Master of Arts in New Arts Journalism: Courses

This course examines interview formats and investigative procedures. The major topics for the course are interview formats and interview preparation, including goals for the interview and consideration of relevant content/editorial concerns; how to format and use the results of your interview. What is investigative reporting? How to research potential stories/issues, fact find, and cultivate sources. Students survey various cultural journals and forums, concentrating primarily on print media, while also exploring blog, radio, and possibly video publications. Through focusing on integrity, responsibility, audience, and ethically oriented questions, we establish guidelines and examine how trust-based relationships are built between you, your subject and sources, and your desired reader/user.

Using the city as a laboratory, this class explores different approaches to 'reading and listening' to multiple forms of architecture and design. Through lectures, discussions, site visits and assignments students experience how to identify a design's intent and to take an active role in communicating the intent from a critical, value-based perspective.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

This advanced course investigates modern and contemporary art from the late 19th century to the present. Key issues include formal, contextual, and technical developments and are discussed in relation to socioeconomic, intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Emphasis is placed on theoretical and critical issues. This course is required for the Master of Fine Arts or Post-Baccalaureate Studio Certificate. If a student has previously taken a 20th century survey or its equivalent, this requirement may be waived with permission.

Learn how to cover art for newspapers, magazines, broadcast media and blogs; this course begins by introducing students to the context, structures, ethics, procedures and challenges of cultural journalism before moving on to practice with an emphasis on good writing. Students will read and analyze contemporary arts coverage, will write interviews, news stories, features and reviews and will learn to write to word length and deadlines. As a special project students will choose a major local cultural event and cover it from start to finish, and present their work in a final publication or broadcast-worthy story.

This course provides an introduction to the forms explored in various media. The initial focus is on learning the software needed by writers to design their own publications, whether these be magazines, books, or newspaper pages. The course examines the relationship between words and photos on a page, how narratives can be reshaped into other forms of graphic storytelling, and how video and multimedia open up new ways of telling a story. Students will identify projects they wish to explore in order to explore the complete range of media techniques. Design professionals will appear regularly to present demonstrations on the areas of expertise.

As a requirement to be fulfilled for the Masters of Art degree in New Arts Journalism, a final portfolio / thesis will provide evidence of scholarship and accomplishment in the field of contemporary arts journalism. The format of that evidence may vary from a written scholarly investigative report and analysis to a production of arts journalism (a documentary, or web-driven project), its form and content to be determined in consultation with the Program Director. Departmental permission required.

In the midst of a rapidly changing environment conceptually, formally, professionally and in terms of platforms for arts journalists and arts journalism, an evaluation of its recent past, contemporary challenges, and future possibilities will investigate a relatively young discipline that is rapidly reinventing itself. Through lectures, class assignments, reviewing live performances and other art forms, interviewing artists and experts in the arts and readings in arts journalism this class will both practice and speculate on the diverse futures for a new arts journalism.

Art criticism-the description, analysis, exegesis, contextualization, and judgement of art-is perceived as being a bit bedraggled of late. It just doesn't seem to be doing its job. It is either lumbering under the ponderous weight of crusty deconstructive theory, or fleeing to the safety of the academy with its self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling hermeticism. It is crippled by the strangling constraints of political correctness, wallowing in a solipsistic subjectivism, stuck in celebrity self-aggrandizement, and floundering in a vest undifferentiated sea of relativism. What to do? This seminar comprises reading, writing, and discussion of art criticism and cultural commentary, including a concise historical survey and many field trips to visit area exhibitions, curators, and artists. The current state of criticism is assessed by readings of contemporary art writing in journals, weeklies, daily newspapers, and on the web. Special attention is devoted to understanding different audience for practical as well as theoretical reasons. Emphasis is placed on developing new critical strategies to address new types of artistic practice-installation, video, digital media, interactive and socially engaged projects and service oriented practices-and on new venues for art criticism-new journals, 'zines, CDroms, and the internet. This is accomplished though visiting art exhibitions, class discussion of critical strategies, writing and presenting one analytical research paper.