Courses by semester
Courses for Spring 2025
Complete Cornell University course descriptions and section times are in the Class Roster.
| Course ID | Title | Offered |
|---|---|---|
| PMA 1157 | FWS: Power and Horror: An Introduction to Critical Theory Through Horror Media |
|
| PMA 1168 |
FWS: Your Fave is Problematic: Media, Fandom, and Race
Do you enjoy watching video essays about your problematic faves on YouTube or TikTok and want to try your hand at making one of your own? Essays offering critical analysis of media objects and fandoms are an increasingly popular form of user-generated content and information dissemination. This Fisrt-Year Writing Seminar will give students a chance to dip their toes into discourse surrounding media and fandom as it relates to race. Students will write on the topic of race while engaging readings from the fields of Fandom, Performance, and Media Studies. The ultimate goal of this course is to provide students with tools to effectively communicate critical analysis using their favorite media objects and/or fandoms using clear, concise, accessible writing. Catalog Distribution: (WRT-AG) Full details for PMA 1168 - FWS: Your Fave is Problematic: Media, Fandom, and Race |
Fall. |
| PMA 1182 |
FWS: Speaking Bodies, Dancing Knowledge in the Caribbean
This course examines the pasts, presents, and futures of dance in the Caribbean. From nightclub performances to sacred rituals, we will consider how factors such as discrimination, tourism, migration, and globalization have impacted various dance forms and the ways in which they are staged, practiced, or experienced today. We will watch documentary films, stage performances, and music videos that feature influential artists such as Katherine Dunham, Alicia Alonso, Celia Cruz, Ivy Queen, Romeo Santos, and Bad Bunny. We will also read critical dance studies articles to help us develop informed written reflections. Students will write five formal essays discussing different dance styles and issues related to migration, tourism, globalization, and race/gender/class relations in the Caribbean, and in preparation, submit topic proposals, drafts, and peer-review exercises. Full details for PMA 1182 - FWS: Speaking Bodies, Dancing Knowledge in the Caribbean |
Fall. |
| PMA 1410 |
Media Production Laboratory
The Media Production Lab course is a series of self-contained lecture/workshops on various topics in the production of film and video on-set and on-location. The workshops will be hands on experience with cameras, lighting and sound equipment, exploring the technique of cinematography as well as, lighting, sound, and grip techniques for the studio and in the field. We will cover specific areas such as dollies and rigging, location sound, and production protocol. Open to all skill levels. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 1610 |
Production Technology Laboratory
This technology lab will provide students with a foundation of the production process through experiential learning of scenographic practices. Students will learn about the technical production processes as they pertain too: scenery fabrication and installation, properties fabrication, costume fabrication, and lighting installation (primarily lighting for live performance). Full details for PMA 1610 - Production Technology Laboratory |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 1611 |
Rehearsal and Performance
Students participating in a PMA creative project led by a faculty member or PMA Guest Artist can earn PMA 1611 credit. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 1641 |
Introduction to Storytelling
The objective of this course is to introduce students to a core topic that unites the tracks between performing and media studies: story. Throughout the semester students will explore the structures of film, television, and new media through the lens of storytelling. We will also examine how each of these mediums function at both the level of the individual consumer as well as the level of global society. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 2000 |
Media Studies Minor Colloquium
The Colloquium provides opportunities for exchange, reflection, discussion of relevant concepts, and extended engagement with the media objects made in a variety of Making Media courses. |
Spring. |
| PMA 2220 |
Dance Technique II/Modern
Introductory modern technique intended for students with some dance training. Material covered includes specific spinal and center work with attention to rhythm, design, and movement expression. |
Spring. |
| PMA 2300 |
Dance Composition
Students compose and present short studies that are discussed and reworked. Problems are defined and explored through class improvisations. Informal showing at end of semester. Includes informal showing of work. Weekly assignments in basic elements of choreography. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 2301 |
Screendance: History and Practice
Choreography and cinematography are kindred spirits. This class explores their evolving relationship within the interdisciplinary realm of screendance. From Eadweard Muybridge's pioneering photographic studies of motion to the iconic dance films of Hollywood's golden age in the 1930s, and from the avant-garde works of Maya Deren to the incorporation of dance in commercials and Instagram Reels, we will trace the trajectory of screendance. We will examine various aesthetic approaches to the form. Through these explorations, we aim to understand the process and significance of creating dances through the medium of film. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) Full details for PMA 2301 - Screendance: History and Practice |
Spring. |
| PMA 2460 |
Japanese Pop Culture
Japanese pop culture—anime, manga, video games, music and more—has been a major phenomenon with massive worldwide popularity for the last three decades. In this course, we will explore a wide range of Japanese pop cultural forms, exploring the interactions between different media, Japanese pop culture as global pop culture, and a variety of modes of analyzing visual and audio materials. We will also see how pop cultural works themselves, in their content and form, engage with questions of gender, technology, fandom, nation, and the environment. No prior knowledge of Japanese language, culture, or history required. All readings and screenings will be available in English or with English subtitles. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 2490 |
Jewish Films and Filmmakers: Hollywood and Beyond
What does it mean to call a film is "Jewish"? Does it have to represent Jewish life? Does it have to feature characters identifiable as Jews? If artists who identify as Jews—actors, directors, screenwriters, composers—play significant roles in a film's production does that make it Jewish? Our primary point of entry into these questions will be Hollywood, from the industry's early silent films, through the period generally considered classical, down to the present day. We will also study films produced overseas, in countries that may include Israel, Egypt, France, Italy, and Germany. Our discussions will be enriched by contextual material drawn from film studies, cultural studies, Jewish studies, American studies, and other related fields. Students will be expected to view a significant number of films outside of class—an average of one per week—and engage with them through writing and in-class discussion. The directors, screenwriters, composers, and actors whose work we will study may include: Charlie Chaplin, Irving Berlin, Al Jolson, Fanny Brice, Billy Wilder, Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Aviva Kempner, Joan Micklin Silver, the Marx Brothers, and the Coen Brothers. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) Full details for PMA 2490 - Jewish Films and Filmmakers: Hollywood and Beyond |
Spring. |
| PMA 2610 |
Production Crew Laboratory
Learn what it means to run a live show. Participate as part of a team to ensure all the elements work together and on time. Learn the intricacies of collaborating with a production group to create a unified artistic vision. Program lighting, sound, or video boards, or participate as a dresser, stage crew member, or assistant stage manager. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 2611 |
Stage Management Laboratory
This lab will give students practical experience as an assistant stage manager in the organization and management of a theatrical or mediated production; in rehearsals, in technical rehearsals as the scenographic elements are implemented, and in performance or filming for a fully supported department production under the supervision of the staff stage manager. The course can only be applied to a fully supported department production with a full rehearsal period and performance. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 2640 |
Theatrical Makeup Studio
This course introduces students to basic two-dimensional techniques of makeup design and application for the stage including corrective, old age, youth, likeness, cross gender, and animal makeups. The process of stylizing imagery in makeup design is explored. Students will also work with false facial hair. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 2652 |
Ancient Greek Drama
This course introduces students to ancient Greek drama, with a particular focus on the genre of tragedy and its relation to the cultural, political, and performance context of Athens in the 5th century BC. Students will read plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in English translation and explore how they address key themes such as gender, racialization, slavery, war, mourning, trauma, empathy, and justice. Students will also study how contemporary artists, writers, and communities have adapted and restaged Greek drama, transforming and animating these ancient scripts across various media (theater, film, literature, etc.) to speak to complex and urgent social issues today (e.g., state/institutional violence; sexual violence; racism and xenophobia; queer bodies and desires; mental health; disability and caregiving). Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 2701 |
Media Arts, Performance, and Sound: Intersections
This interdisciplinary course offers an introduction to the methods employed in media arts, sound and performance. It provides a comprehensive exploration of the strategies and historical context of these disciplines. Students will engage in an interdisciplinary studio setting with a specific focus on one of these areas. Through hands-on experience, they will delve into contemporary artistic practices, honing their technical skills to develop and realize their creative projects. Potential topics covered include video and animation, digital image production, sound art, performance art, and movement Full details for PMA 2701 - Media Arts, Performance, and Sound: Intersections |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 2703 |
Thinking Media
From hieroglyphs to HTML, ancient poetry to audiotape, and Plato's cave to virtual reality, "Thinking Media" offers a multidisciplinary introduction to the most influential media formats of the last three millennia. Featuring an array of guests from across Cornell, including faculty from Communication, Comparative Literature, German Studies, Information Science, Literatures in English, Music, and Performing & Media Arts, the course will present diverse perspectives on how to think with, against, and about media in relation to the public sphere and private life, archaeology and science fiction, ethics and aesthetics, identity and difference, labor and play, knowledge and power, expression and surveillance, and the generation and analysis of data. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 2800 |
Introduction to Acting
An introduction to the actor's technique and performance skills, exploring the elements necessary to begin training as an actor, i.e., observation, concentration, and imagination. Focus is on physical and vocal exercises, improvisation, and text and character. There is required play reading, play attendance, and some scene study. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, ETM-AS) (CA-AG, KCM-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3000 |
Independent Study
Independent study allows students the opportunity to pursue special interests not treated in regularly scheduled courses. A faculty member, who becomes the student's instructor for the course, must approve the student's program of study and agree to provide continuing supervision of the work. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3104 |
Sound, Music, Public Space
What do we learn when we turn an ear to the commons? Who determines what sounds are desirable or undesirable in a community and what are the stakes of that negotiation when it comes to public space? This seminar will study the ways that individuals and communities use sound and music to self-identify, claim space, and shape their public spaces. We will engage the work of artists who have called our attention to the social aspects of listening. We will listen to public art projects, films, concerts, field recordings, installations, informal sonic practices, and political interventions as we read about the contested control of public space. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3210 |
Classical Dance Technique
Classical Dance Technique is a studio course for the practice and performance of classical concert dance techniques, principles, and elements, including but not limited to Cecchetti and Vaganova ballet methods. |
Spring. |
| PMA 3215 |
Performance and Immigration:Staging the Migrant, Alien, and Refugee in and outside the US
In this course, we interrogate how immigration debates are staged and experiences of belonging are redefined through performance. The categories of "undocumented," "illegal," "displaced," and "exile" collide on international and national stages when governmental bodies decide who gets to be a migrant and under what terms. We assess how bodies marked culturally and legally as "aliens" use performance to navigate complex migration laws and dangerous social terrains that appear to be shifting and solidifying at the same time. We consider performances on stage, as well as performance in a broader understanding. We examine visual, linguistic, and performative representations of migrant experiences. We analyze and write about performances that deal with issues of migration beyond economic and security models. Catalog Distribution: (GLC-AS) (CA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3350 |
Technology and the Moving Body I
Formally titled "technosomakinesics," this class works to expand the specific aesthetics related to dance as embodied performance. Included in the process is the analysis of built environments that both inspire and are designed to be inhabited by these disciplines. This course explores the resulting neoperformance forms being created within the range of digital media processing; such as gallery installations, multimedia dance-theatre, personal interactive media (games and digital art) and web projects. Computer-imaging and sound-production programs are examined and used in the class work (human form-animation software, vocal recording and digital editing, digital-imaging tools. The new context of digital performance raises questions concerning the use of traditional lighting, set, costume, and sound-design techniques that are examined as they are repositioned by digital-translation tools with the goal of creating experimental and/or conceptual multimedia performance and/or installation work. Theoretical texts on dance and theatrical performance, film studies, the dynamic social body, architecture, and digital technology are also used to support conceptual creative work. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) Full details for PMA 3350 - Technology and the Moving Body I |
Spring. |
| PMA 3420 |
Asian Americans and Popular Culture
This course examines both mainstream representations of and independent media made by, for, and about Asians and Asian Americans throughout U.S. cultural history. In this course, we will analyze popular cultural genres & forms such as: documentary & narrative films, musical theatre & live performance revues, television, zines & blogs, YouTube/online performances, karaoke & cover performances, stand-up comedy, and popular music. Employing theories of cultural studies, media studies, and performance studies, we will discuss the cultural, discursive, and political impact of these various popular cultural forms and representations from the turn of the 20th century to the present. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) Full details for PMA 3420 - Asian Americans and Popular Culture |
Spring. |
| PMA 3421 |
Literary Theory on the Edge
This course examines a range of exciting and provocative 20th- and 21st- century theoretical paradigms for thinking about literature, language and culture. These approaches provide differing, though often overlapping, entryways into theoretical analysis, including structuralism and post-structuralism, translation studies, Black studies, Afro-Diasporic Studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, performance studies, media theory and cinema/media studies, the digital humanities, psychoanalysis and trauma theory, gender studies and queer studies, studies of the Anthropocene/environmental studies, and animal studies. Occasional invited guests, lectures and class discussions will provide students with a facility for close textual analysis, a knowledge of major currents of thought in the humanities, and an appreciation for the uniqueness and complexity of language and media. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (D-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3425 |
Deaf Art, Film and Theatre
This course will explore approaches to the Deaf experience taken by Deaf artists from the 1900s to the present. Analysis of chosen works of Deaf art, film and theater will illuminate the expression of the Deaf narrative through symbolism, themes, and genres. We will examine the interaction of these works in multiple social, historical, cultural and political contexts and how they have contributed to the construction of Deaf culture and identity. This course will be taught in advanced ASL, with emphasis on the production and comprehension of academic ASL. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3504 |
Writing the Pilot
In this course, students will create and write their own half-hour or hour long pilots. They will be expected to build on a premise and have an episodic engine that sustains for the full length of an entire season. No limited series will be written in this course. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3550 |
Global Cinema and Media
Global Cinema and Media offers a survey of international film and media history from the late nineteenth century to today. Through a focus on key films and significant epochs, the course traces the evolution of form, style and genre, the medium's changing technologies and business models, as well as film and media's relation to broader cultural, social and political contexts. Screenings of narrative, documentary and experimental films and video will be accompanied by readings in film and media theory and history. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, GLC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall. |
| PMA 3570 |
Film and Video Production I
An introduction to filmmaking, students will learn to create compelling characters, as well as develop strong storytelling skills through basic character and story development and breakdown, cinematography, lighting, sound and editing. Over the course of the semester, students will deconstruct and analyze visual culture in an effort to learn effective techniques in visual storytelling. Students will write, shoot and edit a series of dramatic narrative exercises, participating in the preproduction to post production processes. Students will collaborate and rotate through various roles. The course will culminate with the screening of the various course projects, in a public, open-campus event at the end of the semester. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3610 |
Creative Apprenticeship
Based on previous coursework and experience, students may be offered the opportunity to participate as an apprentice in a mentored PMA creative project. The apprentice experience and number of credits will be defined by the needs of the project, the area of study, and the mentor. Apprentice roles may include Assistant Director, Assistant Designer, Assistant Choreographer, Dramaturg, or others, as determined by the mentor. Successful completion of this course is necessary for application to the AUPR program. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3632 |
Production Design for Film, Television and Contemporary and Digital Media Studio I
The production designer is responsible for creating, controlling, and managing 'the look' of narrative films, television & contemporary and digital media from page to screen. This hands-on, project-based course explores the processes of production design, art direction, and lighting direction as related to design for these arenas. From initial Production Design sketches, Storyboards, and 'Feel-Boards' to accommodating desired cinematographic angles and looks when designing a studio set, a designer needs to shape an entire visual world while keeping in mind the story as a whole. The goal of this course is to provide an initial understanding of the Production Design process in practice through studio work and instruction. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3640 | Scenic Design Studio |
|
| PMA 3660 |
Costume Design Studio I
Design of costumes for theatre and film, concentrating on script and character analysis, period research, design elements, figure drawing and rendering skills, and an understanding of production style. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3680 |
Sound Design
Covering the basics of digital audio, bioacoustics, psychoacoustics and sound design, as they apply to theatre, film and music production. Students create soundscapes for text and moving image using ProTools software. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3684 |
Critical Listening Strategies: Lessons From Sound Art
What can sound tell us about culture, power, and ideology? Does it echo the information given to us by images? Does the information translate across media? Or does sonic information speak in a fundamentally different way? Does it tell us about other subjects or does it tell us information that contradicts what vision describes? What do we have to gain when we sharpen our critical tools for interpreting the work of sound or recognizing the cultural values inherent in sonic communication? Critical Listening Strategies answers that last question with a necessarily interdisciplinary approach. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) Full details for PMA 3684 - Critical Listening Strategies: Lessons From Sound Art |
Spring. |
| PMA 3758 |
American Theatre on Stage and Screen II (1960-Present)
How has theatre shaped our notion of America and Americans in the second half of the 20th century and beyond? What role has politics played in the theatre? How has performance been used to examine concepts of identity, community, and nationality? And how and why have certain plays in this era been translated to the screen? In this course we will examine major trends in the American theatre from 1960 to the present. We will focus on theatre that responds directly to moments of social turmoil, including: the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter Movements, Women's and Gender Equality Movements, and the AIDS epidemic. We will also explore the tensions between Broadway and alternative theatre production. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, HST-AS) (CA-AG, HA-AG, LA-AG) Full details for PMA 3758 - American Theatre on Stage and Screen II (1960-Present) |
Spring. |
| PMA 3770 |
Shakespeare: The Late Plays
The course focuses on Shakespeare's middle to late plays, from the "problem comedies," through the great tragedies and romances. While we will pay particular attention to questions of dramatic form (genre) and historical context (including ways in which the plays themselves call context into question), the primary concentration will be on careful close readings of the language of the play-texts, in relation to critical questions of subjectivity, power, and art. On the way, we will encounter problems of sexuality, identity, emotion, the body, family, violence, politics, God, the nation, nature and money (not necessarily in that order). Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall or Spring. |
| PMA 3800 |
Acting II
Practical exploration of the actor's craft through exercises in physical and psychological action, improvisation and scene study. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 3805 |
Playwriting I
In this introductory class, students will study elements of successful dramatic writing: strong structure, effective dialogue, and imaginative theatricality. Students will craft and revise short plays, in addition to drafting several short assignments and one analytical paper. Readings include full-length and 10-minute plays. Through giving and receiving constructive feedback, each writer will aim to take their work to new levels of complexity, theatricality, and meaning. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4401 |
Advanced Documentary Production
This production seminar is for students with basic documentary filmmaking skills who want to work with previously collected footage and/or are in production on a project in or around Ithaca. Over the course of the semester, students complete a documentary film based on an immersive engagement with their selected subject matter. Alongside watching and discussing relevant texts and films, students will complete exercises to help them focus their projects, build a cohesive narrative, learn script writing, brainstorm scene ideas, overcome narrative challenges, discover their aesthetic, and develop a film circulation plan. Students will regularly present new footage and scenes and explain their work in terms their goals for the final project. The course culminates in a public screening of students' independent video projects. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4403 |
Black Cult Media
When people (academics usually) write about cult movies they are typically talking about films like Rocky Horror Picture Show or Casablanca or The Big Lebowski. Rarely, if ever, are Coming to America or The Color Purple or Friday-films with predominantly Black casts and seemingly marketed toward Black audiences-also considered within the canon of cult. This kind of exclusion begs the central question of the course: What is Black Cult Media? Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Winter. |
| PMA 4422 |
Technology in Music Performance
A course on strategies and techniques for live musical performance with technology, including multimedia: image, video, movement, and sound. In developing our awareness of tools for live music with various media, we will explore several stylistic, technical, and logistical approaches, including collaboration and ensemble. We will engage with an array of software and hardware combinations within a variety of performance spaces, seeking to both understand and subvert standard practices for our own creative purposes. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4450 |
Rural Humanities Seminar
The Rural Humanities seminar will introduce students to the public humanities as both a disciplinary inquiry and a set of practices grounded in public and community engagement. It is intended to train cohorts of graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the various theories, methods, and practices of public humanities, to think collectively with and beyond disciplinary interests, and to bring these discipline-defined research agendas to much wider communities by first focusing on local rural communities. Students will produce a collaborative project related to or working with a community partner. Catalog Distribution: (SCD-AS) (D-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4532 |
Advanced Screenwriting
Focuses on the structure and style of the original web-series and long-form short screenplay, and incorporates extensive peer feedback, workshop, and revision. Students will produce and revise an original mid-length short film and/or show pilot, in addition to crafting a log-line, treatment, and pitch for their film. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4608 | Advanced Undergraduate Practice as Research in Design |
|
| PMA 4680 |
Prison Theatre and the Possibilities of Transformation
To explore cultural aspects of imprisonment through a focus on theatre produced by those incarcerated. Does making theatre in prison seem to assist in transformation? Students create work with PPTG members in lab sessions, do narrative interviews, create annotated Internet data base. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG) Full details for PMA 4680 - Prison Theatre and the Possibilities of Transformation |
Spring. |
| PMA 4681 |
Cages and Creativity: Arts in Incarceration
This course explores the increasing presence of all the arts in prisons throughout the country and examines the increasing scholarship surrounding arts programs and their efficacy for incarcerated persons. The course uses video's, archival material, reading material and in-person or Zoom interviews to investigate how and why art is taught in prisons. The course will also look at art produced by incarcerated artists as well as art by those who are still practicing after going home. And finally, the course will explore the increasing scholarship around the impact practicing the arts while incarcerated has on recidivism rates and preparation for re-entry. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SSC-AS) (CA-AG, LA-AG, SBA-AG) Full details for PMA 4681 - Cages and Creativity: Arts in Incarceration |
Spring. |
| PMA 4701 |
Nightlife
This course explores nightlife as a temporality that fosters countercultural performances of the self and that serves as a site for the emergence of alternative kinship networks. Focusing on queer communities of color, course participants will be asked to interrogate the ways in which nightlife demonstrates the queer world-making potential that exists beyond the normative 9-5 capitalist model of production. Performances of the everyday, alongside films, texts, and performance art, will be analyzed through a performance studies methodological lens. Through close readings and sustained cultural analysis, students will acquire a critical understanding of the potentiality of spaces, places, and geographies codified as "after hours" in the development of subcultures, alternative sexualities, and emerging performance practices. Catalog Distribution: (ALC-AS, SCD-AS) (CA-AG, D-AG, LA-AG) |
Spring. |
| PMA 4950 |
Honors Research Tutorial I
First of a two-semester sequence (the second is PMA 4951) for seniors engaged in an honors project. Honor guidelines and form. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 4951 |
Honors Research Tutorial II
Second of a two-semester sequence (the first is PMA 4950) for students engaged in an honors project. |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 5104 |
Sound, Music, Public Space
What do we learn when we turn an ear to the commons? Who determines what sounds are desirable or undesirable in a community and what are the stakes of that negotiation when it comes to public space? This seminar will study the ways that individuals and communities use sound and music to self-identify, claim space, and shape their public spaces. We will engage the work of artists who have called our attention to the social aspects of listening. We will listen to public art projects, films, concerts, field recordings, installations, informal sonic practices, and political interventions as we read about the contested control of public space. |
Spring. |
| PMA 6400 |
Thinking Media Studies
This required seminar for the new graduate minor in media studies considers media from a wide number of perspectives, ranging from the methods of cinema and television studies to those of music, information science, communication, science and technology studies, and beyond. Historical and theoretical approaches to media are intertwined with meta-critical reflections on media studies as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Close attention will be paid to media's role in shaping and being shaped by race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and other politically constructed categories of identity and sociality. |
Spring. |
| PMA 6421 |
Literary Theory on the Edge
This course examines a range of exciting and provocative 20th- and 21st- century theoretical paradigms for thinking about literature, language and culture. These approaches provide differing, though often overlapping, entryways into theoretical analysis, including structuralism and post-structuralism, translation studies, Black studies, Afro-Diasporic Studies, postcolonial and decolonial studies, performance studies, media theory and cinema/media studies, the digital humanities, psychoanalysis and trauma theory, gender studies and queer studies, studies of the Anthropocene/environmental studies, and animal studies. Occasional invited guests, lectures and class discussions will provide students with a facility for close textual analysis, a knowledge of major currents of thought in the humanities, and an appreciation for the uniqueness and complexity of language and media. |
Spring. |
| PMA 6422 |
Technology in Music Performance
A course on strategies and techniques for live musical performance with technology, including multimedia: image, video, movement, and sound. In developing our awareness of tools for live music with various media, we will explore several stylistic, technical, and logistical approaches, including collaboration and ensemble. We will engage with an array of software and hardware combinations within a variety of performance spaces, seeking to both understand and subvert standard practices for our own creative purposes. |
Spring. |
| PMA 6450 |
Rural Humanities Seminar
The Rural Humanities seminar will introduce students to the public humanities as both a disciplinary inquiry and a set of practices grounded in public and community engagement. It is intended to train cohorts of graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the various theories, methods, and practices of public humanities, to think collectively with and beyond disciplinary interests, and to bring these discipline-defined research agendas to much wider communities by first focusing on local rural communities. Students will produce a collaborative project related to or working with a community partner. |
Spring. |
| PMA 6680 | Prison Theatre and the Possibilities of Transformation |
|
| PMA 6701 |
Nightlife
This course explores nightlife as a temporality that fosters countercultural performances of the self and that serves as a site for the emergence of alternative kinship networks. Focusing on queer communities of color, course participants will be asked to interrogate the ways in which nightlife demonstrates the queer world-making potential that exists beyond the normative 9-5 capitalist model of production. Performances of the everyday, alongside films, texts, and performance art, will be analyzed through a performance studies methodological lens. Through close readings and sustained cultural analysis, students will acquire a critical understanding of the potentiality of spaces, places, and geographies codified as "after hours" in the development of subcultures, alternative sexualities, and emerging performance practices. |
Spring. |
| PMA 7000 |
Independent Study for Graduate Students in Performing and Media Arts
Independent study in performing and media arts allows graduate students the opportunity to pursue special interests not treated in regularly scheduled courses. A faculty member, who becomes the student's instructor for the course, must approve the student's program of study and agree to provide continuing supervision of the work. Full details for PMA 7000 - Independent Study for Graduate Students in Performing and Media Arts |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 7100 |
The Pedagogy of Performing and Media Arts
Provides graduate students in the field of Performing and Media Arts an opportunity to work directly with a faculty member to explore pedagogical theory and practice in undergraduate theatre classes in all areas of the curriculum. Full details for PMA 7100 - The Pedagogy of Performing and Media Arts |
Fall, Spring. |
| PMA 7401 |
Advanced Documentary Production
This production seminar is for students with basic documentary filmmaking skills who want to work with previously collected footage and/or are in production on a project in or around Ithaca. Over the course of the semester, students complete a documentary film based on an immersive engagement with their selected subject matter. Alongside watching and discussing relevant texts and films, students will complete exercises to help them focus their projects, build a cohesive narrative, learn script writing, brainstorm scene ideas, overcome narrative challenges, discover their aesthetic, and develop a film circulation plan. Students will regularly present new footage and scenes and explain their work in terms their goals for the final project. The course culminates in a public screening of students' independent video projects. |
Spring. |