Tag: Instructor (page 1 of 2)

Pursue your Passion for the Arts this Summer!

Are you interested in exploring your creative side this summer? It is the perfect time to take a course in the arts with Brandeis Summer School!

Summer class options include:
FA 165A: Contemporary Art – ONLINE CLASS!

This course addresses art at the turn of the 20th century with attention to intersections of art and identity, politics, economy, and history. It will begin with discussions of art in the United States as New York City established itself as the capital of contemporary art and then move to consider art communities around the world that have become prominent as the art world, like politics and the economy, have become increasingly globalized.

ENG 21A: Young Adult Literature

Like myth, Young Adult literature brings us to the most elemental aspects of literary experience, and it does that in the most compelling and interesting way. It takes the experiences of young adults as seriously as they should be taken, and offers joy and consolation to its audience. In this course students will examine what is genuinely great about the work of Young Adult authors like J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Philip Pullman, and Lois Lowry. You’ll study how literature works, and in particular what makes narrative powerful.

ENG 79A: Screenwriting Workshop: Beginning Screenplay

There’s never been a better time to become a screenwriter. Breakthroughs in technology, production, and distribution have heightened the demand for good scripts. Whether you want to write a micro-budget indie or a Hollywood blockbuster, this course provides all the essential tools you’ll need. Learn the fundamentals – structure, story arc, character development – and develop the first act of your feature screenplay. You’ll also watch and analyze recent movies. You’ll never look at a movie the same way again!

FA 3A: Introduction to Drawing I

Through a solid understanding of its form and principles, students will be encouraged to instigate intuitive and open responses to perceptual and conceptual sources. Students will address the role of drawing as part of their creative process.

FA 178B: Seminar on Chinese Calligraphy: History and Practice

This seminar examines the art and history of Chinese calligraphy. The goal is to introduce students of different Chinese-language levels (not limited to native-speakers) to canonical works of calligraphy as well as the enthusiasm and creativity these works have generated through the ages. From anonymous oracle bones and stone inscriptions to famed masterpieces, such as Wang Xizhi’s “Lanting Pavilion Preface,” and from original renderings to copies of others’ compositions, this course showcases the kaleidoscopic range that makes calligraphy a visual-linguistic art form beyond “words.” The multifaceted functions of stylized writing—such as for political, religious, and expressive purposes—will also be explored.

ENG 180A: The Modern American Short Story

Short stories bring you to the heart of narrative in a way that no other kind of literature does. Novels, plays, and movies have time to do world-building, and therefore they can give you a sense of what’s unique about their world. But short stories have to be far more direct, have to interact with readers in their own world. Over 5 weeks students will explore many of these worlds as they read and discuss several short stories every class!

THA 130A-1 & 2: Suzuki

Developed by the Japanese theater artist Tadashi Suzuki, the Suzuki method of acting training develops physical strength, stamina, and agility while engaging the imagination and will of the actor. Through a series of walks, statues, and marches, students are taught to breathe and move from the core of their bodies. This training allows students to act from physical impulse, resulting in a deep and personal experience of language and the world of play. This class also counts as one activity course toward the physical education requirement.

View all of the Summer Arts Courses and Syllabi Online.

Enroll today! Space is limited!

 

Questions? Email us at: summerschool@brandeis.edu

Which Hogwarts’ house do you belong to?

Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff? Discover your house loyalty this summer with William Flesch in his Young Adult Literature class (ENG 21A).

You will explore the purest form of story-telling and ponder what it means to be a person (human or otherwise). Since this is a summer class, the reading list is flexible and at the beginning of the course students and the instructor will brainstorm a set of readings together.

Book options may include:

  • Rowling: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  • Cooper: The Hunger Games
  • Stevenson: Kidnapped
  • Pullman: The Golden Compass
  • Lewis: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
  • Valente: Space Opera
  • Lowry: The Giver

Interested in skipping straight to the heart of the narrative? Explore how very short fiction works in William Flesch’s Modern American Short Story class (ENG 180A).

You will be able to propose your preferred reading list and select which short stories you want to explore and examine further this summer. Past picks included writers as different as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Flannery O’Connor, Richard Wright, and Harry Turtledove.

William Flesch is a Professor of English at Brandeis and works on the “nature of literary experience, from Homer through present day movies, and on what an accurate description of literary experience can offer evolutionary psychologists and cognitive theorists.”  He has been cited by Newsweek as one of America’s “Great College Professors”: https://www.newsweek.com/four-great-college-professors-78703

Space for this summer is filling up quickly so reserve your spot today!

If you have any questions e-mail us at: summerschool@brandeis.edu.

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EXPLORE | EXPERIENCE | EXCEL

Remember to subscribe to our e-mail list to be notified of the latest class schedule updates and registration deadlines.

Faculty Spotlight: Casey Golomski

casey.golomskiBrandeis University Summer School interviewed Casey Golomski, a lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Brandeis.  This summer, Casey will be teaching ANTH127a “Medicine, Body and Culture.” Registration is now open – click here to be directed to the enrollment page.

 

Brandeis University Summer School: How long have you been teaching at Brandeis? 

Casey Golomski: My home is in the Department of Anthropology. I am also Lecturer in Anthropology at UMASS Boston, and I formerly taught at Northeastern University. I matriculated to the Brandeis Anthropology PhD program in 2006 and successfully defended my dissertation this past March, so I will graduate this spring. Last spring I independently convened the course ANTH80a, “Anthropology of Religion.” I otherwise teach regularly “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology,” “Peoples and Cultures of Africa,” and “Watching Film, Seeing Culture.”

BUSS: What courses will you teach this summer? What can students expect?

CG: This summer I will teach ANTH127a, “Medicine, Body and Culture.” This course is a broad yet nuanced introduction to medical anthropology, engaging the social, economic and political dimensions of illness and healing across cultures. I’m very excited for the opportunity to convene this course. I consider myself a cultural anthropologist, but I am very involved in issues of bodies, aging and medicine. In the past, I’ve done work with traditional and Christian spiritual healers in southern Africa, as well as youth and shamanistic healing in the Hmong Diaspora in the US. My current research focuses effects of death and demographic shift from HIV/AIDS on life cycle rites in the the Kingdom of Swaziland. In the course, I’ll share some of these findings and works-in-progress.

To explain the syllabus a bit, we begin with historical precursors to the field, so how earlier scholars were writing about medicine, culture, society and power and consider how they laid certain intellectual foundations we still work with today. I designed a number of interesting case studies modules on: race and medicine the US; health, environment, and ecology, including how we are affected by wind; chronic illness; and even sleep and sleeplessness! This course attracts many students who are Biology, International Global Studies, or Health Science Society and Policy majors or are pre-med, and we are going to interrogate “biomedicine (our own system and understandings of health) and programs and initiatives of “global public health,” as well as learning how undergraduate students in Africa learn to become doctors in some resource deprived settings there. At the end of the course, we consider how to apply our culturally-nuanced findings in practice and public policy. We draw case studies from Anglo-, Hispanic- and Native North, Central and South America, Western Europe, Eastern and Southern Africa, East and South Asia and the Pacific.

BUSS: What is unique about summer courses – either for the students or faculty?

CG: I like the opportunities that summer school schedules provide. While the course is condensed to make up for a full semester’s content, I make sure to stagger the work expectations so students are able to better relish the material. While the readings are pretty equitable across the course schedule, some days will be more concentrated my own material and lectures. Other days use a “conversation circle” format where we each share individually- or group-assigned readings with each other. We will read scholarly and some popular writing which can be a much quicker read, like the best-seller “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” I think summer is a good time to catch up on “leisure” reading, and this combination lets students see how books in the library and popular books can converse in interesting ways. We will watch a number of films as well.  Students will have three different options for a final project, including doing their own short ethnographic investigation which a summer course permits more time and freedom to take on.

 

Registration for ANTH127a and all summer course is now open.  Click here for more information, or to sign up!

Faculty Spotlight: Jason Pontrello

Jason K. Pontrello

Jason K. Pontrello, Associate Professor of Chemistry, will be teaching Organic Chemisty this summer at Brandeis.

Brandeis Summer School interviewed Jason Pontrello, Ph.D, an assistant professor in Chemistry at Brandeis University.  Jason has been teaching at Brandeis since the Fall of 2008 and will be teaching two courses this summer.  Check out the great interview below:

 

Brandeis University Summer School: How are your lab classes different than most?

Jason Pontrello: My lab courses focus on hypothesis development and interpretation of data rather than reproduction of expected or anticipated results from prior work. Half the lab experiments in the Fall semester incorporate the synthesis of a small molecule designed to inhibit the Tat protein/TAR-RNA interaction necessary for HIV replication. The experiments in the Spring semester incorporate the synthesis of metalloprotease inhibitors as well as compounds designed to affect protein aggregation in Huntington’s Disease. Students find, follow, and adapt procedures recently published in scientific literature, rather than relying on standardized textbook experiments. To carry out the reactions, students must learn how to use equipment that is commonly used in synthetic chemistry research labs. In addition, the Huntington’s Disease project represents a collaboration between introductory organic and biology teaching labs. The compounds organic chemistry students synthesize are tested in both in vitro and in vivo assays in the biology lab.

BUSS: What courses will you be teaching this summer?

JP: Organic Chemistry Lectures (Chemistry 25a/b) and Organic Chemistry Laboratories (Chemistry 29a/b)

BUSS: What do you think are the benefits of Brandeis Summer School for students?

JP: While the pace of a summer course is challenging to adapt to and required commitment to the enrolled course, the structure of the program and small size of the class (about 40 students) compared with the Fall/Spring semesters carry substantial benefits. Students are immersed in the subject of organic chemistry during 2 hour lecture, 4 days a week. This makes it possible to begin talking about a topic, and to finish during the same lecture or the next day. During the Fall/Spring semesters, with 3 lectures a week, topics often become fragmented and relevance can be lost as students are focusing on many other course requirements as well. I also noticed a strong group dynamic created among students in the summer classes. This same dynamic is experienced during Fall/Spring semesters, but it is more focused around the smaller recitations rather than the larger lecture course as a whole.

Brandeis Anthropologist Javier Urcid teaches 2 courses this summer

Photo of Anthropology Professor Javier UrcidBrandeis Associate Professor and Chair of the Brandeis Anthropology Dept., Javier Urcid, will be teaching two classes this summer.  Prof. Urcid will be teaching ANTH 5a: Human Origins and ANTH 116a: Human Osteology. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Prof. Urcid studies the development of ancient complex societies in Mesoamerica: the origin and societal functions of early writing, political economy and settlement patterns, and the social and ideological dimensions of mortuary practices.

Recently, Prof. Urcid was the feature of a video on his work helping students understand ancient societies using Brandeis’ rich collection of artifacts.

Several Anthropology courses are being offered this summer:

ANTH 1a: Introduction to the Comparative Study of Human Societies with Ieva Jusionyte
Sage class number: 2109

ANTH 5a: Human Origins with Javier Urcid
Sage class number: 2070

ANTH 61b: Language in American Life with Laura Ann John
Sage class number: 2110

ANTH 105a: Myth and Ritual with Adam Gamwell
Sage class number: 2111

ANTH 116a: Human Osteology with Javier Urcid
Sage class number: 2072

ANTH 129b: Global, Transnational, and Diasporic Communities with Noah Tamarkin
Sage class number: 2073

ANTH 144a: The Anthropology of Gender with Anna Jaysane-Darr
Sage class number: 2112

To register for 2012 Brandeis Summer Classes, visit:

http://www.brandeis.edu/summer/registration/ready.html

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