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"Barnard's Pre-College Program provided me with a very crucial stepping stone between high school life and college life that has benefited my confidence and self-awareness beyond any of my expectations."
— Dorothy Dubrule, Newton, Massachusetts

 

 

 

LIBERAL ARTS INTENSIVE
1 WEEK

JUNE 28– July 3, 2009

 

One-Week Mini-Courses
— mornings 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Monday–Friday

(Please note that these are 2008 class offerings and are subject to change; the classes being offered in 2009 will be available in January)
 

 

THEATRE

Theatre in the City
This course explores the richly diverse theatrical worlds of New York City, focusing on two significant theatrical elements: text and environment. We will look at the city as both the subject of drama and as an influence in producing and staging practices, exploring the idea of the city itself as character and performance space. We will read several plays, attend a performance and visit with working theatre artists. The class will study the context and genesis of the shows we see and also critique them. Thus, by the week's end, we will have experienced theatre from the perspective of practitioner, audience member, scholar and critic.
Julie Bleha, Instructor, Pre-College Program, Barnard College

WRITING

Creating Fantastic Fabulist Fiction
In this course, you will read work by contemporary authors who dabble in the fantastic and fabulist-stories in which animals speak, fairy tale characters face modern problems, and ghosts flit through the scene. We'll consider how character, complexity, sensory detail and elegant prose can all lift these stories out of the realm of genre fiction and into that of literary fiction, as well as how your own voice changes when you free it from the constraints of realism. Using locations around the city as inspiration, you will complete a number of creative writing exercises and, by the course's end, produce your own fabulist short story.
Melanie Fallon, Instructor, Pre-College Program, Barnard College

LITERATURE

Reading the Manhattan Landscape
This course explores Manhattan as it is represented in selections from a variety of literary genres: poetry, novels, plays, and pieces of journalism. We will consider Manhattan as a literary creation as well as an urban and geological space that influenced and continues to influence American literature. In addition to our readings, we will visit several sites of literary note in Manhattan and will attempt our own compositions; students will thus be readers, explorers, and authors.
Jon Williams, Instructor, Pre-College Program, Barnard College

MUSIC

The NY Music Scene
Students will be exposed to the diverse and unique music scene in the cultural capital of the world, New York City. In class, we will learn how to listen to and talk about music in new ways, covering styles from jazz to classical, pop to world, rock to hip-hop. These auditory experiments-no previous musical training is required-will be contextualized by studying the roots of each genre and the important contributions made by artists on the New York scene. We will have also the opportunity to visit legendary clubs, concert halls, and performances New York has to offer.
Paul Steinbeck, Instructor, Pre-College Program, Barnard College