LTA2014 Money and Literature
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course looks at money and economic thinking in literature. We will examine works from a wide range of periods and genres, with a strong grounding in fiction and drama from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Aesthetic genres such as naturalism, modernism, post-modernism, and expressionism will be considered in terms of how they inform and are informed by thinking about money. There will also be contextual/theoretical readings from Marx, Benjamin, Simmel, Freud, Lacan, and others.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

CSP2057 Narratives of Sustainability
(Formerly CVA2057 Imagining Sustainability)
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe primary focus of this course is on the exploration of the concept of sustainability as a juncture of economic, environmental and social concerns. With the rapid expansion of globalization, and the attenuating crises that accompany it, with regard to these concerns, future business and public policy leaders will need to be in the vanguard at determining how best to effect solutions. To that end, this course will examine a variety of sources in the consideration both of what allows for the implementation of sustainability and what prohibits it--from business case study to philosophical/economic analysis to literary memoir. Within this context, students will be invited to examine what we mean when we talk about _justice,_ _ethics,_ _profit,_ _growth,_ and _community._ In sum, we will explore how concepts that contribute to our understanding of individual and communal responsibility might be revisited and redefined in the effort to create a world that offers sustainable economic opportunity for all, ensured within a vital commitment to environmental stewardship.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring or Summer

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA 2007: Out of the Mouths of...Children Narrators

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts Credits

Children's minds work differently from those of adults; it's the way they make sense of the world, the way a child's own small world is the whole world and, at the same time, an ever-evolving concept, as they learn and grow and change. They understand and react instinctively. This can result in thoughts and actions that are both naïve and profound, innocent and wise, non-sensical and brilliant. And even when they don't (or can't) understand sophisticated issues, they remain keen observers. At Babson, there's a great deal of emphasis in thinking about your future self, the person you will be in five years or in twenty years. Clearly, that has value. But this course asks if there is also benefit in looking to the past. Through our texts and discussions, we will look at the ways we look at the world as children, the ways our perceptions change as we grow older, and the ways in which that evolution is both positive and negative.

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

ART1200 Painting Through Poetry

4 Free Credits

Artists have long produced work in conversation with others in their communities. This exchange is particularly vital and enduring among painters and poets. In this course, we will trace the relationships of contemporary and historical practitioners. With poems as our prompts, we will explore painting as a visual language that is fundamentally relational. Through a series of visual experiments, from painting to collage, we will interrogate the relationship between parts and wholes, representation and abstraction, text and image. We will consider moments in which language constrains meaning while painting expands it and vice versa. Together, through making, we will uncover questions, generate ideas, and apply the specificity of poetry to the space of painting.

Prerequisites: None

LIT4610 Performing Social Class
4 Advanced Liberal Arts CreditsThis 4-credit course employs gamified pedagogy to explore the multifarious ways that social class functions. Students will read texts that explore the issues of class consciousness, class performance, classism, and cross-class communication; act in in-class simulations of events that reveal the ways that social class operates; and write character biographies, scripts and analytical reflections. Simulations will include school events, job interviews, holiday celebrations, and more. Readings will be drawn from both nonfiction (from fields such as sociology, economics and cultural studies) and fiction (primarily short stories and excerpts from novels and plays). The overarching objective will be for students to become aware of the often-invisible ways that social class operates in daily life. In a global society that is marked by increasing socioeconomic disparity, it is especially important for students to become critical thinkers about social class.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

PHO1100 Photography

4 Free Elective Credits

Introduction to Digital & Darkroom Photography is an art course designed to explore visual ideas and concepts about photography as an expressive art medium. Content in a picture and its emotional and aesthetic value is of paramount importance and one of the most essential communicative tools of our era. This course will introduce students to the fundamentals of photography with an objective to master the manual camera operating modes, compositional elements, light, color, and black and white imaging. We will learn digital software editing applications and digital printing using Adobe Photoshop software programs. In addition, we will also learn the art and craft of the traditional darkroom using 35mm film cameras and wet-lab printing. Digital workflow terminology and digital printing will be explored in the first part of the term followed by darkroom techniques in the second segment of our class. This foundation course will form the basis of further studies within photography while emphasizing the rich cultural and historical vocabulary associated with this time and narrative based medium.

Note: Babson Photography program has 35mm film cameras and lenses to check out but only a limited number of digital fully manual cameras on reserve. Students are responsible for providing their own digital camera, film and printing papers. You will have 24/7 access to both the digital and darkroom labs.

Prerequisites: None

LTA2049 Seeking Enrichment: Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Literature

4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThe novelist Joyce Carol Oates has said, _To be an American is to be a kind of pilgrim ... a seeker after truth. The pilgrim is our deepest and purest self. In this course we'll explore the character of the pilgrim in selected fiction, essays, and poems, using questions such as: What inspires someone to take and retake pilgrimages: long, often difficult journeys far from home? What friendships and other communities form along the way and why? What besides self-enrichment do pilgrims hope to find, or possibly lose? Through close reading, discussion, and written analyses, we'll study how writers use setting, plot, and theme to consider these questions. There will also be one field trip, which will serve as a local pilgrimage. Course texts may include contemporary works by Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula Le Guin, and Curtis Sittenfeld, as well as selections from Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer, Basho, and Thoreau.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Spring

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

LTA2030 Reading Place and Landscape in American Literature
4 Intermediate Liberal Arts CreditsThis course investigates the ways American writers use place and landscape in their art. Reading fiction, essays, and poetry beginning in the 19th century and moving to contemporary works, we will explore the nature of place and landscape as physical, social, and intellectual and consider what it suggests about American culture and ideas. We will also look at several theoretical texts by cultural geographers, ecologists, and scholars of landscape architecture and regional planning. Ultimately, we will consider how place and landscape, both real and imagined, influence selected American writers' use of theme, imagery, character, and style, and reflect as well on how these concerns influence our own lives as readers, writers, thinkers, and dreamers.

Reading Place and Landscape in American Literature is an intermediate level course and part of the Literary and Visual Arts category of the Liberal Arts Curriculum. Courses in this category focus on frameworks for understanding and appreciating the practice of representation, the creative process, and diverse modes of aesthetic expression. They also consider individual, historical, cultural, and formal factors in artistic creation and make manifest the multiple vantage points from which art can be interpreted.

This course is typically offered in the following semesters: Fall or Spring

Prerequisites: (FCI1000 or AHS1000) and (WRT1001or RHT1000)

HUM4601 Place, Space, Occasion: Public Discourse in Theory and Practice
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

We are living in a moment of great social, cultural, and political unrest. To examine, understand, and, most importantly, solve society's most pressing problems requires vigorous and inclusive civic deliberation and dialogue. Our focus this semester will be on discovering what makes for logical, nuanced, productive, and exciting argumentation while also creating our own. We will study rhetorical principles, from antiquity to the present day, and consider various strategies for speaking in public forums. You will have the opportunity to experiment with these principles and strategies as you craft original oratory and speeches for specific audiences and contexts as well as practice with theatrical and performance methods for vocal variation and body language. Theory-driven and practice-oriented, this course offers you a space to both explore how any public discourse reflects its historical and social context and to engage in the public sphere as a speaker, audience member, and citizen-scholar.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)

LIT4693 Play, Performance, Politics: The London Stage
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits

Program fee is paid to Glavin Office - program fee includes accommodations, breakfast, tube pass in London, airport transport, theatre tickets, program planned meals, and cultural excursions. Not included: tuition, international flight, visa costs, additional meals and personal expenses.

The course aims to develop an appreciation for and deeper understanding of the theatre as an art form through an immersive experience of play-text study, play attendance, performance workshops, and class discussion. While we will see a variety of types of plays on a variety of subjects, our approach to these plays will particularly emphasize the social and political context and issues raised implicitly or explicitly by the plays we read and see. We will also place the issues raised in a number of the plays into a wider discussion of social and political issues occurring in the world today - be they around matters of inequality at local, national and global levels, the role of government, the meaning of freedom in daily life and as a legal and political concept, and the effort of people to shape their collective futures through political action and argument. Success in this class is dependent upon students' ability and willingness to participate fully in all class discussions as well as work outside of class, both individually and in teams, and to contribute their independent insights and observations to the learning community of the class. Participation is imperative.

The course will involve a combination of close reading of the play-texts and contextual readings, careful and critical analysis of the performances, and engaged participation in acting workshops, tours, and class discussions.

Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)