Lower-Division

Teaches foundational concepts for intellectual exploration and personal development within an academic community: analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy. Engages Porter's intellectual tradition of investigating the contribution the arts and humanities make to a good life, a just society, and a flourishing world.

PRTR 1A explores opportunities, expectations, and responsibilities in university life. Topics include: academic planning; general education requirements; majors and minors; campus policy; and preparation for Porter's core course: Re/reading Race. Students gain familiarity with resources for health, well-being, time management, academic success, cultivating just communities, sexual harassment and violence prevention, reflection on UCSC's principles of community, and an introduction to the living and learning tradition of Porter College. This course can be taken for Pass/No Pass grading only.

Building on the foundational skills, habits of mind, and interpretive proficiencies developed in Academic Literacy and Ethos: Arts of Reading (PRTR 1), students will explore the ways in which feature-length narrative and documentary films have approached the representation of truth.

Designed to empower students in making informed decisions about their academic and career paths. In this dynamic class, students delve into a structured process of self-discovery, gaining insights into their interests, values, skills, and aspirations. Through a combination of interactive workshops, engaging discussions, structured panels and practical exercises, students build the lifelong skills necessary for ongoing exploration and discovery.

Explores critical engagement in education in the context of a research university. Introduces first-year issues and success strategies and ways to participate in the institution's academic life. Investigates strategies for clarifying education goals and devising a plan for success. Students cannot receive credit for this course and KRSG 26 or STEV 26.

Mockumentaries such as Waiting for Guffman, This is Spinal Tap, and Woody Allen's Zelig grow out of the documentary tradition; but instead of claiming to represent real-world phenomena, they blatantly distort. Ten mockumentaries and their documentary correlates are studied. (Formerly course 80J.)

Design functional objects, sculpture, and other digitally inspired forms in a variety of 2D (Illustrator) and 3D applications (Cinema 4D, Ketch UP, or AutoCAD), then produce those models as physical objects with a variety of rapid-prototyping methods including laser cutting, 3D printing, and vacuum forming.

Theory and practice of improvisation in the performing arts with an emphasis on acting improvisation techniques. Readings and films develop a theoretical and historical understanding of spontaneous invention on stage. Students attend area theater improvisational performances.

Explores solo performance works made for the theater. While all course texts fall within the narrative tradition, some center on performers' lives, others on socio-political issues. Course participants screen video recordings of live performances in class., ultimately creating their own brief solo performances.

Explores different aspects of written drama: scene and character development, plot, dialogue, monologues, soliloquies, stage direction, setting, and structure. Excerpts of late 20th-century plays serve as the basis for class discussion.

Introduction to the farmers band tradition. Theory and practice of drumming are emphasized, resulting in a group performance.

Several composers and performers of contemporary art music discuss the processes by which works are conceived in imagination, transcribed in notation, and realized in sound. After a brief introduction to contemporary music aesthetics, students attend a series of related presentations, seminars, and concerts.

A cross-cultural survey of the kunstlerroman, or artist's novel, from its origins in late 18th-century Germany to contemporary Latin America and the United States, this course explores how this genre understands artistic development and the role of artists in society.

Theoretical and historical aspects of the arts from one culture or world area are explored through seminar discussion, library research, and film/video presentations.

This workshop teaches the history and construction of handmade books as a mode of personal and/or political expression leading to an exhibition of student work.

Considers Jewish-American filmmakers as they come to terms with their identity in autobiographical works. Students write responses to texts and create their own brief personal narratives.

Considers filmmakers and monologue performers as they come to terms with their identity in autobiographical works. Students write responses to texts and create their own brief personal narratives.

Students learn basic techniques of interview and camera work to document on film oral histories collected from community elders. Students develop their skills in writing, theater, visual art, music, or film to reinterpret oral histories as artwork.

Creativity in different disciplines is developed via different ways of knowing. Musical, visual, scientific, and spatial literacy demand understanding which is not primarily logocentric. Explores how practitioners of arts and science develop their work and conceptualize its execution.

Develops the qualities of compassion and kindness toward oneself and others. Combining contemporary scientific research, mindfulness training, and traditional contemplative practices, this course supports students in the cultivation of a more discerning, thoughtful, and compassionate life.

Addresses questions of aesthetics and politics through a critical and practical examination of some artistic, literary, and broadly cultural developments proper to the history of the Internet (1990s to the present).

Field Study

Organized in small teams, participants engage with students from public elementary classrooms to develop fully-staged group performance projects by end of term. Students are guided by instructor's models of teaching techniques, designed to stimulate the imagination, and by diverse readings.

Various topics to be arranged. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.

Various topics to be arranged. Students submit petition to sponsoring agency.