2019-2020 Academic Catalog 
    
    May 13, 2024  
HELP
2019-2020 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Courses

 
  

  • 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.
  

  • TA 206 - The Image and the Word

    This is a 200 level studio class for advanced and intermediate playwrights and photographers. Through lectures, performances, and demonstrations, students will discover how photographers illustrate through images while also learning the way writers are influenced by what is visual. Students from these two different mediums will collaborate with one another in creating their respective works. The final project will be a gallery exhibit of concluding photographs and text shared with the Clark community.

    Students will be charged a V & PA lab fee upon registering for this course.

    Prerequisites: ARTS 120 or TA 230 

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered periodically
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • TA 213 - Studio

    A scene-study course applying the methods, theories and approaches discussed in Actor as Thinker to working on stage, film and video. Students are required to present several scenes of different periods and styles for discussion, critical written review and further development by classmates and director. Content varies each time the course is taught. May be repeated for credit. Lab and crew hours are required.

    Spring 2017 Topic: Master’s of Theatre

     

    Prerequisites: TA 212 .

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
  

  • 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
  

  • TA 215 - Stage Combat

    This class will offer an introduction to stage combat, a vocabulary, a process and a basis for safe exploration of violent action in theater. The first three weeks will be spent on hand-to-hand basics: shared weight improvisation, tumbling (the safe way to fall), learning moves, positions and reactions. The second three weeks will focus on learning the basics of weapons fighting. Using wooden dowels as weapons, we will cover the basics of footwork and hand positions in Staff fighting, Broadsword, Rapier and Dagger, and Small Sword. In latter classes, students will work on implementing techniques into a complete fight. Limited to 12 Theatre majors, non-majors require permission.

    Students will be charged a V & PA lab fee upon registering for this course.

    Course Designation/Attribute: AP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Offered every year
  

  • 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.
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • TA 222 - Audition Workshop

    This is a course designed to introduce the student to the audition process. Each week, students will perform monologues, gaining first-hand knowledge of experience of auditioning.  Students will also gain experience in cold readings and performing “sides.”  There will be extensive discussion of the casting process as well as careers in the arts. This course may be repeatable for credit.

     

     

    Prerequisites: TA 112 & TA 212 or permission

    Course Designation/Attribute: POP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Bi annually
  

  • TA 225 - Advanced Theatrical Design Projects

    Advanced-level projects in design. May be repeated for credit.

    Spring 2020Topic: Light and Sound

     

    Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • TA 297 - Honors

    Students receive variable credit for advanced research & readings in the honors program.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: na
  

  • TA 299 - Directed Study

     

    Undergraduates, typically juniors & seniors, construct an independent study course on a topic approved & directed by a facutly member. 

  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • WGS 200 - Topics in Feminist Theory

    Topics in Feminist Theory is designed to offer a survey of feminist theories and practices, and explores the relationship between gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and class.,. Focus changes with each offering, depending on faculty interest. May be repeated for credit (taken a max of 2 times).


    Spring 2020 Topic: GENDER, FEMINISM, & SCIENCE. This course will explore the evolving, multifaceted relationships between science, gender, and feminism. We will examine the changing position of women within science, ways that science has studied women and men, feminist critiques of science, as well as feminist interventions in scientific practices and institutions. We will survey a number of sciences through the lens of feminist theory, with a particular emphasis given to biological & psychological research on sexuality, sex differences, violence, bodies, and gender socialization. This is a reading-intensive course. Course requirements will include a research paper, attending and writing about campus events, and active participation in class.”

    Prerequisites: WGS 110 - Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies  

    Course Designation/Attribute: GP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Spring
  

  • WGS 201 - Sex, Love and Intimacy Across the Color Line

    Students will discuss how sex, love, and marriage “across the color line” have been imagined, legislated, policed and experienced throughout American history. Moreover, we utilize the histories of “interracial” intimacy to question what racial and ethnic categories actually are. We will explore the ways in which racial classification and identification have been rooted in sex, love and marriage between people from different “racial” and ethnic groups. Students will break down the contradictory and redundant structures found within these historical trends. We begin with colonial and antebellum slavery and travel chronologically and finish with Chicano/a social movements. Topics include but are not limited to: fears and fascination with “interracial” intimacy; intersectionality; controversies over government legitimacy of “interracial” marriages; queer social spaces for “interracial” love and sex; dystopian and utopian visions of love across the color line; “interracial” marriage as a civil right and a social movement that precipitated marriage equality. Students interested in intersectionality, history of the Americas, Africana studies, Asian American studies, Latino/a studies,  and social justice issues are encouraged to take this course.  May be repeatable for credit.

     

    Course Designation/Attribute: VP, DI

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • WGS 202 - Masculinities in American History and Culture

    Students in this course will explore the histories of multiple masculinities in the United States from the nineteenth century up through the present day. As a CGRAS course, students will critique masculinity’s constitutive power through the lenses of identity, resistance, and hegemony. This course is therefore based on three premises. First, we begin with the notion that masculinity is a social construction. Students will focus on the major cultural, political and economic trends that have created, influenced, and undermined various masculine identities over time. The notion that masculinity is inseparable from women’s history informs the second premise of this course. Students, by comparing the history of manhood to the history of womanhood, will dismantle the misconception that masculinity is the essentialized component of the gender system. Thirdly, intersectional analysis comprises the academic core of the course. Race, sexuality, class, and ability are not only critical to formations of masculinities, they structure the historiography of the field. Topics of study include, but are not limited to, the histories of racial and ethnic manhood, physical fitness and weightlifting, civil rights activism, bareknuckle boxing, LGTBQ issues, “bro”cultures, male feminists, war & militarism, and family matters.

    may be repeated for credit (twice).

    Course Designation/Attribute: DI, VP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: periodically
  

  • 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
  

  • WGS 221 - American LBGTQ History

    This course explores the histories of LGBTQ peoples, communities, and identities in the modern United States.  Students will assess how historians have utilized the methodologies of queer theory and oral history to write about how same-sex sexuality has been constructed, produced, policed and experienced throughout American history. Beginning with antebellum slavery and ending with drag culture, the course proceeds chronologically and thematically. Students will question how same-sex sexuality and queerness have been conceptualized, regulated and experienced in relation to race, class, ability and gender in specific historical and geographical settings.  We will also focus on how historians have utilized intersectional analysis in forming their oral history methodologies. Students, by engaging with texts written through the lenses of identity, power, and resistance, will assess the ways in which the writing of LGBTQ history is a distinct American social movement in of itself. Topics  of discussion include, but are not limited to, transgenderism, multiple masculinities, love across the color line, feminist activism, bar culture, immigrant sexualities, drag performances, sexual sciences, queering the color line, popular culture, and  political movements.

    May be repeatable (twice) for credit.

    Course Designation/Attribute: DI, VP

    Anticipated Terms Offered: Periodically
  

  • WGS 297 - Honors

    Readings and research for students in the honors program.  This course will be graded as Pass/Fail in the Fall (1st instance) and as a normal letter grade in Spring (2nd instance).

    May be repeatable for credit.

    Anticipated Terms Offered: annually
  

  • 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
  

  • 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
  

  • 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.”
  

  • 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.
  

  • 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
 

Page: 1 <- Back 10 … 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

Catalog Navigation
  Catalog Home
  Academic Calendar
  About Clark
  Accreditation
  Tuition and Financial Aid
  Admissions Requirements
  Departments and Offices
  Programs of Study
  Courses
  Undergraduate Academics and Special Programs
  Graduate Academics and Information
  Academic Policies
  Student Resources
  Facilities
  President, Leadership, and The Board of Trustees