Media, Music and the Arts

The following courses have been selected to help you explore Media, Music and the Arts at MIT.

Playwriting (21M.604, Spring 2005)

21m_604.jpgDescription:This class introduces the craft of writing for the theater. Through weekly assignments, in class writing exercises, and work on a sustained piece, students explore scene structure, action, events, voice, and dialogue. They examine produced playscripts and discuss student work. Emphasis is on process, risk-taking, and finding one's own voice and vision. The Projects page features student work.

Instructor: Professor Laura Harrington
Prerequisites: None
Start with: The Projects page for samples of student work
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21w_749.jpgDescription:In this course, students are introduced to the work of several great documentary photographers and photojournalists, while working on a documentary project of their own and learning to write about the documentary tradition. Included are descriptions and samples of student projects, as well as links to a wide variety of Web sites on documentary photography.

Instructor: Professor B. D. Colen
Prerequisites: None
Start with: The Projects page for samples of student work
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Introduction to Western Music (21M.011, Spring 2006)

21m_011.jpgDescription:This course gives a broad overview of Western music from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, with emphasis on late baroque, classical, romantic, and modernist styles (1700-1910). It is also meant to enhance students' musical experience by developing listening skills and an understanding of diverse forms and genres. Major composers and their works will be placed in social and cultural contexts. The focus of the course is on the weekly listening and reading assignments.

Instructor: Professor Ellen Harris
Prerequisites: None
Start with: The Lecture Notes page, or the Listening page for a list of all the music used in the course
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Visualizing Cultures (21F.027, Spring 2008)

21f_027.jpgDescription:In this course, students study how images have been used to shape the identity of peoples and cultures, using a case study of American and Japanese images related to the opening of Japan to the outside world in the 1850s. Included is a link to this case study and a comprehensive list of readings and web resources related to the idea of visualizing cultures.

Instructors: Professor John Dower, Professor Shigeru Miyagawa
Prerequisites: None
Start with: The Units page for a link to the MIT Visualizing Cultures Web site
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Furniture Making (4.296, Spring 2005)

4_296.jpgDescription:This course is an introduction to methods of wooden furniture making, and features images and videos demonstrating woodworking techniques, as well as images of the furniture designed and built by students for their final projects.

Instructor: Professor Christopher Dewart
Prerequisites: None
Start with: Lecture Notes page for picture and video demonstrations of some woodworking techniques
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4_125.jpgDescription:This subject introduces skills needed to build within a landscape establishing continuities between the built and natural world. Students learn to build appropriately through analysis of landscape and climate for a chosen site, and to conceptualize design decisions through drawings and models.

Instructor: Professor Jan Wampler
Prerequisites: None
Start with: Lecture Notes page for video of sites and class review sessions
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Introduction to the Visual Arts (4.301, Spring 2007)

4_301.jpgDescription:This class will introduce students to a variety of contemporary art practices and ideas. The class will begin with a brief overview of 'visual language' by looking at a variety of artworks and discussing basic concepts revolving around artistic practice. The rest of the class will focus on notions of the real/unreal as explored with various mediums and practices. The class will work in video, sculpture and in public space.

Instructor: Professor Joe Zane
Prerequisites: None
Start with: Lecture Notes page for video interviews with a variety of artists
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Rhetoric (21W.747, Spring 2005)

21w_747.jpgDescription:This course uses the study of rhetoric as an opportunity to offer instruction in critical thinking. Through extensive writing and speaking assignments, students will develop their abilities to analyze texts of all kinds and to generate original and incisive ideas of their own. Critical thinking and original analysis as expressed in writing and in speech are the paramount goals of this class. The course will thus divide its efforts between an examination of the subject matter and an examination of student writing and speaking, in order to encourage in both instances the principal aims of the course.

Instructor: Professor Aden Evens
Prerequisites: None
Start with: Projects page for a video of an in-class debate
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