This course is devoted to developing one's abilities to write and speak with precision and complexity, about one's own work and the work of others. We will examine trends and movements in contemporary art through the lens of critical theory. We will investigate what contemporary art can tell us about the relationships between history, images, and visual culture, subsequently developing the skills necessary to write about your work, what it articulates and argues, and the ideas and traditions from which it emerges. Each term will identify and address a new set of themes relevant to course content.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department; registration is not available in Workday. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

The fall seminar concentrates on critical reading as an opportunity to locate, examine, and discuss your work within a broader field of inquiry. The additional objectives are to increase critical thinking, hone reading and writing skills, expand vocabulary, and build presentation skills. Woven into all of this is the understanding that research can be a valuable, if not essential, component of making - each informing and enriching the other. The focus of the spring seminar shifts to writing and presentation as an integral part of both studio and professional practice. Each spring brings a new team of guest instructors who introduce various modes of writing as a means to mine, develop and articulate ideas in a concise and authentic manner, and, to further hone that information into artist statements, written theses, and public presentations. Throughout the term writing will be the vehicle in which to move between private and public realms. This journey will begin with 'automatic writings' and culminate with your public artist presentations.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

In this studio, first-year graduates begin to recognize and develop personal areas of interest. Direction is given to bring structure to the exploration of various processes, materials, concepts, and formats. Weekly individual meetings focus on student's progress and response to assignments, as well as independent research.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department; registration is not available in Workday. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

In Graduate Jewelry 2, first-year graduates hone in on recognized personal areas of interest specific to jewelry from the Fall semester. Students are encouraged to embrace new studio habits in order for individualized working methodologies to become apparent. Faculty, work with students, to foster the strengths of their natural proclivities and problem-solve areas of personal sabotage. Critical to the success of this course, it is essential that first year students demonstrate a high level of self-direction, curiosity, and drive reflected through their bench work and independent research. Course content continues to focus around jewelry's power and potential as a platform and catalyst for dialogue.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

In this studio course, second-year students identify and pursue personally driven research. Weekly individual meetings and studio visits take place with the instructor, and also with scheduled first-year and second-year group critiques. Students are required to maintain a continuous record of their research and development through drawings, writings, samples, models, etc. Active participation in group discussions and critiques is mandatory.

Students are pre-registered for this course by the department; registration is not available in Workday. Enrollment is limited to Graduate Jewelry + Metalsmithing Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Jewelry + Metalsmithing

This course is an introduction to the fundamentals of design and metal fabrication techniques for jewelry. Working with precious and non-precious metals, students learn traditional jewelry construction including sawing, filing, forming, soldering, and polishing. A series of structured assignments guide students as they transform their ideas into finished pieces. Solutions for projects are open to enable the student to explore his/her own aesthetic, but taught in a way to insure that students master the basic processes.

This course is open to undergraduate students only.

Elective

This history of architecture course, co-taught by an architectural historian and an architect, introduces key ideas, forces, and techniques that have shaped world architecture through the ages prior to the modern period. The course is based on critical categories, ranging from indigenous and vernacular architecture, to technology, culture, and representation. The lectures and discussions present systems of thought, practice and organization, emphasizing both historical and global interconnectedness, and critical architectural differences and anomalies. Each topic will be presented through case studies accompanied by relevant texts. The students will be expected to engage in the discussion groups, prepare material for these discussions, write about, and be examined on the topics.

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

Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture, MArch: Architecture (3yr)

This history of architecture course, co-taught by an architectural historian and an architect, introduces key ideas, forces, and techniques that have shaped world architecture through the ages prior to the modern period. The course is based on critical categories, ranging from indigenous and vernacular architecture, to technology, culture, and representation. The lectures and discussions present systems of thought, practice and organization, emphasizing both historical and global interconnectedness, and critical architectural differences and anomalies. Each topic will be presented through case studies accompanied by relevant texts. The students will be expected to engage in the discussion groups, prepare material for these discussions, write about, and be examined on the topics.

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

Major Requirement | BArch: Architecture, MArch: Architecture (3yr)

Since its chance discovery millennia ago, glass has developed into an integral and ubiquitous part of daily life. Through lectures, student presentations and field trips to the RISD museum and/or local glass studios, this course is designed to introduce students to the various ways this quixotic material has been made, used, and thought about across time. This survey course employs a chronological format and methodologies of art history, history of science, and material culture to investigate the range of glass objects, formulae, and production methods in use since glass' earliest manufacture through the mid-twentieth century. We will also examine the broader social and cultural contexts in which glass was made and explore the following themes as they relate to the history of glass: mimesis, clarity, innovation, reflection, light, and science.

This course is a requirement for Junior Glass students. Non-majors may enroll pending seat availability. Email the instructor to request permission.

Major Requirement | BFA Glass

Taught by a working professional actor/director, this introduction to acting will lead the beginning student through the artistic process involved in acting for the stage and other media. Through exercises, study of technique, scene work and improvisation, the student will work to develop natural abilities and will become familiar with the working language and tools of the modern actor. Emphasis in this class will be on the physical self, mental preparation, the imagination, and discipline. Written work will include keeping a journal and writing a character analysis. Perfect attendance in this course is vital and mandatory. Open to sophomore and above.

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 will examine personalities working in Europe and in North America as well as non-western regions in the period 1400 to 2009. Areas of study will include an examination of interior architecture 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 interior additions and renovations and other interventions. Other areas of study will include the development of architectural drawing, and the way in which designs often evolved through committees, or ongoing consultations among 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 not mandatory.

Major Requirement | BFA Interior Studies

This course provides a cultural history of landscape and landscape architecture through various voices, lenses, and built examples. Following a loose chronology, this seminar will trace the shifting trajectory of landscapes at multiple scales, including lawns, gardens, and suburbs; roads and sanitary infrastructure; agricultural and energy landscapes; rivers and waterfronts, among others. As the second history-theory course in the sequence, we will continue to build upon key concepts explored in History-Theory 1, such as the relationship between Nature and culture, land ethics, systems thinking and ecology, and how landscape architecture has operated as a site for unequal, racialized distributions of power. To that end, we will study, define, critique, and attempt to make sense of the multiplicity of actors that shape environments, including the role of the Designer and the inextricably intertwined forces of colonization and capitalism, federal policies, non-humans, shifting attitudes about Nature, etc. 
 
To provoke critical thinking about the development of landscape form and ideas, readings will be drawn from various perspectives, including landscape architecture, social and environmental history, anthropology, science and technology studies, queer and feminist studies, and geography. These fields will help us understand history as a foundation for thinking about the landscape’s relationship between past and present and center and margin. By critically probing landscape architecture’s canon and its counter-narratives, we will consider how we can be better poised to understand and articulate our own contributions to the field as future practitioners.

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

Major Requirement | MLA-I Landscape Architecture

The course will focus on the diverse new roles encountered by the architect in the 20th century: form maker, administrator of urban development, social theorist, cultural interpreter, ideologue. Emphasis will be placed upon the increasing interdependence of architecture and the city, and the recurrent conflicts between mind and hand, modernity and locality, expressionism and universality.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Architecture Students and first-year MArch (3yr) Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr): Architecture

The course will focus on the diverse new roles encountered by the architect in the 20th century: form maker, administrator of urban development, social theorist, cultural interpreter, ideologue. Emphasis will be placed upon the increasing interdependence of architecture and the city, and the recurrent conflicts between mind and hand, modernity and locality, expressionism and universality.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. This course is a requirement for Sophomore Architecture Students and first-year MArch (3yr) Architecture Students.

Major Requirement | BArch, MArch (3yr): Architecture

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.

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

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