mass, or popular representations of Muslim and Arab identities, cultures, and geographies.
Course Designation/Attribute: DI
Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually
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WGS 220 - Queer Theory
In this student-led seminar, you’ll examine queer theory through the lenses of five main topics: identity construction, activism and application, intersectional identities, class and power, and nationalism. The use of these five categorizes will guide our in-depth readings and class discussion. The course will not attempt to cover all aspects of queer theory; rather it will provide a comprehensive overview of the subject with the goal of increasing your gender literacy from an intersectional perspective.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
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WGS 298 - Internship
An Academic internship is a practical work experience with an academic component that enables a student to gain knowledge and skills within an organization, industry, or functional area that reflects the student’s academic and professional interests.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Fall/Spring
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WGS 299 - Directed Study
Undergraduates, typically juniors and seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved and directed by a faculty member. Offered for variable credit. May be repeatable for credit.
Anticipated Terms Offered: Every Semester
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WS 2010 - Secrets of the Sisterhoods: Inside the Red Tent
Throughout history, have women been observers in a man’s world, or simply participants and leaders in different ways? How do women of varying time periods and cultures view the world and their roles in it? These questions and more will be explored via modern and historical fiction novels, essays, films, discussion and oral history documentation, focusing on “global sisterhood.”
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WS 2180 - Malefica: Origin of Witchcraft
Examines the mythological inheritance of European civilization that eventuated in the Witch craze of the Middle Ages through the Reformation as well as the development of pagan Wicca from the 18th century to the present day. Topics covered include goddess mythology, the Witch craze, Salem, Wicca and ecofeminism. Readings will include poetry, fiction, and drama as well as historical documents and various myths.
Prerequisites: A compositon course or VE fulfilled.
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WS 2800 - Virginia Woolf
Fueled by creative genius and mental instability, the writing of Virginia Woolf was cutting edge in the 1920s and ‘30s and remains stimulating to this day. Woolf’s profound influence on modernism and on literary and social criticism make her a significant force in Western literature. Woolf’s writing was devoted to the examination of women’s place in modern society and the nature of women’s desire. Focusing on individual women’s lives, her writing investigates the complexities of personal identity, the fluidity of gender and sexuality and women’s need for artistic and intellectual expression as well as psychological and financial independence. Deeply introspective, Woolf kept extensive personal diaries, which we will study in addition to her fiction and nonfiction.
Prerequisites: Intermediate Composition.
Anticipated Terms Offered: varies
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