Liberal Arts

Interdivisional Liberal Arts

Faculty

Juilliard actively promotes a liberal arts education that provides the humanistic, ethical, social, critical, and aesthetic background essential to personal development and professional excellence. Studies in literature, philosophy, history, social sciences, arts, and languages, foster in students a deeper understanding of themselves and the complex world in which they live.

All students in the B.F.A. and B.M. degree programs are required to complete a minimum of 24 credits in the Liberal Arts. Qualified students begin a three-semester core-curriculum program in their first year by taking “Ethics, Conscience and the Good Life” and “Society, Politics and Culture.” In the following year students enroll in “Art and Aesthetics.” Students who place into “Writing Seminar” enroll in that course their first year and in “Ethics” their sophomore year, completing the three-semester sequence as above. This core curriculum in the humanities introduces students to a cross-cultural range of texts, traditions, and issues and emphasizes critical thinking and writing throughout.

Students pursue electives in such fields as art history, creative writing, literature, African-American studies, American and European history, gender, philosophy, and the environment. Juilliard also offers courses in four modern foreign languages: French, German, Italian, and Russian. Most students take electives in the third and fourth years but may take them earlier. All Liberal Arts coursesare conducted in small seminars to foster participation and a spirit of inquiry. Eligible students may also cross-register for certain courses at Columbia and Barnard Colleges.

Through their work in the Liberal Arts, students refine skills in reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking, learning to communicate with greater clarity and effectiveness. This program equips them to become active, well-informed citizens; develops their awareness of the social and humanistic dimensions of professional work; and lays the basis for a fulfilling cultural and intellectual life.

Courses

Liberal Arts Core

• LARTS 101-2 — Writing Seminar

  6 credits (3 credits per term)
  Summer, Full Year
  Faculty
  
  This course is a prerequisite to LARTS 111. Emphasis is placed upon reading and writing skills, verbal expression, and critical analysis of texts. Successful completion satisfies six Liberal Arts Elective credits. Students may qualify out of this course on the basis of a diagnostic exam which evaluates their preparedness.
• LARTS 111 — Ethics, Conscience, and the Good Life

  3 credits
  Summer, Fall
  Faculty
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 101-2 . Students read and discuss works of ethicists, philosophers, religious figures, and literary authors on the nature of the ethical life. Students will be encouraged to think critically about personal responsibility, responsibilities to others, the good life, the problem of evil, and human nature. Authors and traditions that may be included: Classical Greek and Roman, Buddhism, Taoism, the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, Hume, Kant, Utilitarianism, Mary Shelley, and Shakespeare, as well as contemporary readings that address the ethical questions arising in a scientific, technological and global age.
• LARTS 112 — Society, Politics, and Culture

  3 credits
  Spring
  Faculty
  
  This course is an introduction to the seminal issues, methods, and traditions that inform historical and contemporary conceptions of politics, society, and culture. Drawing from classical to contemporary readings in political theory, philosophy, the social sciences, literature, and gender studies, the course encourages students to explore such topics as why people live in society; how social life influences personhood; how society regulates and institutionalizes power and authority; and how societies are transformed. Authors who may be included are Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Marx, Mill, Wollstonecraft, and Woolf.
• LARTS 212 — Citizenship, Art, and Politics

  3 credits
  Fall, Spring
  Faculty
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . From the moment that creators share their work with the public, these works take on new meanings. Students enrolled in Citizenship, Art, and Politics will consider problems of abiding interest and frequent disagreement: Who gets to decide what is art, and what sort of conclusions have been reached? When appraising a performance, should audiences take an artist’s personal qualities into account? Are artists obligated to consider for whom a performance is given, or where it is performed, or should artists simply focus on the performance itself? What are governments’ interests in creative expression? During times of social or political conflict, what are the limits and possibilities of cultural diplomacy?

   

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Art History)

• LARTS 343 — Art of the 19th Century

  3 credits
  Fall
  Greta Berman
  
  In this class we will study painting, sculpture, and architecture in Europe from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Topics include Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, and Art Nouveau. Students will be introduced to the works of David, Ingres, Delacroix, Turner, Goya, Courbet, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, and Toulouse-Lautrec, among others.
• LARTS 344 — Art of the 20th Century

  3 credits
  Spring
  Greta Berman
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  This class is a survey of the arts of Europe and the United States from the beginning of the 20th century to today, starting with the transition from the late 19th century into the 20th. We begin with an examination of Fauvism and German Expressionism, continuing through Cubism, Futurism, Dada and Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and movements of the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Artists include Matisse, Klee, Kandinsky, Picasso, Dali, Pollock, Warhol, and many others. Class time will be spent discussing and viewing slides, videotapes, and live performances, where possible. Students will be encouraged to go to museums and galleries, as well as to read current criticism.

   

• LARTS 346 — Art of the United States

  3 credits
  Summer
  Greta Berman
  
  This class will examine some of the reasons for the artistic progress of the United States from British colony to leader of the avant-garde. In doing so, we will take a chronological look at paintings, sculpture, and architecture. This nation began its existence by looking to Europe for its inspiration, but after World War II, New York City replaced Paris as the center of the art world. We shall take advantage of New York City’s thriving and ever-changing status as leader of the avant-garde in the visual arts as well as our physical location in this city to visit museums and galleries, and supplement our knowledge by means of digital slides.
• LARTS 348 — Opera: Music and the Visual Arts

  3 credits
  Spring
  Greta Berman
  
  This team-taught course will focus on a selection of operas, exploring a few of the many connections between that art form and the visual arts. Among the operas we will examine are Monteverdi’s Orfeo, one or two of Handel’s numerous works, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, as well as operas by Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, and Wagner. Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, Richard Strauss’s Salome, Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, and Hindemith’s Mathis der Mahler — unique in that the composer based it on the life and work of the 16th-century German painter, Mathias Grünewald — all have special relevance to visual art. We will look at these through a variety of approaches: thematic as well as stylistic. Some of the painters whose work corresponds to the composers include Nicolas Poussin, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky.
• LARTS 349 — Art of the Renaissance

  3 credits
  Spring
  Greta Berman
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  This class looks at painting, sculpture, and architecture of the Renaissance. By means of slides, lectures, and class discussions, we explore the meaning of the Renaissance and its manifestations in Italy and Northern Europe. Major artists include Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hieronymus Bosch.
• LARTS 387 — Modernity and Modernism

  3 credits
  Fall
  Greta Berman and Samuel Zyman
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  There are many possible starting points for the term “Modernism” in Western art. This course will explore this concept, beginning with the late 19th century in Europe, and move through various artists and movements in the United States through the Second World War. Subjects will include Impressionism and Symbolism: Where does Debussy stand?; Expressionism: Kandinsky and Schoenberg; Cubism: Picasso and Stravinsky; abstract art and atonal music; Dada and Surrealism; Minimalism; and the computer and new media.

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Literature and Creative Writing)

• LARTS H320 — The Self in the World: Reading and Writing the Literary Essay

  3 credits
  Fall
  Anthony Lioi
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . The literary essay, which arose multiple times in classical world cultures, begins with a description of the writer’s experience—often in sensuous bodily detail—and goes on to connect that small self to the larger “selves” of society, nature, and the world. In this class, students will study the classical and modern traditions of the essay in order to enter those traditions as writers. Considering the essay as a form emerging from the texts of other essays, students will first learn the rules of each kind of essay—confessional, ruminative, philosophical, political, and environmental, among others—by reading and analyzing canonical examples. They will then be challenged to enact and eventually depart from those rules, thus beginning with, incorporating, and defying the past. After a rigorous process of drafting and redrafting, including in-class performances, students will assemble a portfolio of work and choose one essay to present at a symposium at the end of the semester. This is a Liberal Arts Honors course and may be taken to fulfill academic honors requirements.
• LARTS 315 — Writing Poetry and Flash Fiction

  3 credits
  Spring
  Ron Price
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  Designed to help students recognize options rather than flaws in what they write, this course will focus on how language works at its most evocative — in poetry, prose poems, and short stories. The aim is to generate material and to find appropriate forms to contain that material by identifying the musical and rhythmic shape of words. The semester comprises writing exercises, critiques, and discussions of related issues: the image, spoken language, syntax, music, tone, story, and form. Students will develop writing, editorial, and performance skills — the emphasis being on how to use those tools to enhance the expression of experience.
• LARTS 352 — Noonday Demon: Depression in Literature

  3 credits
  Spring
  Jo Sarzotti
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112   The literary theme of descent to the underworld can be analogized to a descent into depression. This course starts with exploration of this idea by reading Dante’s Inferno with reference to ancient and classical descents, as well as reading modern versions, essays by Loren Eiseley, and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the discussion of which will also include viewing the film Apocalypse Now. Then we will take up modern clinical ideas about depression, starting with Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, William Styron’s Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, and poetry by Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and others. Background reading will include Freud, Jung, and Andrew Solomon, whose memoir provides the course title.
• LARTS 361 — Creative Nonfiction

  3 credits
  Fall
  Ron Price
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  Creative Nonfiction tells a story. The story might have a political or an ecological, an economic or a racial focus. It might be about the art of glassblowing or animal husbandry, anything from a narrative history of the U.S. Civil War to a coming of age memoir — stories about what real people do, what happens to them, how they respond. The genre employs a journalist’s focus on facts; the dialogue and scenes of a novelist or playwright; the analytical thinking of an essayist; the images, musicality, and wordplay of a poet. Creative Nonfiction writers use literary techniques when facts alone cannot adequately render the truth of a subject. They aim for the truth as they understand it. Strategic analysis of work by Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Joyce Carol Oats, John Hersey, Truman Capote, Annie Dillard, Tom Wolfe, Isabella Allende, Joan Didion, Gay Talese, and John McPhee will serve as models for student writings to culminate in a manuscript of original essays.
• LARTS 365 — Contemporary American Poetry

  3 credits
  Spring
  Ron Price
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  An examination of the cultural and historical elements shaping the very young and fluid tradition of American poetry, including issues such as the modern quarrel with Classicism; the dialectic between language and reality, regional and international, personal and political; the social function of poetry; and the poet’s relationship to community and the human family. In addition to poems, students will read literary and cultural essays written by contemporary poets on issues related to the American tradition.

Liberal Arts Electives: Humanities (Philosophy)

• LARTS 327 — 19th-Century European Philosophy

  3 credits
  Fall
  Aaron Jaffe
  
  In this course we will trace philosophical development following Kant to Nietzsche. Central concerns will include the philosophy of history, the role of religion, the capacity for self-determination, the status of “science,” and the human relationship to nature. Major thinkers covered include Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.
• LARTS 328 — The Philosophy of Black Liberation

  3 credits
  Summer
  Aaron Jaffe
  
  In this class we will explore historical and contemporary theories of Black liberation. Doing so will require first thinking carefully about the specific nature of Black oppression, which we will do with the help of multiple philosophical theories. Among others, will work through Afro-pessimist, Anti-capitalist, Anti-colonial, Abolitionist, Feminist, and Psychological analyses and liberatory commitments. Though primarily focused on the US context, we will aim to theorize the limits of the US horizon through an international perspective as well. This means thinking Blackness through the history and (ongoing) trauma of slavery, a central but not exclusive lens for thinking about Black liberation. Methodologically, it will be important to de-center white experiences and responses to racialization and its harms. This will be a reading intensive class, with reflection and discussion assignments due every session. Guest lecturers will be invited to introduce text and lead discussion at multiple points in the term.
• LARTS 331 — Marx as Philosopher

  3 credits
  Spring
  Aaron Jaffe
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . Karl Marx is more commonly approached as an economist, sociologist, or political theorist than as a philosopher. This class will explore the proverbial road less traveled by delving into the original philosophical positions offered by Marx. Students will be introduced to Marx’s philosophy of history and ground-breaking conception of philosophical anthropology; his materialist critique of idealism and normative social and political philosophy; his theory of revolution; and, finally, his intriguing stance on the very limits of philosophy itself. The goal of the course is to examine Marx’s ideas, and the results of his frequently contentious exchanges with other thinkers and writers, in order to tease out the possible internal consistency, social applicability, and limits of Marx’s philosophy.
• LARTS 339 — Romanticism and Realism: Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts

  3 credits
  Fall
  Gonzalo Sanchez
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112   Deals, development, and relationship through seminal and representative figures from three countries — England, France, and Germany — and varied disciplines including literature, philosophy, painting, and music. We will read Goethe, Schlegel, von Kleist, Kant, Edmund Burke, Byron, Wordsworth, George Eliot, Dickens, Rousseau, Hugo, Flaubert, George Sand, and Zola; listen to Beethoven and Berlioz; look at Turner, Delacroix, Constable, and Courbet among others.
• LARTS 355 — African American Literature: Black Experience, Black Subjectivity

  3 credits
  Summer
  Renée Baron
  
  This class is a survey of African American literature from its inception in this country. Organized by theme instead of historical period, we will read creative works in a variety of literary genres—plays, novels, essays, and poetry. We will explore the creative strategies authors employ in their constructions of Black identity. That is, we will consider how they frame their own experience as Black people. Moreover, we will investigate the manner in which these authors define Black autonomy and imagine Black freedom. Authors will include Harriet Jacobs, Olaudah Equiano, Dionne Brand, August Wilson, Octavia Butler, and James Baldwin. Students in this class should have read Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.

Liberal Arts Electives: History and Social Sciences

• LARTS 354 — Civil Rights: Theory and Practice

  3 credits
  Spring
  Anita Mercier
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  Civil rights protect citizens from discrimination and secure the bases of equal participation in social and political life. Examples of civil rights include the right to vote, freedom of conscience and religion, due process and equal protection under the law, and freedom of speech and assembly. In this course we will examine the philosophical foundations of civil rights in political theory and legal doctrine, with readings from thinkers such as Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Singer and Rawls, as well as seminal court decisions. At the same time, we will learn how minorities and members of marginalized groups have marshaled powerful ideas to their cause in quest of freedom from discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and physical disability. We will pay particular attention to civil rights issues in contemporary society, such as reproductive freedom, gun control, same-sex marriage, hate speech, and affirmative action.
• LARTS 370 — Perfect Storms: Environmental Literature, Ethics, and Politics

  3 credits
  Spring
  Anthony Lioi
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112   The extent of today’s environmental crisis is unprecedented, and planetary in scale. This course examines the politics of ecology through the literature and film this crisis has produced. We will examine ideas of nature across contemporary global cultures; the environmental history of New York City; key cases in environmental ethics, including water pollution, food production, mass extinction of species, and global climate change; and popular movements for environmental change in Japan, India, Kenya, and Russia.
• LARTS 374 — History of American Women and Gender

  3 credits
  Summer
  Lisa Andersen
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . This course will introduce students to some of the key people, events, and movements in American women’s history from the time previous to European settlement to the rise of women’s liberation in the 1960s and 1970s. Students will explore changes over time in women’s social roles and gender ideologies by asking: How is gender constructed? What difference do ethnicity, race, and class make in women’s experiences? What is the relationship between sex, gender, and sexuality? How does gender function in family life, the work force, and political institutions? To investigate these questions, students will read primary source documents from women’s private lives and social movements. They will then evaluate these documents in the context of gender theory, academic writing, and class lecture.
• LARTS 470 — The Arts and Society

  3 credits
  Fall
  Damian Woetzel
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112 . This survey course examines the intersection of arts and society, looking specifically at the role of arts and artists in addressing issues facing the world today. Through extensive reading lists, case studies, individual and group projects, and conversations with distinguished guests, we will explore areas including but not limited to law, health care, education, science, and civic participation to consider our ideal version of a collective future and how we might use arts, creativity, and culture to help get us there. Past guests have included Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director at the Public Theater), Sarah Lewis (author, curator, and Harvard University Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture and the Department of African and African American Studies), Vijay Gupta (violinist, social justice advocate, and 2018 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow), Caroline Shaw (Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, vocalist, violinist, and producer), Eric Liu (writer, educator, and founder of Citizen University), John Heginbotham (choreographer, performer, and founding teacher of Dance for PD), and Jeannie Suk Gersen (Harvard Law School John H. Watson, Jr. Professor of Law). Open to 3rd- and 4th-year undergraduates and cross-listed as graduate elective; preference given to graduate students.

Liberal Arts Electives: Languages

• LARTS 151-2 — Russian I

  6 credits
  Full Year
  Gina Levinson
  
  Introductory language courses provide basic reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Students also study the culture and history of the language and the countries where it is spoken.  Students may not enroll in courses involving the study of their native languages.
• LARTS 161-2 — English and Communication

  6 credits (3 credits per term)
  Summer, Full Year
  Harold Slamovitz, Robert Wilson
  
  May be required as a result of language assessments. This course is designed for emergent bilingual English speakers to advance their academic language skills. Working with periodicals and literature, this course fosters the comprehensive development of language skills including reading, writing, listening, speaking, and grammar.
• LARTS 171-2 — French I

  6 credits
  Full Year
  Harold Slamovitz
  
  Introductory language courses provide basic reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Students also study the culture and history of the language and the countries where it is spoken. Students may not enroll in courses involving the study of their native languages.
• LARTS 181-2 — German I

  6 credits (3 credits per term)
  Summer, Full Year
  Harold Slamovitz
  
  Introductory language courses provide basic reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Students also study the culture and history of the language and the countries where it is spoken. Students may not enroll in courses involving the study of their native languages.
• LARTS 191-2 — Italian I

  6 credits
  Full Year
  Faculty
  
  Introductory language courses provide basic reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. Students also study the culture and history of the language and the countries where it is spoken. Students are expected to pass the first semester with a grade of at least “C” in order to continue to the second semester. Students may not enroll in courses involving the study of their native languages.
• LARTS 561-2 — Graduate English Seminar

  4 credits (2 credits per term)
  Summer, Full Year
  Robert Wilson
  
  May be required as a result of language assessments. This course is designed for emergent bilingual graduate students to advance their academic language skills. Working with popular, academic, and scientific articles, along with literature, this course cultivates the rhetorical knowledge and compositional skills required for participation in postgraduate education.

Liberal Arts Electives: American Studies

• LARTS 389 — American Literature: the 1920’s

  3 credits
  Spring
  Renee Baron
  
  Prerequisite:LARTS 112   In this course, we will examine some of the most iconic works of the 1920s and investigate how the authors of these quintessentially American texts translated their concerns about American culture into a modernist literary sensibility. Texts may include Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Eliot’s The Wasteland.
• LARTS 391 — The History of American Social Movements, 1954-2016

  3 credits
  Fall
  Lisa Andersen
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112   This American history course will introduce students to 20th-century social movements, starting with the African-American civil rights movement and campaigns by organized labor. We will trace conservative, liberal, and student endeavors, asking: When do movements emerge, and what is their relationship to each other? What are the techniques used to build a mass organization, and how do movements coordinate their large numbers? What distinguishes a social movement from a political party or special interest group? Which movements have been the most successful at achieving policy objectives? Students will consult both historical documents and modern scholarship, and will have the opportunity to complete a research paper that draws upon archival materials.

Liberal Arts Electives: Gender Studies

• LARTS 304 — Feminist Philosophy

  3 credits
  Fall
  Aaron Jaffe
  
  Prerequisite: LARTS 112  

  This class explores feminist philosophy, beginning with Diotima’s response to Socrates, with the aim of reconstructing an historical arc of the concerns informing contemporary feminist thinking. Though starting with the “Western” tradition, the class will problematize the largely White and upper-class feminisms of the so-called “global north” with challenges from the “global south” as well as Black, Chicana, and working-class feminisms. This process will generate not only a sequential, but a comparative and critical approach to different possible feminisms. The class will examine the nature of women’s oppression and the structuring role of gender and orientation, and highlight the conceptual resources to reflect upon and resist domination developed by people not traditionally identified as “men.”