This course will introduce the arts of China through the lens of native and imported religious and philosophical traditions, exploring different approaches to representation and belief. After an introduction to the anthropological study of religion, we will cover four main periods: the pre-historic (Paleolithic - Neolithic), the early dynastic (ca. 2000 - 221 BCE), the imperial (221 BCE - 1911), and the modern-contemporary (post 1911). We will focus on elite and folk approaches to representation and belief with an emphasis on mythology and symbolism. Topics to be explored include: the dragon and the phoenix as symbols, the Han search for immortality, Buddhist cave temples, Taoist landscape painting, the Confucian scholar tradition, ritual garments, the influence of European culture and Christianity, and Communist personality cult.

Elective

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in the Theory & History of Art & Design. A call for applications will be sent to all THAD concentrators.

Please contact the instructor for permission to register. 

Elective

Registration by application only. Application is restricted to concentrators in The Theory & History of Art & Design. A call for applications will be sent to all THAD concentrators.

Elective

This course will explore the architectural traditions of the Indigenous cultures of North America, Mesoamerica, and South America in historic perspective. Examinations will focus on the critical cultural and environmental circumstances which led to the development of distinctive architectural styles throughout the Americas. Approached from an anthropological/archaeological perspective, specific topics of discussion will include the following: construction methods and material choices, spatial arrangements and use areas, the relationship between physical and social community structure, and architectural manifestation of cultural belief systems. Emphasis will also be placed on manipulations of the landscape in response to social and climatic needs. Architectural culture discussed in this course will range widely in scale, dispersal and geography - from the igloo of a small Inuit hunting party to the entire Mayan city of Chichen Itza, to the terrace and irrigation systems of the Inca.

Elective

This course will examine the role played by urban mythology in 19th and 20th - century European and American art. We will study the late - 19th - century idea of the flaneur, which influenced both visual arts and literature. We will discuss the Futurists' fascination with machines and the Surrealists' concept of a city perceived as a human body. We will analyse the Impressionists' views of Parisian streets, Frans Masereel's woodcuts The City, de Giorgio Chirico's metaphysical paintings and Edward Hopper's nostalgic images of the American metropolis. We will study how the interest in urban reality has influenced the development of new art movements of the last two centuries.

Elective

This course will explore the approaches and contexts of Leonardo da Vinci's draftsmanship. Studying some of his surviving 6000 drawings and notes, we shall locate his aesthetic and analytical processes in the context of a broad range of projects, such as paintings, sculpture, treatises, machines, weapons, maps, festivals, built environments, and philosophical propositions. Nature and the natural sciences will be considered as presented in the drawings of Leonardo. Leonardo's adherence to artisanal traditions, to members of princely courts and republics, to a Classical ideal, and more generally to investigative and inventive strategies will be considered.

Elective

This course provides an art historical survey and thematic exploration of 9 centuries of Yoruba Art and Aesthetics and its intercession with history (including but not limited to colonialism and postcolonial impact, interventions, and discourses), religion, philosophy, and the socio-political beliefs of one of Africa's most ancient civilizations, and a visible presence in the African Diaspora.

Elective

This writing-intensive course helps students consider the relationship between writing and design, examining language and writing as an active component of a dynamic studio practice. We will explore contemporary culture and issues that affect designers through reading, writing, and discussion, and will examine several different types of design writing in the process. Exercises train students in essential tasks such as conducting formal analyses, writing catalogue entries, and making visual presentations, and we will discuss methods for idea generation, research and writing about our work and our selves, as well as engaging with professional design writing practices like reviews and interviews. We will hone strategies for gathering, organizing, and archiving research material, and will discuss the ways in which writing, as well as self reflection, researching texts, reading arts publications and reviews, and studying like-minded artists can contribute to a critical, engaged, and continually evolving body of work.

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus.

This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

Elective

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus. This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

Elective

How can we add to the future enrichment of our disciplines? How do we make future collegiate teaching a more meaningful practice? This semester-long professional practice course is designed for artists, designers, architects, and educators who are considering teaching in higher education after graduation and/or those who will be teaching during Wintersession as they complete their course of study at RISD. The goal is to introduce graduate students to a reflective teaching foundation and to provide an orientation to the collegiate teaching and learning experience. The first half of the course is composed of readings and discussions related to seven teaching portfolio assignments. The second half of the course entails Individual Teaching Practice Sessions in which students prepare a class that is observed, videotaped, and receives detailed feedback from faculty and peer observers. Major outcomes of the course are: a partial teaching portfolio including a teaching and inclusivity philosophy, course proposals and an extensive course syllabus.

This is the first course in the required sequence for the Certificate of Collegiate Teaching in Art + Design.

Elective

Using RISD as a site for the exploration of strategies for studio-based teaching and learning is the goal of the course. It is designed for students who have completed TLAD-044G Collegiate Teaching: Preparation & Reflection and are interested in models of practice for a future academic environment. The course examines teaching methodologies in graduates' respective fields through case studies, faculty interviews, and article reviews. Learning to teach in a generative and attentive manner can bring teaching closer to one's studio practice. The seminar is composed of guest faculty and graduates, readings, discussions, and project assignments. Graduates in this course will complete a full professional teaching portfolio in preparation for teaching position applications. Individual and group meetings will be equally balanced. The seminar fulfills a partial requirement for the Certificate in Collegiate Teaching in Art and Design.

Elective

This course has been designed as an introduction to handbuilding ceramics with a focus on teaching ceramics. The class aims to provide a foundation for teaching ceramics through a variety of hands-on learning experiences and lively discussions. Introductory ceramic techniques (like basic pinch, slab and coil methods) will be shared and then built upon for a more sophisticated understanding. Additionally, students will leave the course with fired examples that they can use for lessons for teaching ceramics to young people (PK to 12th grade). Students will also be introduced to types of glazes, a variety of surface decoration techniques, tips and tricks for the studio, types of clay, tools, electric kiln firing and some contemporary artists using the techniques you are learning.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $50.00

Elective

This course invites creative practitioners from all disciplines to play and experiment with the notion of teaching as creative practice. What might happen if we consider the classroom our studio, instructional materials as form, and students as peers and collaborators? How do we push the boundaries of what a lecture, a workshop, a syllabus, a lesson plan, an instructional video, a how-to guide, can be? Whether in the context of higher education, community-based education, early childhood, alternative schools, artist residencies, or the inbetweens, we will take up pedagogy as our discipline and devise multidisciplinary, speculative experiments that redefine the space of pedagogy as one of endless creative potential. Studio work will be scaffolded with readings by thinkers such as Paulo Freire, Fred Moten, bell hooks, and la paperson, and we will consider the works of artists like Nina Katchadourian, Slavs and Tatars, Valie Export, and Walid Raad.

Elective

This course provides the prospective teacher with an extensive overview of child and adolescent development. It is designed to introduce the beginning teacher to the excitement of studying the individual through the childhood and adolescent years from a lifespan perspective. The course provides a framework for thinking about the developing child and adolescent in relation to the significant social environments of the MAT's life, including family, school, the peer group, the community neighborhood, the media, work, etc. It is the intent of this study to emphasize the reciprocal and dynamic interaction of the person and their environment. This course is designed and will be presented in a way that will relate theory, research and the principles of child and adolescent development in a pragmatic, holistic format.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

This course will provide a comprehensive study of specific disabilities and inclusive curriculum scenarios and strategies for learners in K-12 environments. The course will focus throughout the Wintersession on an extensive foundation in response to intervention (RTI), special education law and regulations as it relates to students with disabilities and at-risk students in the art classroom. Students will investigate classroom-tested instructional strategies that will address the characteristics and challenges faced by students with special needs. Through the session, assignments will allow students to investigate and learn through the process of reinforcing, motivating, scaffolding and planning for instruction that targets learners of all ability levels. Discussion-based teaching, group and individual presentations, assigned readings, field observations, and reflective journal entries will provide students with the knowledge of possible causes, the impact of poverty on learning, characteristics and strengths, classroom implications and specific inclusion strategies. These strategies will include behavior management techniques that will allow teachers to improve classroom behavior and social skills, engage students though motivating and relevant lessons, improve attention and memory, and provide essential modifications and accommodations of lessons appropriate to the developmental and learning level of each learner. Students will explore the various stages of building equity in their classroom by addressing issues of physical integration, social-emotional engagement, opportunities to learn, instructional excellence and engaged and inspired learners. A final demonstration of this knowledge and its implications to their teaching practice will be through a mixed-media project by each student.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA, MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

A field-based student teaching (clinical teaching) experience at the elementary level in a public school in Rhode Island or Massachusetts, supervised by school-based clinical educators and faculty from RISD's Department of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design. A student teacher's performance during this six-week teaching assignment is assessed using the performance benchmarks of the Rhode Island Professional Teaching Standards (RIPTS).

This course is a requirement for Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA, MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

A field-based student teaching (clinical teaching) experience at the secondary level in a public school in Rhode Island or Massachusetts supervised by school-based clinical educators and faculty from RISD's Department of Teaching + Learning in Art + Design. A student teacher's performance during this six-week teaching assignment is assessed using the performance benchmarks of the Rhode Island Beginning Professional Teaching Standards (RIPTS).

Enrollment is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

This course with its focus on curriculum development and pedagogical practices for students in elementary school has been designed as a the companion to TLAD-612G where the focus is students in secondary school. In this way, this pair of courses provides graduate students with an essential foundation to teaching the visual arts (art and design) from pre-K to 12th grade. This course provides students with insights and experiences in studio-based teaching and learning through the lens of an elementary setting. Students will be introduced to curricular and pedagogical practices that are grounded in meaning making and artistic inquiry, as well as authentic forms of assessment. There is a special emphasis within this course on approaching each of these frameworks (curriculum, instruction, and assessment) through an understanding of the developmental needs - cognitive, social, and personal - of young children. Within this course, students will engage in curriculum design and lesson planning through the development of a series of units that are grounded in enduring ideas in art and design education. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to engage in micro teaching experiences in partnership with a local elementary school classroom. They will have the opportunity to teach a carefully designed art/design lesson to a group of elementary-aged children and have the chance to thoughtfully reflect on their own teaching practices and encounters in the classroom.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA, MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design

This course with its focus on curriculum development and pedagogical practices for students in grades 7-12 has been designed as the companion to TLAD-611G, where the focus is students in grades PK-6. In this manner, this pair of courses provides graduate students with an essential foundation to teaching the Visual Arts (art and design) from pre-K to 12th grade. This course explores the development of a conceptual framework for studio-based teaching and learning for students in grades 7-12 that aligns with the National Visual Arts Standards (NVAS). The course is guided by the belief all middle and high school students have creative capacity and that visual arts education plays an extraordinarily important role in its development. Further, the course places emphasis on instructional design that encourages curiosity, discovery, creativity and importantly personal point of view. Throughout the course, there is a focus on curriculum development and pedagogical strategies crafted to meet the cognitive and social development of learners as well as the personal interests of students while simultaneously introducing the work of a diverse range artists from historic to contemporary as models of practice. The course introduces an approach to pedagogy for art and design education that is informed by the graduate student's personal artistic practice combined with their understanding of the rich diversity of human visual expression. The course places special emphasis on the development of studio-based learning that centers on the intersecting domains of making and responding. In this way, curriculum and instruction is designed to deepen secondary students' (7-12) understanding of art and design as expression of enduring ideas. Graduate students examine these concepts through their own studio practice, critical readings, the development curriculum maps and lesson plans and through an integrated practicum experience that provides an authentic opportunity to implement instruction with high school students in the TLAD-Studio Lab.

Enrollment in this course is limited to Teaching + Learning in Art + Design Students.

Major Requirement | MA, MAT Teaching + Learning in Art + Design