Computer Graphics Animation constitutes a default method of image synthesis for fine art, game design, cinema, and advertising. This production-intensive studio course introduces students to professional CG Animation tools (Adobe Animate, Blender, Python, After Effects) as well as an overview of animation styles, aesthetics, philosophies and cultures. Sessionly project assignments based on tutorials cover modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, and rendering. Final projects focus on animation portfolio work with scenes, characters and animation sequences to be exported to video and game design.

A general introduction to ancient Egypt, providing overview coverage of ancient Egyptian culture and society (history, art, religion, literature, language, social structure), Egyptian archaeology (pyramids, tombs, mummies, temples, cities, monuments, daily life), and the history and development of the modern discipline of Egyptology. Assumes no prior knowledge of subject. Almost all lectures are illustrated extensively by ​power point presentation. Discussion sections ​include meetings in the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, which has the best collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts west of Chicago.

The expression “Islam” extends from the basic Muslim creed to a fairly large and complex set of historical and human phenomena. This course introduces students to some of the salient features of the Islamic religious tradition. The subjects of discussion include late antique Arabia, the life of Muhammad, the Quran, tradition, law, mysticism, theology, philosophy, ethics, and politics. The course will cover medieval and modern Islam and touch upon major theological orientations within its fold. In reference to the modern period, particular emphasis will fall on the encounter of the Islamic world with the modern West, Muslim revivalism, gender, and memory. Along the way, students will also be exposed to key theories and methods in the academic study of Islam. The class will meet online thrice a week.

Among the most fertile and resource-rich regions of the Italian peninsula, the former Kingdom of Naples (the modern regions of Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, and Apulia) has long been the site of conquest, rebellion, and natural disaster. Over the centuries, the city of Naples served as the capital of its own kingdom and as a governing outpost for the Kingdoms of Aragon and Spain, yet it was also the target of frequent attacks by those who wished to control its abundant resources and its strategic position on the Tyrrhenian coast. Although Naples served as a symbol of monarchical power, it also became a hotspot of political and social unrest as the city’s population grew exponentially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These precarious political circumstances were often linked to the surrounding environment in the Italian literary and artistic imagination: while the abundance of the Neapolitan landscape was tied to the city’s wealth, the region’s frequent seismic and volcanic activity appeared to reflect its political instability. This course explores Naples in the European imaginary by considering the literary, visual, and material culture of the city and its surroundings. In doing so, it will explore how the arts of this region shaped and were shaped by the complex shifting regional and international dynamics that characterized Southern Italy from the 13th to 19th centuries, as well as by the natural disasters that commonly occurred. This course is a writing-intensive class which fulfills Part B of the university’s requirement for Reading and Composition and teaches students to read and reflect critically about literary texts and works of art and to express their own, original ideas in an argumentative academic essay. Assignments will focus on visual analysis, close reading, and written composition. Students will also learn to develop their own ideas and respond to those of their classmates through class discussion and peer review.

The Italian popular imagination has been haunted by spirits, demons, and myriad creatures that continue to both frighten and entertain. Yet tales of the supernatural can also engage some of the most profound human inquiries such as mortality, grief, commemoration, spirituality, ethics, human imagination, and the violations of "proper" societal behavior. This course examines the many forms of supernatural belief that people express through traditional genres and popular media in Italy. From folk tales to films, we will look at a wide survey of the various employments of the supernatural tale across Italy's complex, varied geography and belated identity-formation. Key concepts will include belief and visibility: in this case, the conviction that experiences of the supernatural are genuine and have important implications not only about life after death, as well as the existence of spirits, magic, and related topics on the nature of social and personal hauntings. In addition to a foundational survey knowledge of some of the earliest works of ‘Italian’ literature and oral history, we will discuss how the introduction of modern technology has shaped to resist, satirize, and indulge in the paranormal into the 20th and 21st centuries, and how these phenomena have shifted our relationship with the supernatural. Through specific case studies, we will explore the forms supernatural tradition and belief take in everyday life and develop models for understanding how these beliefs relate to other aspects of worldview and culture (including deconstructing the binaries of tradition-modernity, backwardness-progress) and highlight the diverse ways in which supernatural storytelling can function in our lives. Ultimately, we will also examine functions of place-based supernatural narratives to discuss how this type of storytelling can be mobilized to make powerful political claims and change the contours of our everyday reality. This is a reading and composition course that fulfills the University's R5B requirement. Students of this course will develop an understanding of the potentials of authorial power and rhetorical strategies that storytellers use to convince or manipulate the beliefs and emotions of their readers, and will interrogate the literary and cultural meanings of these uncanny encounters through a close study of primary and secondary texts. We will be focused equally and simultaneously on the interrelated skills of close reading, intensive writing, and research. All texts and other materials will be provided, and will include: Pliny the Younger's haunted house story Criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso's writings on Eusapia Palladino Dario Argento's Suspiria Selected texts on Tarantismo

This course explores and problematizes the traditional and canonic narration of Italian history and culture. Indeed, the modern student interested in Italy will encounter a rich array of artists, writers, political figures, philosophers and more… and yet remain blissfully unaware of the role women played in all the above-mentioned fields. Through this class, the students will learn about prominent women throughout Italian history, reflect on their roles in the general society and in the more exclusive intellectual and/or political circles they existed in, and gain critical knowledge on the erasure of women from Italian history. The course covers the time period between the XVI and XXI centuries (roughly 1500 – 2020), and will focus on literary texts, poetry, artworks, and other primary sources as instruments to question, problematize and deconstruct the canonic narration of history. This course is a writing-intensive class which fulfills Part B of the university’s requirement for Reading and Composition and teaches students to read and reflect critically about literary texts and works of art and to express their own, original ideas in an argumentative academic essay. Assignments will focus on close reading, text analysis, visual analysis and written composition. Students will also learn to develop their own ideas and respond to those of their classmates through class discussion and peer review. Primary Texts include (readings will be in English; subject to change): Laura Cereta, In defense of the liberal instruction of women, 1488 Moderata Fonte, The merit of women, 1600 Arcangela Tarabotti, Paternal tyranny, 1654 Elena Ferrante, My brilliant friend, 2011 Igiaba Scego, The color line, 2020 Secondary Texts include (readings will be in English; subject to change): Constance Jordan, Renaissance feminism, 1990 Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Women, family and ritual in Renaissance Italy, 1985 Meredith Ray, Daughters of Alchemy, 2015 Caroline Castiglione, Accounting for affection, 2015

This course explores the way fate and fortune has been portrayed in Italian art and literature. Despite the best laid plans, fate has a way of intervening. How have Italian writers and artists considered the role of luck or fortune in their subjects? How are references to nature employed to represent fate, for example, when painters include a storm at the edge of their horizons, or map makers include a reference to the wind gods at the edge of their globes? These depictions of fortune acknowledge the limits of human control, often in the same spaces that depict humans striving to exercise complete control. Through an examination of symbols of fortune embedded in novels, but also excerpts of key texts from history, and works of art and architecture, we will consider the legacy of these perspectives on luck. This is a writing-intensive course that fosters skills in literary analysis, including close reading, critical thinking, and articulate writing. In this class, you will use your critical reflections on the texts as starting points for writing several papers, including one research paper. Essential to the writing process will be workshopping one another’s work through peer review. You will also complete shorter weekly reading responses and assignments devoted to specific elements of essay writing. This course fulfills the university’s second-semester Reading and Composition requirement. Key Texts: The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Additional excerpts from: The Prince by Machiavelli The Decameron by Boccaccio

History 7B explores the making of a modern and globalized America by providing an introduction to the history of the United States between 1865 and the present. Lectures, Readings and Sections Assignments will call attention to the role of democracy in the nation’s history, and to the political, economic, and social freedoms and their limitations. We will consider the​ larger set of practices and ideals by which ordinary people have participated in the public life of the nation. ​How have different multiple perspectives on what it means to be an American shaped the nation’s history since the mid-nineteenth century? How has the right to participate in democratic institutions further defined political freedom and its limitations? What have societal and gendered expectations such as “the American Dream” meant for an increasingly diverse population? How and why have the power of the Courts, Congress, and the Presidency shifted? What role has freedom of the press played in that story? In what ways have transformations in the U.S. economy altered how Americans work and where they live? What forms of political culture have Americans practiced and what does this tell us about the American experience? We will explore, amongst others, the debates around the role of government and civil liberties; the shifting political ideologies of liberalism and conservatism; how the U.S. emerged as a world power in the twentieth century; systemic racism; freedom movements; the culture wars; and globalization. Instructor bio: Sandra Weathers Smith is a faculty member of the History Department at The Spence School and a Lecturer in U.S. History at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research and teaching interests include cultural history, urban history, immigration, civil rights, and political culture. Sandra earned her doctorate in American History from U.C. Berkeley, where she also served as a U.C. Faculty (postdoctoral) Fellow. She worked as Senior Researcher for theater artist, Anna Deavere Smith, and the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue.

This course surveys the central ideas and events that shaped American history from the colonial period to the end of the Civil War era. Major issues to be covered in this course include the European colonization of the Americas; encounters and interactions among Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans; the formation of English colonies in North America; the development of American slavery; the origins and consequences of the American Revolution; the geographic, demographic, and economic expansion of antebellum America; Indian removal; the debate over slavery; and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Particular attention will be paid to the international dimensions of early American history, including comparisons between America and other regions, and the roles of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and religion in shaping the course of this history. In addition to expanding your knowledge of America’s past, this course will introduce you to the practice of history. Through reading and writing assignments, you will not only learn how historians analyze and interpret the past but also exercise it yourself.

This course surveys the history of U.S. immigration from the colonial period to the present, covering major events, issues, and concepts in the American immigration experience. It will explore the causes and patterns of migration to the United States; the processes of settlement; the politics of race, ethnicity, class, religion, and gender over immigration; meanings of citizenship and belonging; xenophobia and nativism; borderlands communities and economies; the development of U.S. immigration law and policy; and the evolution of the concept and category of unauthorized immigration. Special attention will be paid to analyzing the political debate over immigration and problems with immigration law enforcement today from historical perspective.