Arts & Culture Reporting Courses

  • Jour73011 Cultural Issues (Spring) 3 credits
    This course will survey the major issues and controversies facing artists and arts organizations today, including how to treat intellectual property, the role of art in developing cities, branding, the influence of digital technology on art, the history and impact of celebrity, censorship, diversity, and transgression in/on the arts. Students choose a genre beat and cultivate sources for it throughout the semester, covering specific stories rooted in broader course topics.
  • Jour72010 Arts Criticism (Fall) 3 credits
    This is a course in writing reviews, critical roundups, and critical essays for the popular press. We will study the dominant issues at play in arts criticism today as well as the publications in which they are being addressed, and the critics who are articulating them. We will deconstruct reviews, debate what makes a good review, and examine the way syntax, word play, tone, and allusion shape literary style in print and broadcast/audio reviews. And we will address ethical considerations reviewers face as well as major controversies they have inspired.
  • Jour73015 Arts Reporting (Fall) 3 credits
    In this class students learn how specific arts are made, distributed, marketed, and covered. The class will be divided into 3-4-week modules devoted to specific genres (in this section, books film, fashion, fine art, and theater). We will study the business of cultural institutions–how they are structured, staffed, funded, and run, and talk with people behind the artists: curators, publishers, producers, and publicists. Students will leave this class with a deeper understanding of the specific genres they’ve chosen to pursue as arts journalists, and the skills to cover them in various media.
  • Jour73016 Entertainment Reporting (Fall) 3 credits
    This is a variation on the above, offered as an alternate in the same semester, addressing popular music, food, film, television, and new forms (spanning video games and Youtube videos). The genres offered in each section of these complementary classes will be partly determined by the beats students choose in Cultural Issues.