Courses

This course explores dance across multiple stages—TikTok videos, concert halls, streets—to assess how people create, sustain, and challenge markers of difference (race, gender, sexuality, ability, and class). How is dance appreciation different from appropriation? What are dancing avatars in video games allowed to do that real persons are not? We will examine genres such as k-pop, hip hop, salsa, modern dance, and ballroom as we develop the tools necessary for viewing dance, analyzing it, and understanding its place in larger social, cultural, historical, and political structures. We will explore how markers of difference affect the practice and the reception of dance forms, and, in turn, how dance helps shape representations of identities.

Full details for PMA 3214 - Dance in America: Cultures, Identities, and Fabrication

This course introduces students to public speaking as a pragmatic endeavor, through tools and types both historical and contemporary. Students will focus on analyzing speech contexts and developing presentational techniques, paired with practical exercises and critical analysis. Students will learn to: harness physical presence, develop vocal production & range, facilitate effective eye contact and gesture in order to present themselves and their material clearly, confidently, and persuasively. Investigating a variety of public speaking modes and situations, this course is designed as a practicum in public speaking skill-sets.

Full details for PMA 3814 - Public Speaking: Contexts, Techniques and Analysis