This course, taught by a working professional actor/director with experience in stage, radio, tv and film, is centered on the belief that speaking skillfully in public is a way to self-discovery, self-improvement and self-confidence. It is also a tenet of this course that skillful public speaking is a fundamental element of a humane society. Students will deliver five major speeches, including self-written speeches of introduction, ceremonial speeches, informative speeches and persuasive speeches. The oral interpretation of literature will also be explored. Each class meeting will require every student's speaking participation in order to develop skills in the areas of voice, diction, managing speech anxiety, research and organization, use of microphones and video, and use of visual aids. The latter phase of this course will focus on concentration, credibility, and familiarity with argument, debate and parliamentary procedure. Attendance at each class is vital and mandatory; furthermore, students will be required to dress up for their presentations.

Elective

This course is an introductory survey of the history of furniture. An emphasis is placed on developing a methodology for understanding historical context and transferable critical thinking through furniture. The fundamental methodology presents furniture design as an expression of interdependent relationships involving technology, identity and culture. The course will include lectures, sketching, writing, discussion and exams as well as learning from direct observation of objects including many in the RISD Museum.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Furniture Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Furniture Design

This course will examine the major designers working in the period 1850 to the present. Areas of study will include an examination of design related issues that will be studied in the context of their social, political, technological, and economic circumstances, as they pertain to the design culture of the period. Special emphasis will be given to the history of interior interventions, additions and renovations. Other areas of study will include the development of architectural drawing and other presentation media, and the way in which designs often evolved through committees, or ongoing consultations among the patrons, designers, administrators, and scholars. Attention will also be given to design theory, and the doctrines relating to site, orientation, proportion, decorum, and the commercial design market. A general background in the history of art and design is desirable but is not mandatory.

Open to Sophomore Interior Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

How does illustration shape ideas, information, opinion, and culture? How can images make or break “truth”? How does aesthetic delight contribute? This course considers ways Illustration has intersected with authority and resistance globally. From pre-history to the present, we critically analyze how belonging is visually defined in culture and community. We consider illustrators’ participation in systems of governance, knowledge, and communication; and illustrators’ roles in justice, health, spirituality, education, leisure, and community. We study non-industrial forms, as well as how print and electronic technologies shape illustrative processes and aesthetics. We also discuss theories, ethics and controversies in the making and consumption of illustration in order to implement our tools, skills, and ideas responsibly.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

How does illustration shape ideas, information, opinion, and culture? How can images make or break “truth”? How does aesthetic delight contribute? This course considers ways Illustration has intersected with authority and resistance globally. From pre-history to the present, we critically analyze how belonging is visually defined in culture and community. We consider illustrators’ participation in systems of governance, knowledge, and communication; and illustrators’ roles in justice, health, spirituality, education, leisure, and community. We study non-industrial forms, as well as how print and electronic technologies shape illustrative processes and aesthetics. We also discuss theories, ethics and controversies in the making and consumption of illustration in order to implement our tools, skills, and ideas responsibly.

Major Requirement | BFA Illustration

Topics in Fashion Theory introduces students to the ideas and debate that have enriched our understanding of fashion. Through the manipulation of the visual and tactile symbols of clothing (cut, cloth, texture, ornament, and color) fashion expresses individual, community and societal attributes and attitudes. Yet, as Fred Davis notes, social identities are rarely the stable amalgams we take them to be.They can shift over the course of a lifetime and are prodded by social and technological change. Drawing on scholarship in a range of disciplines, including sociology, cultural studies, gender studies and queer theory, the class explores how clothing communicates aspects of identity linked to gender, sexuality, class, race, religion, and nation. We will examine the extent to which fashion is currently formulating effective social commentary, and consider questions, for example, that surround sustainable fashion and cultural appropriation. The class integrates reading and reading responses with discussion and visual analysis of clothing and fashion across the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Students will develop a final essay that assesses a debate of interest encountered in class discussion and readings.

Elective

History is a powerful tool; a basic understanding of the history of design and familiarity with important design movements and designers is essential for thorough design work. By examining the work of other designers, we are better able to identify our own interests and concerns, and avoid repeating mistakes that have been navigated in the past. This lecture-based class will present the history of Industrial Design in a way that links it to today's studio work, and offers connection points to link past innovation and design activity with future design success. The lectures present a chronological overview of the profession of Industrial Design and its antecedents. Topics discussed will include major design movements, significant designers, manufacturers, and design-related companies, innovations in technology and material use, the development of sales, marketing, and user-focused designing, and the history of design process. Coursework includes extensive reading, in-class presentations based on independent research, projects, and writing.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

History is a powerful tool; a basic understanding of the history of design and familiarity with important design movements and designers is essential for thorough design work. By examining the work of other designers, we are better able to identify our own interests and concerns, and avoid repeating mistakes that have been navigated in the past. This lecture-based class will present the history of Industrial Design in a way that links it to today's studio work, and offers connection points to link past innovation and design activity with future design success. The lectures present a chronological overview of the profession of Industrial Design and its antecedents. Topics discussed will include major design movements, significant designers, manufacturers, and design-related companies, innovations in technology and material use, the development of sales, marketing, and user-focused designing, and the history of design process. Coursework includes extensive reading, in-class presentations based on independent research, projects, and writing.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Preference is given to Sophomore Industrial Design Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Industrial Design

Part II of a two-semester course that will survey major topics in the Histories of Photography. Emphasis will be given to the diverse cultural uses of photography from its invention to the present day. Such uses include: the illustrated press; amateur photography; studio photography; industrial; advertising, and fashion photography; political and social propaganda; educational and documentary photography; and photography as a medium of artistic expression. Much attention will be paid to how photographs construct histories, as well as being constructed by them.

Preference given to Sophomore Photography Students.

Major Requirement | BFA Photography

The first course of the History + Theory track will offer an introduction to a select range of ideas, practices and systems of landscape. The seminar will begin with discussions on theory and history, their types and uses, and examine the different, and often conflicting, definitions of landscape that have emerged from within and without the field of landscape architecture. As we explore the relationship between nature and culture, we will consider the relationship of history and theory to the contexts in which they are generated, while at the same time examining their relationship to praxis. While focusing on issues that are core to a critical understanding of the discipline, this course will also begin to expand the study of landscapes beyond historical Western-centric cannons, with an explicit attempt to decolonize the ways in which we know and practice in landscape architecture. 
 
The course will examine readings taken from diverse sources that have informed landscape architecture – philosophy, geography, architecture, art history, ecology – as well as sources that have emerged from practitioners of the comparatively young discipline. The readings are grouped by themes that relate and distinguish landscape architecture from its allied fields and reflect the discourse that has influenced the character and objectives of the discipline today. 

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Landscape Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

Be part of a unique ensemble of students as we work through a workshop process of producing an original or adapted work for the stage. Together the ensemble will devise, create, design, produce, and perform this production, culminating in two live public performances of our work. Students in this course will be asked to: rehearse and perform assigned roles; assist in graphic, projection, scenic, and property/costume design; and aid in stage management. Everyone is responsible for stage and backstage work and to commit to a flexible rehearsal schedule outside of class meetings. Students will also be expected to study the performance techniques, dramaturgical elements, and production requirements of the theatre as it relates to the work produced. Come ready to collaborate and make something great! Waiting list is curated by the instructor. 

Elective

This course explores the tangled histories, patchworked mythologies, and the global intersections and connections of textiles through the lens of INDIGO dyeing practices around the world.The textile histories covered will spiral through the centuries to the present day, and, through individual place-based case studies, will consider the narratives of identity, labor, and process they express well beyond their regionality. Rethinking the “History of” survey model, we will investigate how deep research leads to holistic perspectives as we uncover global networks of knowledge-sharing embedded within specific “regional” textile crafts.

These narratives will unfold from objects selected from the collections of the RISD Museum that will be made available for consideration and study at close range as part of every class session. The firsthand experiences will be guided and enriched by guest lectures and workshops by visiting scholars and artists whose work centers on the particular histories examined, as well as potential field trips. Through active engagement with tangible objects and exposure to a plurality of voices, students in the course not only will gain an embodied understanding of the global interconnections of textile histories, but also will find space for moving through and beyond colonial inheritances.

Textiles Students can be pre-registered by the department.

Elective

Practitioners in the Environmental Humanities (EH) engage in disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research in the humanities to think about representation, meaning, value, ethics, and power in relation to environmental questions, issues, and crises. EH offers a capacious umbrella under which to gather inquiry in anthropology, art and design, critical animal studies, cultural studies, film studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, and visual studies, among other disciplines, methodologies, and modes. In this course, Environmental Humanities Research Seminar, students will engage in independent, liberal arts-based research in the environmental humanities in order to contextualize, extend, and/or refine an existing project or to develop a new project. The work under development could be either a liberal-arts based project or a studio-based project that would be deepened through liberal-arts based research. In addition to deep curiosity about one's subject matter, receptivity to the messiness of the research process, and a willingness to support other classmates in their research, this class requires excellent time management skills. Assignments will include: an annotated bibliography, reflective writing, a final paper, and a final presentation.

Elective

This co-requisite interdisciplinary course qualifies for both Liberal Arts Elective credit (LAEL) and either Non-major Studio Elective credit (NMSE) or Printmaking credit, brings together Black literary and print traditions to inform our understanding of American civil society and, more broadly, democracy and its complex relationship to freedom as a cultural phenomenon. Throughout the course, we will examine a number of central questions:  What is the relationship between concepts of political power and the black archive as a blueprint for liberatory praxis? How can we use ideas of liberation found in black letters to narrate through offset and letterpress print design? What is Rhode Island’s role in these histories and stories of resistance?

Rooted in our local histories of Black resistance and offset and letterpress print craft, the first half of this course will use a lecture and group discussion format to examine the importance of the liberatory imagination in primary source documentation. A core objective is to clarify the silences surrounding oppressive ideology and its promotion of racially repressive phenomena through print culture and political counterframes.

Note: This is a co-requisite course for Juniors, Seniors, Fifth-year and Graduate Students. Enrollment includes both LAEL 3150 and PRINT 3250. Students will receive 3 studio (open studio elective, if applicable to the student's degree program), OR non-major studio elective credits AND 3 liberal arts elective credits (6 credits total).

This course is not available for registration in Workday. To register, please email the Registrar's Office at registrar@risd.edu. Registration will close once the course reaches capacity.

Elective

An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year students are pre-registered for this course by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming Transfer students, along with continuing Sophomore, Junior, and Senior undergraduates, enroll in their designated section(s) through Workday.

Major Requirement | BFA

An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year students are pre-registered for this course by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming Transfer students, along with continuing Sophomore, Junior, and Senior undergraduates, enroll in their designated section(s) through Workday.

Major Requirement | BFA

An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year students are pre-registered for this course by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming Transfer students, along with continuing Sophomore, Junior, and Senior undergraduates, enroll in their designated section(s) through Workday.

Major Requirement | BFA

An introduction to literary study that helps students develop the skills necessary for college-level reading, writing, research and critical thinking. Through exposure to a variety of literary forms and genres, historical periods and critical approaches, students are taught how to read closely, argue effectively and develop a strong writing voice. The course is reading and writing intensive and organized around weekly assignments. There are no waivers for LAS-E101 except for transfer students who have taken an equivalent college course.

First-year students are pre-registered for this course by the Liberal Arts Division.

Incoming Transfer students, along with continuing Sophomore, Junior, and Senior undergraduates, enroll in their designated section(s) through Workday.

Major Requirement | BFA

Epic narratives seem antagonistically devoted to their predecessors in the genre and to the cultural mythologies of their own times. Students in this course will read a series of epics written from antiquity to the present and consider as well the genre's incursions into film. Texts might include: Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Dante's Inferno, and Walcott's Omeros. There will be midterm and final examinations, an independently researched essay, and regular short writing assignments.

Elective

The course title 21st Century Poetry bristles with question marks, even if they are invisible: 21st Century Poetry where? 21st Century Poetry in what languages? 21st Century Poetry in 2026? Isn’t that too soon? Why not just teach Contemporary Poetry? We’re a quarter-century in—enough to investigate what might be distinctive about 21st century poetry. And enough distance for perspective on poetry of the previous century.

The 20th century came in with a roar, at least as reflected in European and Anglophone poetry— Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, the Harlem Renaissance and Modernism. The 21st century—a new millennium as well as a new century—came with a sense of dread: Y2K, 9/11, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the financial crash. How did poetry respond?

Certain subjects remain constant: war, death, nature, joy. Certain movements bridge both centuries: Slam, Spoken Word, electronic literature. And poetry remains constant in being bound always to both tradition and innovation. Even the 20th century slogan “Make It New” has roots in 12th century neo-Confucian scholarship and possibly the Shang Dynasty (second millennium BCE). And Anne Carson’s 21st century “book” Nox is an epic unfolding inside a poem by Catullus (c.84-c.54 BCE).

But much has changed. In this course we will study collections, movements, media, archives, institutions, disciplinary reach, business, economics, technology, publications, priorities, practices, and poetics particular to 21st century poetry in English or translation. Some practitioners bridge both centuries. Some were born in the 21st. Texts may include Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), David Jhave Johnson’s Aesthetic Animism: Digital Poetry's Ontological Implications (2016), Harryette Mullen’s Regaining Unconsciousness (2025), a contemporary anthology, and essays by Anne Carson.

There will be a midterm and final. Students will also undertake a research project and do exercises related to the thinking and writing conditions of 19th, 20th, and 21st century poetry, which may result in poems.

Elective