FNAR

rse FNAR 1010 Video I its

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Introductory Studio Requirements 3 4.00 Select 3: **

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this studio-based course, students are introduced to a wide range of approaches and techniques explore surface, space, and time (2D,3D,4D). Traditional sculptural materials and techniques will be investigated along with more ephemeral interventions in space such as sound, light, and projection. Through lectures, readings, and critiques, students will explore the history of installation and interactive sculptural work, discover new directions in contemporary art, and develop self-directed projects that interrogate historical, social, and psychological conditions of the built environment. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 5002 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

"To be a body is to be a bridge." Following the peripatetic tradition, this freshman drawing seminar invites students to step out of the static confines of the studio and engage with the city of Philadelphia as a living laboratory. We will explore the city’s infrastructure, its past, present, and future, and its vibrant visual culture as an extended classroom. Through drawing and walking, we will engage in a form of radical attention. In a world defined by the relentless speed of the attention economy, this course proposes the slow, manual act of drawing as a vital site of resistance—a way to reclaim our presence through the "slowing down of the looking." We will treat walking not merely as transit, but as a formal procedure that fuels the creative process. Drawing will become a record of movement—a dynamic, unfixed notation of time and time passing. We will consider drawing as a tool for knowledge production: a way of thinking through the body, making connections, testing ideas, and continuously reassessing the world around us. Drawing, in this context, is not limited to what is seen with the eyes alone. It can emerge through movement, memory, touch, sound, emotion, conversation, spatial awareness, research, wandering, and sustained attention. Together, we will look at how artists, designers, architects, filmmakers, scientists, choreographers, musicians, writers, naturalists, engineers, cartographers, and urban planners have used drawing to study experience, trace ideas, navigate complexity, and make visible what is otherwise difficult to articulate. As a group, we will explore a range of materials and hands- nd on approaches, including observational drawing, mapping, notation, diagramming, and experimental image-making. Visits to museums, collections, neighborhoods, public spaces, and research sites, alongside conversations with visiting artists, designers, and scholars, will connect drawing to broader questions surrounding perception, infrastructure, memory, environment, and visual culture. No prior artistic experience is required. This course is designed for the curious mind from any discipline —be it science, engineering, or the humanities—who wish to explore the profound relationship between thinking, seeing, and making. We welcome those ready to wander, to look closely, and to bridge the space between the internal thought and the external world. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this studio based course, students are introduced to video production and postproduction as well as to selected historical and theoretical texts addressing the medium of video. Students will be taught basic camera operation, sound recording and lighting, as well as basic video and sound editing and exporting using various screening and installation formats. In addition to a range of short assignment-based exercises, students will be expected to complete three short projects over the course of the semester. Critiques of these projects are crucial to the course as students are expected to speak at length about the formal, technical, critical and historical dimensions of their works. Weekly readings in philosophy, critical theory, artist statements and literature are assigned. The course will also include weekly screenings of films and videos, introducing students to the history of video art as well as to other contemporary practices.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is an introduction to the basic principles, strategies and processes of photographic practice. It is designed to broaden the student's aesthetic explorations and to help the student develop a visual language based on cross-disciplinary artistic practice. Through a series of projects and exercises students will be exposed to a range of camera formats, techniques and encouraged to experiment with the multiple modes and roles of photography - both analogue and digital. Attention will also be given to developing an understanding of critical aesthetic and historical issues in photography. Students will examine a range of historical and contemporary photowork as an essential part of understanding the possibilities of image making. This course is primarily for first-years and sophomores. If you need assistance registering for a closed section, please email the department at fnarug@design.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

20

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

35.00 FNAR 1050 Mixed Media Animation

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Mixed Media Animation is a contemporary survey of stop-motion animation concepts and techniques. Students use digital SLR cameras, scanners and digital compositing software to produce works in hand- drawn animation, puppet and clay animation, sand animation, and multiplane collage animation. Screenings and discussions in the course introduce key historical examples of animation demonstrating how these techniques have been used in meaningful ways. Students then learn how to composite two or more of these methods with matte painting, computer animation or video.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

As an introduction to traditional and contemporary three-dimensional practice, this course is concerned with the concepts and methodologies surrounding three-dimensional art making in our time. Students experiment with a variety of modes of production, and develop some of the fundamental techniques used in sculpture. In addition to these investigations, assignments relative to the history and social impact of these practices are reinforced through readings and group discussion. Processes covered include use of the Fab Lab, wood construction, clay, paper, mixed media, and more.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

FNAR 1080 FNAR 1090

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Students work directly from the nude model and focus on its articulation through an understanding of anatomical structure and function. Students will investigate a broad variety of drawing techniques and materials. The model will be used as the sole element in a composition and as a contextualized element.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting I is an introduction to the methods and materials of oil painting. This course begins with an investigation of color and color relationships. The beginning of the semester will cover technical issues and develop the student's ability to create a convincing sense of form in space using mass, color, light and composition. The majority of work is from direct observation including object study, still life, landscape, interior and exterior space and the self portrait. Class problems advance sequentially with attention paid to perceptual clarity, the selection and development of imagery, the process of synthesis and translation, color, structure and composition, content and personal expression. Students will become familiar with contemporary and art historical precedent in order to familiarize them with the history of visual ideas and find appropriate solutions to their painting problems.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

or one approved alternate course (See Website) Stage 3 - Art and the Culture of Seeing Concentration Electives Select 4 course units of Art/Culture of Seeing Electives with: 4 Attribute AVAC (https://catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/avac/) Select 1 course unit of a Philosophy/Science or Art Pract & 1 1 Tech Elective with the following Attributes: 6 Attribute: AVPS (https://catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/ avps/) Attribute: AVPT (https://catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/ avpt/) Stage 4 - Capstone Course

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Mural Arts Big Pictures in Philadelphia is an in depth study of murals and public art. We have an overview of the largest mural collection nationally here in Philadelphia. The city is our classroom as we explore a wide range of murals and programs in Philadelphia. Social contexts provide the lens through which we will view murals. We learn the history of murals to give context to the contemporary movement. We will look at how the mural process connects and engages communities. We learn through trips to mural sites, meet muralists and others engaged in thinking about art, public space and city issues. Case studies of mural projects and initiatives happening in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia help us understand the benefit and impact of public art. Through exploring arts based programs that work with issues of immigration, mental health and restorative justice students will be inspired to think about the role arts can play in the city. We hope the class inspires students to see possibilities for engaging communities and the role art and artists can play in creating change.The assignments range from interviews of artists, collages, readings and a final project is a hypothetical public art project in the city.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is designed to introduce students interested in art, dance, theater, music, video to the expansive medium of performance. In everyday living we come across performances all the time–in places of art and culture, but also on tiktok and YouTube, on the city street and in the park, on stage, in church and on screens. Performance circulates in various genres and repertoires. In this course, we won’t divide music, theater, visual art, dance, social media and film into separate areas of consideration but will engage ways that performance helps us understand something about fundamentals of all these genres: time, space, presence, context, distribution and the relationship between performer and audience or speaker and listener. The course will look at the foundations of performance and performance studies through reading, viewings of work, classroom workshops and research and practical experimentation. Students will begin to make their own performance work using a variety of techniques and frameworks discovered through classroom activities. The course is well suited to students without any previous experience or training and students who have extensive performance training in one or more disciplines but want to think about performance forms in a new way. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 5120 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Listening Beyond Hearing explores listening as an active and creative practice beyond passive reception. This course integrates theoretical inquiry with hands-on engagement in studio environments, emphasizing listening as a means of reshaping our interaction with soundscapes, language, space, and materiality. Students will examine how listening creates new realities, frames cultural narratives, and facilitates multisensory engagement. Through practical exercises in sound recording, editing, and production, they will develop technical fluency in audio software, studio techniques, and spatialized sound design. By working with microphones, mixing consoles, and digital audio workstations, students will refine their listening sensibilities while learning to shape and manipulate sound as a material force. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course writer Amitav Ghosh invites Penn students to engage his ongoing collaboration with the musician/performer Ali Sethi to stage his newest book Jungle Nama. Ghosh's book Jungle Nama employs dwipdipoyar verse form and the popular folk tale of Bon Bibi the guardian spirit of the Sundarban to address the eroding ecosystem of the Sundarban. In this course students will work in a short intensive collaborative process with the artists to realize a lyric and musical performance of Jungle Nama. The class employs both academic research and performance methodologies to guide students through histories of traditional Indian performance and folk takes and a thorough examination of Ghosh's source materials and influences (including studies of the Sundarban and its ecostystem). The course is co-taught with Director Brooke O'Harra. O'Harra, Ghosh and Sethi will lead students in a rigorous process of research, development and rehearsal, culminating in a public performance of a musical version of Jungle Nama. All levels and experience are welcome. Performance roles will be cast based on individual interests. In addition to performance roles, students will assume responsibility for other aspects of the process and production. In advance of registration, students are asked to audition and/or interview for the course depending upon initial interest. Actors, singers, dancers, musicians, artists and scholars are all encouraged to apply. Course specifics: The course will run until March 3 with an intensive 4-week rehearsal and development period that culminates in a live performance. Space is limited. Permission required. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Documentary Video is an intensive production course involving the exploration of concepts, techniques, concerns, and aesthetics of the short form documentary. Building on camera, sound, and editing skills acquired in Video I, students will produce a portfolio of short videos and one longer project over the course of the semester using advanced level camera and sound equipment. One short presentation on a genre, technique, maker, or contemporary concern selected by the student is required.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Video II offers opportunities to further explore the role of cinematic narrative technique, non-narrative forms, digital video cinematography, editing, and screen aesthetics. Through a series of several video projects and a variety of technical exercises, students will refine their ability to articulate technically and conceptually complex creative projects in digital cinema. In addition, one presentation on a contemporary issue related to the application of cinematic storytelling and/or the cultural context of digital video is required.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course focuses on the practices and theory of producing narrative based cinema. Members of the course will become the film crew and produce a short digital film. Workshops on producing, directing, lighting, camera, sound and editing will build skills necessary for the hands-on production shoots. Visiting lecturers will critically discuss the individual roles of production in the context of the history of film.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is structured to create a focused environment and support for individual inquiries and projects. Students will present and discuss their work in one to one meetings with the instructor and in group critiques. Readings, screenings, and technical demonstrations will vary depending on students' past history as well as technical, theoretical, and aesthetic interests. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 1010

Advanced Lens Based Projects (ALBP) is structured to create an open environment for students to develop a series of self-determined projects using any variety of image capture technologies. Mobile devices and DSLRs have blended the function of moving and still image capture while computers have become ubiquitous as instruments of display and dissemination. This has consequently led to the increasingly collapsed boundaries of artistic mediums. ALBP is a studio class where students will explore different modes of production and address the expanding field of exhibition strategies. Additionally the class will foster a transdisciplinary approach to critiquing work and emphasize the shared context of the works reception. Readings, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with dedicated studio time. Each student is required to complete 3 self-determined projects using still or moving image capture technologies. Grades will be determined through participation, completion of assignments and the students' formal and critical engagement with the technology. While the focus of this course is not technical, prior knowledge of camera functions and post-production techniques is expected 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 1010 OR FNAR 1020 OR FNAR 1030 OR FNAR 1040

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course supports the individual and collaborative production of performance works. As the medium of performance consists of diverse forms, actions, activities, practices and methodologies, the course allows for an open exploration in terms of material and form. Students are invited to utilize technologies, materials and methodologies from other mediums and/or disciplines such as video, photography, writing and sound. In addition to the production component, the course will examine multiple histories of performance through readings, screenings and directed research.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

6 FNAR 2280 Printmaking: Screen Printing Art History Requirement 1 Select 1 Course in Art History (ARTH 0000-4999) OR - 1 Seminar in Fine Arts (FNAR 3000-3999) OR - 1 Seminar in Design (DSGN 3000-3999) OR - 1 Course with Attribute AFAH (https:// catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/afah/) Studio Electives 3 Select three electives from the following categories: Fine Arts Studios (FNAR 0000-2999) OR - Design Studios (DSGN 0000-2999) OR - Courses with Attribute AFEL (https:// catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/afel/) Total Course Units 6

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Through a series of studio projects this course introduces techniques of 2D and 3D computer animation. Emphasis is placed on time-based design and storytelling through animation performance and montage. Students will develop new sensitivities to movement, composition, cinematography, editing, sound, color and lighting.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will continue to develop conceptual, technical, aesthetic and formal strategies in digital photography, expanding their artistic process while refining their critical approach to researched subject matter. The class will be driven initially by a series of assingments formulated to further expose students to broad possibilites related to the medium and then they will be guided towards the evolution of a personalized body of work that is culturally, theoretically and historically informed. We will be examining key issues surrounding the digital image in contemporary society, led through a combination of class lectures, readings, group discussions, film screenings, gallery visits and class critiquess. Students will further their knowledge of image control and manipulation, retouching and collage, advanced color management; become familiar with high-end camera and lighting equipment and develop professional printing skills. In addition to learnin these advanced imaging practices, this course will also emphasize an investigation of critical thought surrounding contemporary visual culture and the role of digital media in the creation of art. Fall, Spring, and Summer Terms 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 1040

As methods of representation are constantly shifting, one thing is clear - the photographic portrait is not what is used to be. Exploring both traditional and contemporary methods of portraiture, this class will uncover and discuss the ways in which we perceive each other in imagery, both as individuals and as groups. Throughout the semester, we will consider how portraits deal with truth, physical absence, the gaze, cultural embodiment, voyeurism and the digital persona. This course will build on the combination of perception, technology, and practice. Throughout the semester, students will advance by learning lighting techniques and strategies of presentation - as these core skills will become tools in the execution of project concepts. In tandem with each project, students will encounter and discuss a wide array of photography and writings from the past to the present, in an effort to understand the meanings and psychological effects of freezing the human image in time.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Photography has historically been a medium of fact, but with the ubiquity of digital technology and the ever-increasing ease with which images can be manipulated, it is becoming more difficult to distinguish the authentic from the artificial. The conversation surrounding truth is pervasive in today’s contemporary culture. With the weaponization of fake news and propaganda, subliminal advertising, deep fake videos, and constructed identities on social media, we are living in a critical time. This course will encompass a broad range of meanings when it comes to fiction, from elaborately staging for the camera in the form of re-enactment and role-play to using digital technology to construct new meanings & realities. This class will examine and trace the history of photographic fiction, paying special attention to the complex negotiations between the decisive moment, the constructed tableau, and the digitally altered image. There will be a combination of class lectures, studio projects, assigned readings, visiting artists, film screenings, field trips, and class critiques.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Starting with the representation of landscape in painting in the early 1800s, the course will then move through Pictorialism and the Modernist movement in photography. Revisiting the later half of the 20th century, we will begin to consider the shifting practices of landscape and the ways it has been photographically depicted up to the present. Collaborating with the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, students will begin their photographic exploration with the work of Andrea Wyeth and the landscape of the Brandywine Valley. As we consider Wyeth, the images of James Welling will also be introduced. Credited for pioneering new forms of representation in photography in the 1970s, Welling also g revisited the work of Wyeth from 2010-2015, and committed to a fresh (and challenging) look at tradition. Working with imagery and text, this class will also touch on conceptual art, the New Topographics, and postmodernism. Through these various concentrations, students will consider and counter the traditions that they are already familiar with, while creating work based on issues of the landscape today. Questions about meaning, politics, social critique, land rights, technology and methods of presentation will be encouraged and explored throughout the course.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This studio course will explore the nexus between photography, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and the moving image. The course is informed by the printed image, as students will explore how photography can encourage thinking in other mediums, in addition to how other mediums can influence the making of photography. When does an abstract painting appear more like a photograph? How can a photograph suggest ways to make a video? Can a sculpture exist as a photograph? A variety of assignments will expose students to interdisciplinary approaches addressing these questions and more. Class projects will be supported by regular slide lectures, group critiques, and readings examining modern and contemporary artists and practices.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This Traveling Studio is offered every other spring term to upper level photography & related media students. It is a cross-cultural visual investigation, exploring the contradictions and significance of the chosen city. This course incorporates multi-disciplinary research in preparation for the trip; exploring various fields of knowledge production such as art, history, social sciences, markets and governance. Class discussion, readings and individual research will be focused towards the development of each student's photo/media project, which will be realized while abroad. After returning to Philadelphia, students will develop and refine their work; the remaining classes will emphasize critique, editing, printing and presentation options. The final projects will be included in a group exhibition at the end of the semester. Admission to the course is on a competitive basis.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Drawing is a fundamental means of visualization and a hub for thinking, constructing, and engaging in a wide variety of creative activities and problemsolving. This studio class explores drawing in both its traditional and contemporary forms. The projects are designed to help students in all disciplines find ways express and clarify their ideas through the process of drawing. The semester begins with the refinement of perceptual skills acquired in Drawing I, while encouraging experimentation through the introduction of color, abstract agendas, conceptual problem solving, and collaborative exercises, as well as new materials, techniques and large format drawings. Particular attention is given to ways to conduct visual research in the development of personal imagery. Assignments are thematic or conceptually based with ample opportunity for individual approaches to media, subject, scale and process. The goal is to strengthen facility, develop clarity in intent and expand expression. Attention is paid to the development of perceptual sensitivity, methods of imagage construction, and the processes of synthesis and transformation in order tocommunicate ideas through visual means. Recommended for students in all areas.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting II presents an ongoing exploration of the techniques, problems and poetics of painting, the nuances of the painting language, and the development of a personal direction. A wide variety of problems will address such issues as color, composition, and the development of imagery, process, and content. Students are expected to improve in technical handling of paints and move towards developing personal modes of seeing, interpreting, and thinking for themselves. This course introduces different topics, strategies and individual challenges each semester, so it may be repeated with advanced course numbers.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Repeatable

may be repeated with advanced course numbers.

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting Studio IV focuses on continuing the student's exploration of techniques, problems, and poetics of painting, the nuances of the painting language, and the development of a personal direction. While students may choose to work on assigned projects (either in consultation with the instructoror following the projects that the Painting II/III students may be involved in), the emphasis is on the investigation of the student's own sensibility. Students will be expected to engage in ongoing critical analysis of their own practices and assumptions.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course takes an experimental multimedia approach to investigating some of the boundaries in contemporary art making practices. Painting, photography, video, design and sculpture intersect, overlap, and converge in complicated ways. Projects will be designed to explore hybrid forms, collage, space/ installation, and color through a variety of strategic and conceptual proposals as students work towards unique ways of expanding their own work. Weekly readings, critiques, and presentations will be integrated with studio projects. This studio/seminar is appropriate for students at all levels and from all areas of Fine Arts and Design.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

OR - Courses with Attribute AFDA (https:// catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/afda/) Art History Requirements 3 Select three courses from the following areas: Art History Course (ARTH 0000-4999) OR - Fine Arts Seminars (FNAR 3000-3999) o OR - Design Seminars (DSGN 3000-3999) OR - Courses with Attribute AFAH (https:// our catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/afah/) ly 2 Fine Arts Seminar Requirements 2

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will create sculptural installations and spatial interventions that explore site specificity and architectural environments. A range of traditional sculptural materials and techniques will be investigated along with more ephemeral interventions in space such as sound, light, and projection. Through lectures, readings, and critiques, students will explore the history of installation and interactive sculptura work and develop self-directed projects that interrogate historical, social and psychological conditions of the built environment. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 5047 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 1060

Queer is a fluid, unfixed and undefinable space offering endless utopian possibilities & potentials concerning gender, sexuality, personal autonomy and agency. Queer Imaginings is a forum for the reimagining of Queer representation/s. This course provides a safe space to mine, critique and analyze Queer imagery, both historical & contemporary. We will explore the ways in which Queerness is approached, represented & manipulated in pop culture, politics, society and the media. Students enrolled in this studio/seminar course will partake in discussions and research pertaining to Queer images and their intersections with race, trans/non- binary-equity, feminism, disability & class structure. These complex subjects will inspire respectful debate throughout the course, and most importantly, generate robust discussion about the work students create. Prompted through select readings and visual presentations, students will be guided to research, analyze and create artworks, which are inspired by various topics related to Queerness. A special emphasis will be placed upon issues arising around visibility, erasure & inclusivity. This forum offers a space to reexamine, research and propose new representations of Queerness. This is primarily a lens-based course with expansive possibilities (interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary). 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will examine and explore the sculptural foundations of clay in the world of contemporary art and design, by experimenting with its sculptural materiality, as a means to develop ideas in large-scale and unconventional ways. Through investigative and conceptually driven projects, students will use clay and other non-traditional materials to make modular structures that incorporate advanced mold-making, casting, and advanced building techniques to develop their own artistic voice through the expansive medium of clay. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Expanded Darkroom bridges analog traditions and digital futures to explore new possibilities of image-making, providing an experimental space for students to reimagine photography at the intersection of art, society, and technology. This course offers a platform to push photographic information in new directions, discover unexpected l outcomes, and develop work that is both conceptually grounded and , visually experimental. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is reshaping culture, politics, and the ways we understand images. The photograph has become a flexible site of meaning, an artifact continually open to transformation through manipulation and reinterpretation. Expanded Darkroom invites students into an experimental laboratory where ideas take form through alternative photographic methods and materials. This course explores the social, theoretical, and historical connections between analog and digital practices, paying attention to how these modes of image-making overlap, diverge, and influence each other. Students will examine how experimentation—whether through play, risk, failure, or the balance between control and chance—can shift the meaning of a body of work. Emphasis will be placed on research- driven, conceptually grounded projects that highlight process as both a generative tool of discovery and a form of critique. Through intentional yet flexible approaches, students will develop work that demonstrates how images can be reimagined, reconstituted, and transformed. Expanded Darkroom provides a platform for the curious, offering space to push photographic information in new directions while embracing the unexpected possibilities that emerge along the way. Through hands- on experimentation, students will engage with play, failure, chance, and control as integral aspects of the creative process. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course expands upon the knowledge and experience gained in Photography I. With an emphasis on image output, both analog and digital, we will explore intermediate technical, theoretical, and conceptual photographic possibilities. Students will be expected to expand their artistic process while refining a critical approach to researched subject matter. Four distinct projects will guide the class, designed to expose students to the broad possibilities of the medium and to support the development of an ambitious research-based final project that is culturally, theoretically, and historically informed. Together, we will examine key issues surrounding the digital image in contemporary society through lectures, readings, group discussions, and critiques. Throughout the semester, students will advance their knowledge of image control, manipulation, and color management, while gaining proficiency with camera technology, lighting strategies, and professional printing practices. Most importantly, there will be an emphasis on self-guided making/exploration, critical engagement with contemporary visual culture, and the role of photography in the creation of art. Individual projects will explore themes such as archive, authorship, expanded documentary, appropriation, and constructed imagery. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 1020

If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less The title of this class posits a shift in balance: of the natural order, of the built environment, of the body politic, of perception. The result is a creeping entropy that can either be embraced or redirected. Taking a morphological approach to image making students can use any variety of televisual image capture technologies. From analog to digital, satellite imagery to scanner. Time arrested or accelerated. Night for day and weeds for gardens, the work produced should ask us to slow down and reassess the objectives of form, language, image and place, to create new prototypes for engagement and new modes of understanding our environment and perhaps even to reinvent the conventions of landscape as a genre. Readings, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with studio time. Each student is required to complete a visual essay that addresses these themes using image capture technologies.Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 54101 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Sonic Measures is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of digital audio design, including sound for video, sound installation, composition, and sound art. Projects and demonstrations will familiarize students with all aspects of recording and synthesis of sound using Apple's Logic Pro software. Assignments will combine technical issues alongside an ongoing conceptual development individual to each student's interests. No musical knowledge needed. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Perspectives on Critical Issues aims to engage students in an ongoing and informed study of both historical and contemporary issues in a spirit of curiosity and critique. We will investigate how these concepts can clarify and complicate our creative practice and our understanding of the contemporary art world. This seminar will explore the shifts in artistic production, theory and criticism and topics will range from traditional investigations of aesthetics, Modernism, Post-Modernism and contemporary themes. Through discussions of assigned readings, class presentations, films, lectures, and field trips, this seminar will help establish a critical and theoretical foundation where your own beliefs and doubts about art and culture will be called into question and will provoke an ongoing inquiry into how you understand art, you own creative process, and the relationship of art and artists to society and creative culture.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This is a primarily an art and planning course that centers on the representation of the oriental, specifically the Chinese, in both its historical and present contexts.The localization of the Chinese throughout the Americas within Chinatown precincts were also subject to representational imaginings that were negotiated through the lens of civic planning. This course will study the often fraught negotiation between representation and planning. The hyper-urbanization of China over the past several decades has radically altered traditional conceptions of public space in China. Mass migration from rural to urban areas has meant very high population densities in Chinese cities. Traditional courtyards surrounded by housing and other modestly scaled buildings are rapidly disappearing, incongruent with the demands of heated property development Moreover, Chinese cities have comparatively little public green space per resident compared to equivalents in the West. Zoning in Chinese cities is also much more varied for any given area than what one would find in cities such as New York, Paris, and London. Intensifying density of urban areas precludes the construction of large public squares. Furthermore, large public squares tend to be either intensively congested and overcrowded or underused due to their oversight by government that render such spaces somewhat opprobrious in terms of use. Historically, the urban courtyards of temples, native place associations, and provincial guilds served as public spaces of gathering. They were also sites of festivals and the conducting of neighbourhood and civic business. These spaces have become increasingly privatized or commodified with entrance fees. The air-conditioned concourses of enclosed shopping malls or busy outdoor market streets have become de facto public spaces in China where collective window shopping or promenading is the primary activity rather than bodily repose as one might find in a public space in a large Western city. The seminar/studio will investigate the meaning of the term public in the constitution of Chinese space, audience and critical voice through firstly the enclave of Chinatown and secondly through examples from China. The course will look into the changing conceptualization of public space in Chinatown as it has declined in its traditional form and become reinvented in the form of high-end shopping centered districts. This flux has its roots in post 1979 China as well as the post 1997 reversion of Hong Kong to China. As such, the course will examine the situation of rapid urbanization in China and the concomitant relationship to new Chinese (and Asian) districts in the North American urban and suburban landscape ie Vancouver, Toronto, Arlington (Virginia), Oakland, Los Angeles valley and Queens (Flushing), New York. In what ways can artists and designers respond to and challenge these conceptualizations of the old and the new within the context of urban change? What of the changing formations of the Chinese subject through the experiences of embodiment? How is public space produced through an ethnically bracketed bodily presence. Findings will be translated by the student as tools for design and public art imaginings This course will include a week s trip to San Francisco to study how intense growth in the city has all but usurped old Chinatown while new and more vibrant Chinese centers have emerged in multiple other districts within the city and the suburbs. Also Offered As: ASAM 3130, ENGL 2275 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

(SNF Paideia Course) This is a primarily an art and planning course that centers on the representation of the oriental, specifically the Chinese, in both its historical and present contexts.The localization of the Chinese throughout the Americas within Chinatown precincts were also subject to representational imaginings that were negotiated through the lens of civic planning. This course will study the often fraught negotiation between representation and planning. The hyper-urbanization of China over the past several decades has radically altered traditional conceptions of public space in China. Mass migration from rural to urban areas has meant very high population densities in Chinese cities. Traditional courtyards surrounded by housing and other modestly scaled buildings are rapidly disappearing, incongruent with the demands of heated property development Moreover, Chinese cities have comparatively little public green space per resident compared to equivalents in the West. Zoning in Chinese cities is also much more varied for any given area than what one would find in cities such as New York, Paris, and London. Intensifying density of urban areas precludes the construction of large public squares. Furthermore, large public squares tend to be either intensively congested and overcrowded or underused due to their oversight by government that render such spaces somewhat opprobrious in terms of use. Historically, the urban courtyards of temples, native place associations, and provincial guilds served as public spaces of gathering. They were also sites of festivals and the conducting of neighbourhood and civic business. These spaces have become increasingly privatized or commodified with entrance fees. The air-conditioned concourses of enclosed shopping malls or busy outdoor market streets have become de facto public spaces in China where collective window shopping or promenading is the primary activity rather than bodily repose as one might find in a public space in a large Western city. The seminar/studio will investigate the meaning of the term public in the constitution of Chinese space, audience and critical voice through firstly the enclave of Chinatown and secondly through examples from China. The course will look into the changing conceptualization of public space in Chinatown as it has declined in its traditional form and become reinvented in the form of high-end shopping centered districts. This flux has its roots in post 1979 China as well as the post 1997 reversion of Hong Kong to China. As such, the course will examine the situation of rapid urbanization in China and the concomitant relationship to new Chinese (and Asian) districts in the North American urban and suburban landscape ie Vancouver, Toronto, Arlington (Virginia), Oakland, Los Angeles valley and Queens (Flushing), New York. In what ways can artists and designers respond to and challenge these conceptualizations of the old and the new within the context of urban change? What of the changing formations of the Chinese subject through the experiences of embodiment? How is public space produced through an ethnically bracketed bodily presence. Findings will be translated by the student as tools for design and public art imaginings This course will include a week s trip to San Francisco to study how intense growth in the city has all but usurped old Chinatown while new and more vibrant Chinese centers have emerged in multiple other districts within the city and the suburbs.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

What if a poem spoke from inside a photograph? What if a sculpture unfurled a manifesto? What if a story wasn't just like a dance, but was a dance-or a key component of a video, drawing, performance, or painting? In this course, artists and writers will develop new works that integrate the forms, materials, and concerns of both art and writing. Many artists employ writing in their practices, but may not look at the texts they create as writing. And many writers have practices that go beyond the page and deserve attention as art. This course will employ critique and workshop, pedagogic methodologies from art and writing respectively, to support and interrogate cross- pollination between writing and art practices. Additionally, the course will will examine a field of artists and writers who are working with intersections between art and writing to create dynamic new ways of seeing, reading, and experiencing.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

How can the arts help us build a more just society? How can the arts transform social structures and systems? Public health crises involving clean water (Flint), police violence (Baltimore), and a lack of economic and educational opportunity following reentry (Philadelphia) make legible the need for a new visual language that critiques these conditions and challenges entrenched structural inequalities. We will engage the work of creative practitioners who are mapping new relationships between art and social justice and directly impacting individual and communal well-being. In so doing, the course seeks to challenge traditional constructions of public health, which often isolate individual histories from their social life and their relation to families, communities, and geographies. Readings will build upon disciplinary perspectives in the arts, humanities, and social policy. Requirements include weekly readings, class participation, and a collaborative final project. The course will meet in the Health Ecologies Lab at Slought Foundation, an arts organization on campus.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Paris has been shaped by a mixture of organic development, which is still today perceptible in the "snail" pattern of its arrondissements whose numbers, from 1 to 20, coil around a central island several times so as to exemplify a "spiral city," and of the violent cuts, interruptions and sudden transformations that again and again forced it to catch up with modern times, the most visible of which was Baron Haussmann's destruction of medieval sections of the city to make room for huge boulevards. Thus Parisian modernism has always consisted in a negotiation between the old and the new, and a specific meaning of modernity allegorized for Louis Aragon, the Surrealists and Walter Benjamin consisted in old- fashioned arcades built in the middle of the 19th century and obsolete by the time they turned into icons of Paris. The aim of the class will be to provide conceptual and pragmatic (visual, experiential) links between a number of texts, theories and films deploying various concepts of the modern in Paris, with a guided tour of the main places discussed. The course that Professors Jean Michel Rabate (English) and Ken Lum (Fine Arts) will lead studies Paris as a work of science-fiction where its many futures are embedded in its many pasts, where discontinuity is a continuous process and where the curving line of the snail's shell is a line of ceaseless curling resulting in a perennial oscillation where an outside converts into an inside and an inside then converts to an outside. The course will travel to Paris over spring break to get an in-depth look at the topics discussed in class.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The French social philosopher Michel de Certeau upset the common understanding of the relationship between space and place by elevating space as practice place. By this, he meant that place is but a set of geo- physical particularities that has no dynamic meaning unless activated through social engagement so that space is produced. Spatial practice is a key concept in the modern understanding of the city as a society of abstract space, one in which the problem of human alienation is riven with the logic of spatial spectacularization. Public Art is often employed to address or mollify such urban problems through concepts of historical reconstruction or institutional critique, including possibly testing the limits of public expression. Historical markers play a somewhat different role by calling attention to lost or negative histories, albeit most often vetted through the language of tourism factoids. This course will examine the discursive issues at play in respect to art and markers, particularly for Philadelphia. Additionally, important public art works from around the world will be examined. The course will also include the occasional visit of several key works downtown in which the question of what can and cannot said will be pondered.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course will explore the vitality and range of photography as a discursive practice by analyzing the way images are structured and deployed in contemporary art and wider media culture. Students will be introduced to the key issues surrounding photography now- led through these questions by lectures, readings, group discussion and project- based work. A series of photo-assignments challenge the students to integrate critical thought with practice, exploring a range of formal strategies and thematic frameworks that affect the meaning of their images. Students should have a strong interest in philosophy and art histories (especially the history of photography.) They should be motivated to work independently & experiment creatively. There are no prerequisites for this course. It is intended for all different levels of technical experience, but the minimum requirements are a digital camera, a basic familiarity with Photoshop and access to a computer with imaging software. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

As a pioneer of abstraction in the early 1900's, Hilma Af Klint channeled a complex and highly original body of abstract symbolic work in secrecy. Using the upcoming Hilma Af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim as a focus and departure point, this course will explore the ways in which artists have accessed alternative ways of seeing, knowing, and embodying non-visible realities as a source for their work. Accessing spiritual realms has been the subject of early European Modernisms investigations into Theosophy and Anthroposophy, as well as the primary intention of Tibetan Thangkas and Indian Tantra paintings. Postmodernism's crisis of belief and skepticism generated a cultural situation wherein the subject of spirituality was marginalized, ridiculed as anti- intellectual, and in disgrace. The Hilma Af Klint exhibition and surge of interest in her work signifies a new moment, where questions about consciousness and the nature of reality are being addressed with renewed vigor. How do we create space in a technology driven world for experiences that attempt to align the viewer/maker with the contemplative realm, heightened states of consciousness, or transcendence? We will examine a wide field of artists in an attempt to understand the possibilities of the "spiritual" in art and contemporary culture. This seminar will engage in readings, lectures, discussions, projects, and field trips. This course is appropriate for both grad and undergrad, art majors and non-majors alike. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Civic Studio is an engaged research praxis that delves in the significant theories, methodologies, and practices of public and socially-engaged artwork. Students draw from arts- and place-based modes of inquiry toward collaborative projects with fellow classmates, artists, and organizations in Philadelphia and beyond, while pursuing semester-long individual research. Each semester, students work with and as embedded practitioners in exhibitions, installations, and other artistic platforms throughout the city. In turn, through readings, site visits, and site-specific work, students gain creative and critical capacity for producing their own final projects about a particular street, intersection, or site in the city . Through Civic Studio students are able to reflect upon and practice public work with artistic, scholarly, and civic aims. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Political Horizons (SNF Paideia Course) This class addresses the meeting points inside of and between a range of resistant performance practices with a focus on artists using performance to address political and social encounters in the contemporary moment. Performance, a chaotic and unruly category that slides across music, dance, theater and visual art, has long been a container for resistant actions/activities that bring aesthetics and politics into dynamic dialogue. Embracing works, gestures, movements, sounds and embodiments that push against and beyond the conventions of a given genre, performance can't help but rub uncomfortably against the status quo. Scholars working across Performance Studies and Black Studies importantly expanded critical discourse around performance to address the entanglement of the medium with physical, psychic, spatial and temporal inhabitations of violence and power. Generating copious genealogies of embodied resistance, this scholarship instigates a complex, interdisciplinary and multidimensional perspective on intersections between art and life, performance and politics. The class hosts a series of public lectures, presentations and performances by visual artists, choreographers, theater artists, composers/musicians, performers, curators and activists engaged with the social and political moment. Presentations will be open to the public with students in the course developing in-depth research into the work of each visiting artist/performer/presenter to engage the larger context of each visitor's scholarship and/or practice through readings, discussion and in-class presentations. This course is open to all interested students. No prior requisties or experience with performance or the performing arts is necessary. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In the long durée of history, every work of material culture from art work, and ritual object to tools and other utilitarian devices, eventually becomes an artifact, unmoored from the cultural network that secured its position, s and legibility, even an abstract painting shown in the white cube of an art gallery displays not only it’s aesthetic value but the social and economic framework that secure its meaning. Museums and other collecting institutions by their nature deracinate the object from cultural context. Exhibition design is the act of listening to an object speak across time and place, and to establish some measure of connection to the trace remnants of the ideological and infrastructural systems that produced it. Telepathic Objects is a class that looks at methods of display for material culture, and the context making practices of supporting objects to reveal their psychic resonance. This is a seminar class with extensive readings and discussion that explores how artworks and artifacts communicate, share their mysteries, and convey some dimensional sense of the systems that produced them. Using strategies as diverse as cognitive mapping and exhibition prosthetics this class unpacks the methods of exhibition design as executed by architects, designers and artists as they attempt to re-present material culture. In addition to classroom time, we’ll also visit a variety of institutions including art exhibitions, natural history collections and cultural anthropology / archeology museums, and talk to the professionals in the field who imagine with, and maintain these objects of cultural heritage. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course will focus on developing and producing projects that utilize advanced approaches to 2D and 3D computer animation. We will engage emerging techniques of visualization such as data-driven animation, algorithmic animation, working in hybrid forms of stop-motion, hand- drawn and 3D computer animation, working with dynamic physical simulations, rigging animated characters, or structures. The meeting pattern of the course will enable members to complete ambitious independent or group based animation projects and to share the methods that they develop along the way. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century has already transformed our understanding of well-being and consciousness. From radically innovative treatments that improve mental health to a new appreciation of the mechanisms and importance of mystical experiences, and a deeper understanding of consciousness itself, psychedelic research and scholarship has led to exciting breakthroughs in numerous fields. This course will cover historical and contemporary aspects of psychedelic use, explore current scientific research into neuroscience and the therapeutic uses of psychedelic therapy, and address the cultural and sociopolitical aspects. An important component of this material is a careful exploration of the ways that psychedelic use empowers both personal and societal well being by increasing a sense of community, ecological awareness, and responsibility towards the whole. Few topics span such a vast transdisciplinary terrain or have the potential to include scholars from widely varying fields - neuroscience, anthropology, visual arts, consciousness studies and spirituality, ecology, public policy, law and ethics, psychology, nursing and medicine, literature, philosophy, etc. The course will invite a variety of speakers to discuss their specific areas of expertise and to dialogue with one other. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

How does matter transform into material, and back again? What hidden labor, sites, social and ecological costs and processes go into the production of “raw” materials? And why-- for artists, designers, architects, preservationists, creative educators, builders, educators and anyone working with materials-- do these realities matter? This course connects arts and design learners to considerations, sites, and cycles around sourcing, production and disposal of the defining materials of their creative fields (ex. paper, clay, glass, “the internet”), laying groundwork fo creative practice rooted in social and ecological awareness, repair and care. A hybrid research seminar and studio investigation, the structure of this course alternates between reading and response, discussion and research and time for responsive “making” and material experimentation/ synthesis. Field trip(s) to sites of material interest and guest visitor(s) will vary each year, with an ongoing partnership with RAIR Philly, an arts residency located in a waste management facility. In this course, students will learn key terms and concerns around material sustainability, discard studies, land and labor relations vis-a-vis creative work. Students will formulate individual or group questions around a specific material or condition of materiality, leading to a final independent project. This course will engage students in forming a material ethics to guide future creative work. Also Offered As: DSGN 3250 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Why do black cultural producers turn to the speculative? What, in turn, is speculative about blackness? These questions frame this seminar's exploration of how black artists, theorists, and activists imagine different futures, often in the service of critiquing power asymmetries and creating radical transformation in the present. We will explore how the speculative works differently across black literature, visual culture and performance. Additionally, inspired by the multi-disciplinary work that we encounter in the course, we will experiment with crafting our own embodied speculative art in order to better understand its function as both art practice and politics. The course will be divided between discussions centered on close reading of primary and secondary material and creative writing/movement exploration (no previous movement experience necessary). Occasional guest lectures with visiting artists will provide additional fodder for our critical and creative work. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: AFRC 3770, ANTH 3770 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This rigorous pair of courses, one offered in the Fall and one offered in the Spring semester, are designed as the capstone of the Fine Arts major and are required for all graduating fine arts seniors. They can only be taken in the senior year. Students work in individual studio spaces provided by the department and then meet with faculty for seminar, critique, and professional practice exercises. Through individual and group critiques, students begin to conceptualize thier final thesis exhibition or project. The senior seminar allows students to create lasting professional relationships with the fine arts faculty and visiting lecturers. The fall semester culminates in a group exhibition of senior student work paired with final semester critiques.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Art and Design Electives 4 Select any combination of four FNAR and DSGN courses OR - Courses with Attribute AFEL (https:// catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/afel/) Total Course Units 34 You may count no more than one course toward both a Major and a Sector requirement. For Exceptions, check the Policy Statement (http:// www.college.upenn.edu/sectors-policy/). 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

4

Credits (max)

4

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course offers an introduction to studio-based practices aimed at synthesizing the expansive potentialities of art through exposure to a diverse set of approaches, their histories, and contemporary applications. A wide range of multi-disciplinary projects will provide students with skills to conceptualize and visualize material investigations. Lectures, readings, films, visiting lectures, field trips, and critiques, will provide a historic and theoretical foundation for critical inquiry. 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1875

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this studio based course, students are introduced to video production and postproduction as well as to selected historical and theoretical texts addressing the medium of video. Students will be taught basic camera operation, sound recording and lighting, as well as basic video and sound editing and exporting using various screening and installation formats. In addition to a range of short assignment-based exercises, students will be expected to complete three short projects over the course of the semester. Critiques of these projects are crucial to the course as students are expected to speak at length about the formal, technical, critical and historical dimensions of their works. Weekly readings in philosophy, critical theory, artist statements and literature are assigned. The course will also include weekly screenings of films and videos, introducing students to the history of video art as well as to other contemporary practices.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is an introduction to the basic processes and techniques of black & white photography. Students will learn how to expose and process 35mm film, SLR camera operation, darkroom procedures & printing, basic lighting and controlled applications. It begins with an emphasis on understanding and mastering technical procedures and evolves into an investigation of the creative and expressive possibilities of making images. This is a project-based course, where students will begin to develop their personal vision, their understanding of aesthetic issues and photographic history. Assignments, ideas and important examples of contemporary art will be presented via a series of slide lectures, critiques and discussion. No previous experience necessary. 35mm SLR cameras will be available throughout the semester for reservation and checkout from the photography equipment room.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This class offers an in-depth technical and conceptual foundation in digital imagery and the opportunity to explore the creative, expressive possibilities of photography. Students will become proficient with the basic use of the camera, techniques of digital capture, color management and color correction. They will also develop competency in scanning, retouching, printing and a variety of manipulation techniques in Photoshop. Through weekly lectures and critiques, students will become familiar with some of the most critical issues of representation, consider examples from photo history, analyze the impact of new technologies and social media. With an emphasis on structured shooting assignments, students are encouraged to experiment, expand their visual vocabulary while refining their technical skills. No previous experience is necessary. Although it is beneficial for students to have their own Digital SLR camera, registered students may reserve and checkout Digital SLR cameras and other high-end equipment from the department.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Mixed Media Animation is a contemporary survey of stop-motion animation concepts and techniques. Students use digital SLR cameras, scanners and digital compositing software to produce works in hand- drawn animation, puppet and clay animation, sand animation, and multiplane collage animation. Screenings and discussions in the course introduce key historical examples of animation demonstrating how these techniques have been used in meaningful ways. Students then learn how to composite two or more of these methods with matte painting, computer animation or video. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

First year studio for MFA students' core pursuit of self-directed interdisciplinary problems that contribute to one or more of the visual arts disciplines.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course introduces clay as a sculptural medium through fundamental clay-building techniques, mold making, model making, and casting. Through experimentation with these methods, this course promotes an understanding of materials, processes, visual concepts and techniques for creating three-dimensional forms in space. In addition to using different water-based clays and plaster, other materials such as wax, plastiline, paper pulp, and cardboard will be explored. Students will explore the full range of clay s capabilities and its role in contemporary art through lectures, readings, demonstrations, and assignments that incorporate conceptual and technical issues. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Students work directly from the nude model and focus on its articulation through an understanding of anatomical structure and function. Students will investigate a broad variety of drawing techniques and materials. The model will be used as the sole element in a composition and as a contextualized element.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting I is an introduction to the methods and materials of oil painting. This course begins with an investigation of color and color relationships. The beginning of the semester will cover technical issues and develop the student's ability to create a convincing sense of form in space using mass, color, light and composition. The majority of work is from direct observation including object study, still life, landscape, interior and exterior space and the self portrait. Class problems advance sequentially with attention paid to perceptual clarity, the selection and development of imagery, the process of synthesis and translation, color, structure and composition, content and personal expression. Students will become familiar with contemporary and art historical precedent in order to familiarize them with the history of visual ideas and find appropriate solutions to their painting problems.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The course offers an introduction to several forms of printmaking including: intaglio, screen printing, relief, and monoprinting. Through in- class demonstrations students are introduced to various approaches to making and printing in each medium. The course enhances a student's capacity for developing images through two-dimensional design and conceptual processes. Technical and conceptual skills are developed through discussions and critiques.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Documentary Video is an intensive production course involving the exploration of concepts, techniques, concerns, and aesthetics of the short form documentary. Building on camera, sound, and editing skills acquired in Video I, students will produce a portfolio of short videos and one longer project over the course of the semester using advanced level camera and sound equipment. One short presentation on a genre, technique, maker, or contemporary concern selected by the student is required.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Video II offers opportunities to further explore the role of cinematic narrative technique, non-narrative forms, digital video cinematography, editing, and screen aesthetics. Through a series of several video projects and a variety of technical exercises, students will refine their ability to articulate technically and conceptually complex creative projects in digital cinema. In addition, one presentation on a contemporary issue related to the application of cinematic storytelling and/or the cultural context of digital video is required.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course focuses on the practices and theory of producing narrative based cinema. Members of the course will become the film crew and produce a short digital film. Workshops on producing, directing, lighting, camera, sound and editing will build skills necessary for the hands-on production shoots. Visiting lecturers will critically discuss the individual roles of production in the context of the history of film.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is structured to create a focused environment and support for individual inquiries and projects. Students will present and discuss their work in one on one meetings with the instructor and in group critiques. Readings, screenings, and technical demonstrations will vary depending on students' past history as well as technical, theoretical, and aesthetic interests. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 5004

Second year studio for MFA students' core pursuit of self-directed interdisciplinary problems that contribute to one or more of the visual art disciplines.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Advanced Lens Based Projects (ALBP) is structured to create an open environment for students to develop a series of self-determined projects using any variety of image capture technologies. Mobile devices and DSLRs have blended the function of moving and still image capture while computers have become ubiquitous as instruments of display and dissemination. This has consequently led to the increasingly collapsed boundaries of artistic mediums. ALBP is a studio class where students will explore different modes of production and address the expanding field of exhibition strategies. Additionally, the class will foste a transdisciplinary approach to critiquing work and emphasize the shared context of the works reception. Readings, screenings, discussions, and critiques make up the curriculum along with dedicated studio time. Each student is required to complete three self- determined projects using still or moving image capture technologies. Grades will be determined through participation, completion of assignments, and the students' formal and critical engagement with the technology. While the focus of this course is not technical, prior knowledge of camera functions and post- production techniques is expected.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

with-through-for Cameras

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course supports the individual and collaborative production of performance works. As the medium of performance consists of diverse forms, actions, activities, practices and methodologies, the course allows for an open exploration in terms of material and form. Students are invited to utilize technologies, materials and methodologies from other mediums and/or disciplines such as video, photography, writing and sound. In addition to the production component, the course will examine multiple histories of performance through readings, screenings and directed research.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Using software tools designed for hand-drawn animation, students will develop animation skills applicable to all forms of animation. In this course students will learn to draw with a sense of urgency and purpose as they represent motion and drama in a series of frames. Through careful study of natural movements, precedents in the history of animation, and through the completion of a series of animation projects students will develop strategies for representing naturalistic movement, inventing meaningful transformations of form, and storytelling. r Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

of 4 Technical Elective 1 Select 1 CU. Recommendations include: ers

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will continue to develop conceptual, technical, aesthetic and formal strategies in digital photography, expanding their artistic process while refining their critical approach to researched subject matter. The class will be driven initially by a series of assignments formulated to further expose students to broad possibilities related to the medium and then they will be guided towards the evolution of a personalized body of work that is culturally, theoretically and historically informed. We will be examining key issues surrounding the digital image in contemporary society, led through a combination of class lectures, readings, group discussions, film screenings, gallery visits and class critiques. Students will further their knowledge of image control and manipulation, retouching and collage, advanced color management; become familiar with high-end camera and lighting equipment and develop professional printing skills. In addition to learning these advanced imaging practices, this course will also emphasize an investigation of critical thought surrounding contemporary visual culture and the role of digital media in the creation of art.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

As methods of representation are constantly shifting, one thing is clear - the photographic portrait is not what is used to be. Exploring both traditional and contemporary methods of portraiture, this class will uncover and discuss the ways in which we perceive each other in imagery, both as individuals and as groups. Throughout the semester, we will consider how portraits deal with truth, physical absence, the gaze, cultural embodiment, voyeurism and the digital persona. This course will build on the combination of perception, technology, and practice. Throughout the semester, students will advance by learning lighting techniques and strategies of presentation - as these core skills will become tools in the execution of project concepts. In tandem with each project, students will encounter and discuss a wide array of photography and writings from the past to the present, in an effort to understand the meanings and psychological effects of freezing the human image in time

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Since the invention of photography, the fashion industry has been one of the cornerstones of creative expression, innovation and visionary provocation. Contemporary fashion photography has continued to attract a leading group of image-makers that continue the tradition of creating artwork that not only is being published in cutting edge magazines such as V, Another Magazine and Citizen K, but also are exhibiting their work in various galleries and museums around the world. This course is designed for students who are interested in creating contemporary fashion images through specific assignments that define the process: lighting in studio or location, working with fashion designers, stylists, models, hair/ make up artists, and the application of a variety of post production techniques, via Photoshop. The class will explore modern constructs that define the importance of branding, marketing, advertising and the relationship of fashion photography in contemporary art and culture today. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Prerequisite

FNAR 5710 OR FNAR 6400

Over the course of the 2017-2018 school year, but officially as Spring 2018, credited course, I am inviting a group of 6-8 MFA students to participate as a group in a project focused on research, dialogue and the essential "possibilities" available to any artist to participate in the constant rewriting and redefining of art history. Students will participate in a body of research and readings leading to my upcoming participation in Rice University's Campbell Lecture Series in March 2018 and an associated publication with the University of Chicago Press. The lectures are divided into three distinct parts over three nights, all of which focus on alternate approaches to modernism. Part I investigates the "Literary" theory of architecture by Bruno Taut and Paul Scheerbart. Part II is concerned with the painting practices of Hilma af Klint and Blinky Palermo. And Part III discusses the music of Sun Ra and Pauline Oliveros. Students participating in Imaginary Modernisms will meet and work with me in a series of scheduled and structured activities. beginning with a visit to Philadelphia in November for personal studio visits with each of the 6-8 students, not as a critique but to get to know you and your work a bit. Participation includes three trips to New York, each for two days. These 2-day trips will each involve one day at my studio in Brooklyn, to discuss the readings and research, as well as to observe the development of ongoing sculptural artworks being created in my studio, and a second day of self-guided visits to exhibitions and performances that I will suggest, with an optional meeting together for lunch or dinner. Readings for these meetings will be sent to you in advance of trip. Participating students should be prepared to read various texts along with me for the 5 month project duration. This is an essential part of the project and this should be a pleasurable process, so those do not have time to add a medium amount of reading to their schedules, followed by group discussion, should probably not apply. The only other requirement will be preparing for an exchange with undergraduate students at Rice University in March. For our trip to Houston in March, there will be three nights of lectures, one participatory performance, one exhibition opening reception, plus visits and interaction with curators at the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and the Core Program (an important option for MFA students post graduation.)

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In spite of photography's traditional relationship with fact, the medium has been a vehicle for fiction since the very beginning. Fiction and photography encompass a broad range of meanings, from elaborately staging and performing for the camera, to manipulations using digital technology such as Photoshop to construct the work. This class will examine and trace the history of manipulated photography while paying special attention to the complex negotiations between the decisive moment, the constructed tableau, and the digitally manipulated image. There will be a combination of class lectures, studio projects, assigned readings, visiting artists, film screenings, field trips, and class critiques.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Starting with the representation of landscape in painting in the early 1800s, the course will then move through Pictorialism and the Modernist movement in photography. Revisiting the later half of the 20th century, we will begin to consider the shifting practices of landscape and the ways it has been photographically depicted up to the present. Collaborating with the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, students will begin their photographic exploration with the work of Andrea Wyeth and the landscape of the Brandywine Valley. As we consider Wyeth, the images of James Welling will also be introduced. Credited for pioneering new forms of representation in photography in the 1970s, Welling also revisited the work of Wyeth from 2010-2015, and committed to a fresh (and challenging) look at tradition. Working with imagery and text, this class will also touch on conceptual art, the New Topographics, and postmodernism. Through these various concentrations, students will consider and counter the traditions that they are already familiar with, while creating work based on issues of the landscape today. Questions about meaning, politics, social critique, land rights, technology and methods of presentation will be encouraged and explored throughout the course.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This studio course will explore the nexus between photography, sculpture, installation, drawing, painting, and the moving image. The course is informed by the printed image, as students will explore how photography can encourage thinking in other mediums, in addition to how other mediums can influence the making of photography. When does an abstract painting appear more like a photograph? How can a photograph suggest ways to make a video? Can a sculpture exist as a photograph? A variety of assignments will expose students to interdisciplinary approaches addressing these questions and more. Class projects will be supported by regular slide lectures, group critiques, and readings examining modern and contemporary artists and practices.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This Traveling Studio is offered every other spring term to upper level photography & related media students. It is a cross-cultural visual investigation, exploring the contradictions and significance of the chosen city. This course incorporates multi-disciplinary research in preparation for the trip; exploring various fields of knowledge production such as art, history, social sciences, markets and governance. Class discussion, readings and individual research will be focused towards the development of each student's photo/media project, which will be realized while abroad. After returning to Philadelphia, students will develop and refine their work; the remaining classes will emphasize critique, editing, printing and presentation options. The final projects will be included in a group exhibition at the end of the semester. Admission to the course is on a competitive basis. Spring, odd numbered years only Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 2180 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The last few decades have introduced dramatic changes in the way we interact with each other, the way we communicate, the way we date, watch porn, etc. Ethical concerns have arisen with scientific advances such as stem cell research, fertility drugs, Botox, cloning and erectile dysfunction. This studio course will investigate the myriad ways in which the corporeal is addressed and manipulated in contemporary art, science, religion, pop culture and media. Students will develop photographic projects related to updated questions concerning gender, sexuality and social issues. Lectures, readings and class discussion will focus and inform their individual work.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Drawing is a fundamental means of visualization and a hub for thinking, constructing, and engaging in a wide variety of creative activities and problem solving. This studio class explores drawing in both its traditional and contemporary forms. The projects are designed to help students in all disciplines find ways express and clarify their ideas through the process of drawing. The semester begins with the refinement of perceptual skills acquired in Drawing I, while encouraging experimentation through the introduction of color, abstract agendas, conceptual problem solving, and collaborative exercises, as well as new materials, techniques and large format drawings. Particular attention is given to ways to conduct visual research in the development of personal imagery. Assignments are thematic or conceptually based with ample opportunity for individual approaches to media, subject, scale and process. The goal is to strengthen facility, develop clarity in intent and expand expression. Attention is paid to the development of perceptual sensitivity, methods of image construction, and the processes of synthesis and transformation in order to communicate ideas through visual means. Recommended for students in all areas.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting II presents an ongoing exploration of the techniques, problems and poetics of painting, the nuances of the painting language, and the development of a personal direction. A wide variety of problems will address such issues as color, composition, and the development of imagery, process, and content. Students are expected to improve in technical handling of paints and move towards developing personal modes of seeing, interpreting, and thinking for themselves. This course introduces different topics, strategies and individual challenges each semester, so it may be repeated with advanced course numbers.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Repeatable

may be repeated with advanced course numbers.

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Painting Studio IV focuses on continuing the student's exploration of techniques, problems, and poetics of painting, the nuances of the painting language, and the development of a personal direction. While students may choose to work on assigned projects (either in consultation with the instructor or following the projects that the Painting II/III students may be involved in), the emphasis is on the investigation of the student's own sensibility. Students will be expected to engage in ongoing critical analysis of their own practices and assumptions.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course takes an experimental multimedia approach to investigating some of the boundaries in contemporary art making practices. Painting, photography, video, design and sculpture intersect, overlap, and converge in complicated ways. Projects will be designed to explore hybrid forms, collage, space/ installation, and color through a variety of strategic and conceptual proposals as students work towards unique ways of expanding their own work. Weekly readings, critiques, and presentations will be integrated with studio projects. This studio/seminar is appropriate for students at all levels and from all areas of Fine Arts and Design.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The class will challenge the possibilities of experimental drawing and ways of creating incisions and textures using copper plates as the matrix, which then will be printed on paper and other materials. The class offers full technical and historical description of each individual process: Dry Point, Etching, Hard ground, Soft Ground, Aquatint, Shine Cole', Spit- Biting, Sugar Lift, Color Printing and Viscosity printing.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course is an introduction to technical skills and investigative processes in screen printing and relief and examines methods for combining digital technology with traditional print media. The course introduces students to several contemporary applications of silkscreen and relief printmaking including techniques in multi-color printing, photo- based silkscreening, digital printing, woodcut, linocut, and letterpress. Demonstrations include photo and image manipulation, color separating and output techniques, hand carving and printing, as well as drawing and collage. Both traditional and experimental approaches are explored and encouraged and technical and conceptual skills are developed through discussions and critiques.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

and Artists' Publications This course introduces students to independent publishing and artists' publications through print methods in letterpress, Risograph, and Xerox. The class will focus on the self-published artists' zine/book as an affordable, accessible, and easily reproducible format for exploring ideas, disseminating artists' work, and collaborating across disciplines. Students will learn a range of skills, including techniques in both mechanized and hand-pulled forms of printed media (Risograph, copy machine, Vandercook letterpress); short- run editions and binding; design and layout; pre-press and print production; and the web as it relates to and supports independent and democratic modes of distribution. Students will learn about and become acquainted with some of the most significant independent publishers working today and throughout history. Students will leave class having completed three individual projects: a 16-page booklet/zine; a carefully considered online publication, and a final collaborative book designed, developed and published as a class. The course commences with a field trip to New York City's Printed Matter, one of the oldest and most important nonprofit facilities dedicated to the promotion of artists' books, where students will be encouraged to submit a publication by semester's end.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will create sculptural installations and spatial interventions that explore site specificity and architectural environments. A range of traditional sculptural materials and techniques will be investigated along with more ephemeral interventions in space such as sound, light, and projection. Through lectures, readings, and critiques, students will explore the history of installation and interactive sculptural work and develop self-directed projects that interrogate historical, social, and psychological conditions of the built environment. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 2310 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Our culture is increasingly made up of nonhuman actors. Facial recognition algorithms spend more hours "seeing" in a day than humans; drones equipped with visual sensors conduct our warfare; voice chat bots call businesses and make appointments for us. Meanwhile, humans conduct labor that we view as the work of bots: posting disinformation for political gain, or mass-producing children's YouTube videos for ad revenue. As objects begin to see and think, how can we understand the role of human agency and the possibilities (or lack thereof) for artistic expression in this space? What does the future of art look like when more photographs are taken as surveillance than by individuals, or when important cultural producers are nonhuman intelligences? In Nonhuman Photography, we will attempt to interrogate these ideas from an artist's perspective, approaching nonhuman agents and the various components that comprise them both as tools for studio work and as generative entities in their own right. Over the course of the semester we will read and discuss these issues extensively, while engaging in studio projects in a variety of media. While the course bears the title "photography", we will find that many of these tools will be non- photographic or para-photographic, and as a result many of our studio projects will be interdisciplinary. This course takes its name from Joanna Zylinska's Nonhuman Photography, parts of which we will examine over the course of the semester.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Architecture's relationship with cinema was established with the very first motion picture. In Sortie de l'usine Lumiere de Lyon by Auguste and Louis Lumiere we see a didactic presentation of film titles as workers from the Lumiere brother's factory stream forth from its interior at days end. In many ways the context of the film is its subject as well. The title of the class plays on Le Corbusier's maxim that architecture is machine for living and perhaps cinema is simply a machine for helping us understand the vast construct of our built environment. A device, which allows us to imagine even greater follies or more importantly to think critically about architecture's relationship with and impact on society. Readings, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with studio time. Students will produce their own film and we will look at films produced by a range of practitioners: From architects speculating on the nature of and use of public space and urban development to documentarians researching the pathologies of neo-liberalism and its effect on the privatization of space. We will also look at the work of artists who engage with the poetics of space and who unpack the conflicted legacies of the built environment.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In order to change the world, we must first learn how to infect it. A Virus in the Culture is a studio class that examines and generates various forms of media resistance to dominant hegemonic systems of power and control. Using filmmaking, publication design and interactive media we'll think through and develop responses to some of the most pressing issues facing us today. We'll look at historical models from the agitprop design work of Gee Vaucher for Anarcho-punk band Crass to Chris Marker's film Le Fond de L'Air Est Rouge, a radical analysis of global social and political turmoil in the late 60s and early 70s. We'll also look at experimental contemporary design firms like Metahaven who question the role of designers and filmmakers today - Bypassing the power dynamics of clients and briefs they took it upon themselves to create a graphic identity for WikiLeaks. Each example broadens the definition and possibilities of practice to create a more porous engagement with audiences and users while informing the practice of social critique today. Considering a diverse range of topics from education policy, to the rights of environmental refugees, we'll use the class to workshop a singular comprehensive project that targets researches and responds to a specific contested position. The outcome of which will be a class produced short film, publication and website that unpacks the social, cultural, and economic complexities of our subject. This class is co-taught by David Hartt, an artist and filmmaker along with graphic designer, Mark Owens. Reading, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with studio time. While the focus of this course is not technical, prior knowledge of design programs, camera functions, and post-production techniques is expected.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course looks at representations of the Chinese (and Asian body) since the Limehouse district in East London and the advent of Chinese contract laborers to the Americas in the 19th century. The localization of the Chinese throughout the Americas within Chinatown precincts were also subject to representational imaginings that were negotiated through the lens of civic planning, literature and later in cinema. Chinatowns are ultimately a product of racism. They were created as a political and social support system for newly arrived Chinese immigrants. While Chinese laborers arrived into the United States in 1840 and in significant numbers into Canada about 1860, Chinese contract workers were encouraged to immigrate to the Americas as an inexpensive source of labor, especially after the end of the American Civil War. Industrial leaders in America, Canada and elsewhere in the Americas (Mexico, Cuba, Peru, etc) saw the arrival of Chinese workers as a victory for commercial interests. However, the celebration was short-lived, as anti-Chinese sentiment quickly transformed into anti-Chinese hysteria. Rather than attacking the vested interests that exploit foreign labor as embodied by the Chinese worker, racist unions with the cooperation of civic leaders and the police deemed it safer to burn Chinatowns than capitalist property. Deeply under-studied to this day is the number of mass murders of Chinese workers in the 19th century by anti-Chinese thugs. This seminar will focus in on how the body of the Chinese (and Asian) was imagined and reimagined multiple times from the middle of the 19th century to today. 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1881

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

What if a poem spoke from inside a photograph? What if a sculpture unfurled a political manifesto? What if a story wasn't just like a dance, but was a dance-or a key component of a video, drawing, performance, or painting? In this course, artists and writers will develop new works that integrate the forms, materials, and concerns of both art and writing. Many artists employ writing in their practices, but may not look at the texts the create as writing. And many writers have practices that go beyond the page and deserve attention as art. This course will employ critique and workshop, pedagogic methodologies from art and writing respectively, to support and interrogate cross- pollination between writing and art practices. Additionally, the course will will examine a field of artists and writers who are working with intersections between art and writing to create dynamic new ways of seeing, reading, and experiencing.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

How can the arts help us build a more just society? How can the arts transform social structures and systems? Public health crises involving clean water (Flint), police violence (Baltimore), and a lack of economic and educational opportunity following reentry (Philadelphia) make legible the need for a new visual language that critiques these conditions and challenges entrenched structural inequalities. We will engage the work of creative practitioners who are mapping new relationships between art and social justice and directly impacting individual and communal well-being. In so doing, the course seeks to challenge traditional constructions of public health, which often isolate individual histories from their social life and their relation to families, communities, and geographies. Readings will build upon disciplinary perspectives in the arts, humanities, and social policy. Requirements include weekly readings, class participation, and a collaborative final project. The course will meet in the Health Ecologies Lab at Slought Foundation, an arts organization on campus.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Paris has been shaped by a mixture of organic development, which is still today perceptible in the "snail" pattern of its arrondissements whose numbers, from 1 to 20, coil around a central island several times so as to exemplify a "spiral city," and of the violent cuts, interruptions and sudden transformations that again and again forced it to catch up with modern y times, the most visible of which was Baron Haussmann's destruction of medieval sections of the city to make room for huge boulevards. Thus Parisian modernism has always consisted in a negotiation between the old and the new, and a specific meaning of modernity allegorized for Louis Aragon, the Surrealists and Walter Benjamin consisted in old- fashioned arcades built in the middle of the 19th century and obsolete by the time they turned into icons of Paris. The aim of the class will be to provide conceptual and pragmatic (visual, experiential) links between a number of texts, theories and films deploying various concepts of the modern in Paris, with a guided tour of the main places discussed. The course that Professors Jean Michel Rabate (English) and Ken Lum (Fine Arts) will lead studies Paris as a work of science-fiction where its many futures are embedded in its many pasts, where discontinuity is a continuous process and where the curving line of the snail's shell is a line of ceaseless curling resulting in a perennial oscillation where an outside converts into an inside and an inside then converts to an outside. The course will travel to Paris over spring break to get an in-depth look at the topics discussed in class. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The French social philosopher Michel de Certeau upset the common understanding of the relationship between space and place by elevating space as practice place. By this, he meant that place is but a set of geo- physical particularities that has no dynamic meaning unless activated through social engagement so that space is produced. Spatial practice is a key concept in the modern understanding of the city as a society of abstract space, one in which the problem of human alienation is riven with the logic of spatial spectacularization. Public Art is often employed to address or mollify such urban problems through concepts of historical reconstruction or institutional critique, including possibly testing the limits of public expression. Historical markers play a somewhat different role by calling attention to lost or negative histories, albeit most often vetted through the language of tourism factoids. This course will examine the discursive issues at play in respect to art and markers, particularly for Philadelphia. Additionally, important public art works from around the world will be examined. The course will also include the occasional visit of several key works downtown in which the question of what can and cannot said will be pondered.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

As a pioneer of abstraction in the early 1900's, Hilma Af Klint channeled a complex and highly original body of abstract symbolic work in secrecy. Using the upcoming Hilma Af Klint exhibition at the Guggenheim as a focus and departure point, this course will explore the ways in which artists have accessed alternative ways of seeing, knowing, and embodying non-visible realities as a source for their work. Accessing spiritual realms has been the subject of early European Modernisms investigations into Theosophy and Anthroposophy, as well as the primary intention of Tibetan Thangkas and Indian Tantra paintings. Postmodernism's crisis of belief and skepticism generated a cultural situation wherein the subject of spirituality was marginalized, ridiculed as anti- intellectual, and in disgrace. The Hilma Af Klint exhibition and surge of interest in her work signifies a new moment, where questions about consciousness and the nature of reality are being addressed with renewed vigor. How do we create space in a technology driven world for experiences that attempt to align the viewer/maker with the contemplative realm, heightened states of consciousness, or transcendence? We will examine a wide field of artists in an attempt to understand the possibilities of the "spiritual" in art and contemporary culture. This seminar will engage in readings, lectures, discussions, projects, and field trips. This course is appropriate for both grad and undergrad, art majors and non-majors alike.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Civic Studio is an engaged research course that explores significant theories, methods, and practices of public and socially-engaged artwork. Students draw from arts- and place-based modes of inquiry toward collaborative projects with fellow classmates, artists, and organizations in Philadelphia and beyond, while pursuing semester-long individual projects that build on their own independent interests and pursuits. Each semester, students work with and as embedded practitioners in exhibitions, installations, research projects, and other artistic platforms throughout the city. In turn, through readings, site visits, and site-specifi work, students gain creative and critical capacity for producing their own final projects. Through Civic Studio students are able to reflect upon and practice public work with artistic, scholarly, and civic aims.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Queer is a fluid, unfixed and undefinable space offering endless utopian possibilities & potentials concerning gender, sexuality, personal autonomy and agency. Queer Imaginings is a forum for the reimagining of Queer representation/s. This course provides a safe space to mine, critique and analyze Queer imagery, both historical & contemporary. We will explore the ways in which Queerness is approached, represented & manipulated in pop culture, politics, society and the media. Students enrolled in this studio/seminar course will partake in discussions and research pertaining to Queer images and their intersections with race, trans/non- binary-equity, feminism, disability & class structure. These complex subjects will inspire respectful debate throughout the course, and most importantly, generate robust discussion about the work students create. Prompted through select readings and visual presentations, students will be guided to research, analyze and create artworks, which are inspired by various topics related to Queerness. A special emphasis will be placed upon issues arising around visibility, erasure & inclusivity. This forum offers a space to reexamine, research and propose new representations of Queerness. This is primarily a lens-based course with expansive possibilities (interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, multidisciplinary) 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course will focus on developing and producing projects that utilize advanced approaches to 2D and 3D computer animation. We will engage emerging techniques of visualization such as data-driven animation, algorithmic animation, working in hybrid forms of stop-motion, hand- drawn and 3D computer animation, working with dynamic physical simulations, rigging animated characters, or structures. The meeting pattern of the course will enable members to complete ambitious independent or group based animation projects and share the methods that they develop along the way. Not Offered Every Year 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this course students will examine and explore the sculptural foundations of clay in the world of contemporary art and design, by experimenting with its sculptural materiality, as a means to develop ideas in large-scale and unconventional ways. Through investigative and conceptually driven projects, students will use clay and other non-traditional materials to make modular structures that incorporate advanced mold-making, casting, and advanced building techniques to develop their own artistic voice through the expansive medium of clay. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Sound and Image as experienced in the cinema, are not divisible. One perception influences the other, and transforms it. While a preexisting harmony between these two senses may exist, its conventions are subject to manipulation and the whims of subversion. Film Sound tracks the technological and aesthetic history of sound for film including psychoacoustics, dialogue, music, sound fx and audio's gradual and triumphant march towards fidelity, stereo and surround sound. This lecture course, through an historical and pedagogical romp loaded with examples throughout film history and visits by lauded audio professionals from the film world, seeks to instruct students to engage in the process of sound perception, gaining an appreciation for the art of sound as it relates to the varied phenomenological dimensions of that unique audio-visual encounter we call movies.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Total Course Units 5 The selection and sequence of the elective courses must be approved by the Director and must be completed within six semesters. The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2026 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Listening Beyond Hearing explores listening as an active and creative practice beyond passive reception. This course integrates theoretical inquiry with hands-on engagement in studio environments, emphasizing listening as a means of reshaping our interaction with soundscapes, language, space, and materiality. Students will examine how listening creates new realities, frames cultural narratives, and facilitates multisensory engagement. Through practical exercises in sound recording, editing, and production, they will develop technical fluency in audio software, studio techniques, and spatialized sound design. By working with microphones, mixing consoles, and digital audio workstations, students will refine their listening sensibilities while learning to shape and manipulate sound as a material force. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 1130 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This class is an experiential adventure into accessing and using non-ordinary states as allies in the creative process and gnosis. At a time when critical thinking, intuition, and cognitive liberty are often compromised by AI, cultural expectations, and habit, we take seriously the idea that the human experience is more spacious and unpredictable than we can imagine. The crisis of meaning and societal fragmentation make these concerns especially timely. Some cutting-edge scientists and philosophers think that Consciousness is the ground of being, a continuum that we receive with the mind/brain. If consciousness is being broadcast, how can we learn to expand our receptivity to a wider field of knowledge, and alchemize this into ideas? Metaphysics, depth psychology, occult wisdom, flow states and experimental processes will all be explored as paths to new ways of knowing. Through embodied practices such as breathwork, shamanic journeying, , sound sessions, meditation, ritual practices, and creative exercises, we will explore accessing other ways of knowing and being, and investigate how these can be translated into a creative practice. Modules will include experiential sessions,, reading, dialogue, and process/working time. Ongoing assignments will integrate creative prompts, journaling, and experience questionnaires over the course of the semester. There will be a final creative project. The course design embodies what might be called "radical dialogue"—expanding the definition beyond human-to-human conversation to include dialogue with consciousness itself, with creative inspiration, with the body's wisdom, and with what various traditions call the numinous or transpersonal dimensions of experience. The course inherently teaches students how to dialogue across epistemological boundaries by engaging metaphysics, depth psychology, occult wisdom, and embodied practices alongside their creative work. Students learn to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously and move fluidly between intuitive, somatic, and conceptual modes of understanding rather than privileging rational-analytical knowing alone. This dialogue extends into what might be called radical listening: the experiential practices of breathwork, shamanic journeying, meditation, and sound sessions specifically teach students to be in dialogue with other aspects of their being and the field around them. The integration of journaling, creative prompts, and experience questionnaires creates a feedback loop where students practice articulating ineffable experiences and developing a vocabulary for states that typically resist language. This is dialogue as deep listening, translation, and the ongoing conversation between the experiencing self and the reflecting self. 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1885

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

(SNF Paideia Course) This is a primarily an art and planning course that centers on the representation of the oriental, specifically the Chinese, in both its historical and present contexts. The localization of the Chinese throughout the Americas within Chinatown precincts were also subject to representational imaginings that were negotiated through the lens of civic planning. This course will study the often fraught negotiation between representation and planning. The hyper-urbanization of China over the past several decades has radically altered traditional conceptions of public space in China. Mass migration from rural to urban areas has meant very high population densities in Chinese cities. Traditional courtyards surrounded by housing and other modestly scaled buildings are rapidly disappearing, incongruent with the demands of heated property development Moreover, Chinese cities have comparatively little public green space per resident compared to equivalents in the West. Zoning in Chinese cities is also much more varied for any given area than what one would find in cities such as New York, Paris, and London. Intensifying density of urban areas precludes the construction of large public squares. Furthermore, large public squares tend to be either intensively congested and overcrowded or underused due to their oversight by government that render such spaces somewhat opprobrious in terms of use. Historically, the urban courtyards of temples, native place associations, and provincial guilds served as public spaces of gathering. They were also sites of festivals and the conducting of neighbourhood and civic business. These spaces have become increasingly privatized or commodified with entrance fees. The air-conditioned concourses of enclosed shopping malls or busy outdoor market streets have become de facto public spaces in China where collective window shopping or promenading is the primary activity rather than bodily repose as one might find in a public space in a large Western city. The seminar/studio will investigate the meaning of the term public in the constitution of Chinese space, audience and critical voice through firstly the enclave of Chinatown and secondly through examples from China. The course will look into the changing conceptualization of public space in Chinatown as it has declined in its traditional form and become reinvented in the form of high-end shopping centered districts. This flux has its roots in post 1979 China as well as the post 1997 reversion of Hong Kong to China. As such, the course will examine the situation of rapid urbanization in China and the concomitant relationship to new Chinese (and Asian) districts in the North American urban and suburban landscape ie Vancouver, Toronto, Arlington (Virginia), Oakland, Los Angeles valley and Queens (Flushing), New York. In what ways can artists and designers respond to and challenge these conceptualizations of the old and the new within the context of urban change? What of the changing formations of the Chinese subject through the experiences of embodiment? How is public space produced through an ethnically bracketed bodily presence. Findings will be translated by the student as tools for design and public art imaginings This course will include a week s trip to San Francisco to study how intense growth in the city has all but usurped old Chinatown while new and more vibrant Chinese centers have emerged in multiple other districts within the city and the suburbs.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In the long durée of history, every work of material culture from art work, and ritual object to tools and other utilitarian devices, eventually becomes an artifact, unmoored from the cultural network that secured its position, and legibility, even an abstract painting shown in the white cube of an art gallery displays not only it’s aesthetic value but the social and economic framework that secure its meaning. Museums and other collecting institutions by their nature deracinate the object from cultural context. Exhibition design is the act of listening to an object speak across time and place, and to establish some measure of connection to the trace remnants of the ideological and infrastructural systems that produced it. Telepathic Objects is a class that looks at methods of display for material culture, and the context making practices of supporting objects to reveal their psychic resonance. This is a seminar class with extensive readings and discussion that explores how artworks and artifacts communicate, share their mysteries, and convey some dimensional sense of the systems that produced them. Using strategies as diverse as cognitive mapping and exhibition prosthetics this class unpacks the methods of exhibition design as executed by architects, designers and artists as they attempt to re-present material culture. In addition to classroom time, we’ll also visit a variety of institutions including art exhibitions, natural history collections and cultural anthropology / archeology museums, and talk to the professionals in the field who imagine with, and maintain these objects of cultural heritage. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 3170 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Paris has been shaped by a mixture of organic development, which is still today perceptible in the "snail" pattern of its arrondissements whose numbers, from 1 to 20, coil around a central island several times so as to exemplify a "spiral city," and of the violent cuts, interruptions and sudden transformations that again and again forced it to catch up with modern times, the most visible of which was Baron Haussmann's destruction of medieval sections of the city to make room for huge boulevards. Thus Parisian modernism has always consisted in a negotiation between the old and the new, and a specific meaning of modernity allegorized for Louis Aragon, the Surrealists and Walter Benjamin consisted in old- fashioned arcades built in the middle of the 19th century and obsolete by the time they turned into icons of Paris. The aim of the class will be to provide conceptual and pragmatic (visual, experiential) links between a number of texts, theories and films deploying various concepts of the modern in Paris, with a guided tour of the main places discussed. The course that Professors Jean Michel Rabate (English) and Ken Lum (Fine Arts) will lead studies Paris as a work of science-fiction where its many futures are embedded in its many pasts, where discontinuity is a continuous process and where the curving line of the snail's shell is a line of ceaseless curling resulting in a perennial oscillation where an outside converts into an inside and an inside then converts to an outside. The course will travel to Paris over spring break to get an in-depth look at the topics discussed in class. 1 Course Unit 2026-27 Catalog | Generated 08/03/26

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

The psychedelic renaissance of the 21st century has already transformed our understanding of well-being and consciousness. From radically innovative treatments that improve mental health to a new appreciation of the mechanisms and importance of mystical experiences, and a deeper understanding of consciousness itself, psychedelic research and scholarship has led to exciting breakthroughs in numerous fields. This course will cover historical and contemporary aspects of psychedelic use, explore current scientific research into neuroscience and the therapeutic uses of psychedelic therapy, and address the cultural and sociopolitical aspects. An important component of this material is a careful exploration of the ways that psychedelic use empowers both personal and societal well being by increasing a sense of community, ecological awareness, and responsibility towards the whole. Few topics span such a vast transdisciplinary terrain or have the potential to include scholars from widely varying fields - neuroscience, anthropology, visual arts, consciousness studies and spirituality, ecology, public policy, law and ethics, psychology, nursing and medicine, literature, philosophy, etc. The course will invite a variety of speakers to discuss their specific areas of expertise and to dialogue with one other. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course expands upon the knowledge and experience gained in Photography 1. With an emphasis on image output, both analog and digital, we will explore intermediate technical, theoretical, and conceptua photographic possibilities. Students will be expected to expand their artistic process while refining a critical approach to researched subject matter. Four distinct projects will guide the class, designed to expose students to the broad possibilities of the medium and to support the development of an ambitious research-based final project that is culturally, theoretically, and historically informed. Together, we will examine key issues surrounding the digital image in contemporary society through lectures, readings, group discussions, and critiques. Throughout the semester, students will advance their knowledge of image control, manipulation, and color management, while gaining proficiency with camera technology, lighting strategies, and professional printing practices. Most importantly, there will be an emphasis on self-guided making/exploration, critical engagement with contemporary visual culture, and the role of photography in the creation of art. Individual projects will explore themes such as archive, authorship, expanded documentary, appropriation, expanded documentary, and constructed imagery. 1 Course Unit FNAR 5410 if night is a weed and day grows less If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less The title of this class posits a shift in balance: of the natural order, of the built environment, of the body politic, of perception. The result is a creeping entropy that can either be embraced or redirected. Taking a morphological approach to image making students can use any variety of televisual image capture technologies. From analog to digital, satellite imagery to scanner. Time arrested or accelerated. Night for day and weeds for gardens, the work produced should ask us to slow down and reassess the objectives of form, language, image and place, to create new prototypes for engagement and new modes of understanding our environment and perhaps even to reinvent the conventions of landscape as a genre. Readings, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with studio time. Each student is required to complete a visual essay that addresses these themes using image capture technologies. Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 2410 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1887

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

If Night Is A Weed And Day Grows Less The title of this class posits a shift in balance: of the natural order, of the built environment, of the body politic, of perception. The result is a creeping entropy that can either be embraced or redirected. Taking a morphological approach to image making students can use any variety of televisual image capture technologies. From analog to digital, satellite imagery to scanner. Time arrested or accelerated. Night for day and weeds for gardens, the work produced should ask us to slow down and reassess the objectives of form, language, image and place, to create new prototypes for engagement and new modes of understanding our environment and perhaps even to reinvent the conventions of landscape as a genre. Readings, screenings, discussions and critiques make up the curriculum along with studio time. Each student is required to complete a visual essay that addresses these themes using image capture technologies.Mutually Exclusive: FNAR 24101 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2025-2026

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Expanded Darkroom bridges analog traditions and digital futures to explore new possibilities of image-making, providing an experimental l space for students to reimagine photography at the intersection of art, society, and technology. This course offers a platform to push photographic information in new directions, discover unexpected outcomes, and develop work that is both conceptually grounded and visually experimental. The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence is reshaping culture, politics, and the ways we understand images. The photograph has become a flexible site of meaning, an artifact continually open to transformation through manipulation and reinterpretation. Expanded Darkroom invites students into an experimental laboratory where ideas take form through alternative photographic methods and materials. This course explores the social, theoretical, and historical connections between analog and digital practices, paying attention to how these modes of image-making overlap, diverge, and influence each other. Students will examine how experimentation—whether through play, risk, failure, or the balance between control and chance—can shift the meaning of a body of work. Emphasis will be placed on research- driven, conceptually grounded projects that highlight process as both a generative tool of discovery and a form of critique. Through intentional yet flexible approaches, students will develop work that demonstrates how images can be reimagined, reconstituted, and transformed. Expanded Darkroom provides a platform for the curious, offering space to push photographic information in new directions while embracing the unexpected possibilities that emerge along the way. Through hands- on experimentation, students will engage with play, failure, chance, and control as integral aspects of the creative process. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Sonic Measures is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of digital audio design, including sound for video, sound installation, composition, and sound art. Projects and demonstrations will familiarize students with all aspects of recording and synthesis of sound using Apple's Logic Pro software. Assignments will combine technical issues alongside an ongoing conceptual development individual to each student's interests. No musical knowledge needed. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This seminar examines the essential nature drawing has in an artist's process. Direct visual perception, self-referential mark making, the viability of space and understanding it, and drawing from one's own work are some of the drawing experiences encountered in the course. There are regular critiques and discussions based on the work and readings.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This seminar investigates issues concerning visual artists. Part one begins with Plato and Kant and progresses through a history of ideas in art, exploring the questions which concern artists today, including Modernism, post-modernism, abstraction and representation, appropriation, context, art and politics, identity, and the artist's relationship to these subjects. Part two of the course will focus on current texts in contemporary art, the current dialogue(s), and issues specific to our time and place as artists. The seminar engages contemporary issues in a spirit of curiosity and critique, and relates them to our studio practice.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This seminar will examine contemporary issues in photography from the point of view of the practicing artist. Students will meet with visiting critics during the semester, the course will also include student presentations, weekly discussions and group critiques, visits to artists' studios and gallery and museum exhibitions. Texts for the seminar will be drawn from contemporary critical theory in art, philosophy, history and popular culture. Required for all graduate photographers. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Sculpture instructor (to be announced) will lead this studio course based on improvisational approaches to developing individually made sculptural works, as well as works that are made in collaboration with others. As in Music or Theater, these works involve the collaboration of others, yet they are equally initiated by small thoughts, and carry those thoughts into a more public and interactive format of installation.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

38.00 FNAR 7010 Graduate Critique I 1

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

2

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Second year studio for MFA students' core pursuit of self-directed interdisciplinary problems that contribute to one or more of the visual art disciplines.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This course focuses on contemporary art. Open to graduate students and undergraduate students with permission of the instructor. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ARTH 5960 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Teaching Artist Practicum supports artists engaging in education work, through the development of liberatory, expansive and justice- oriented teaching outlooks and approaches. Students in this course will gain context around forms of arts education through the lens of critical pedagogy. This course supports current/upcoming classroom experiences of participants (TA-ships and teaching appointments), and helps students prepare for teaching opportunities. This course will include readings/responses, creative and practical exercises, collaborative experiences, presentations, and a final project. This course is geared towards graduate students who are artists/cultural producers looking to teach in higher education, adult, community and young-adult (teen) learning, and alternative venues. Undergraduates may enroll with permission of the instructor. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this class, we will explore virtual worlds as they shape identities, foster social interactions, and redefine our understanding of history and human experience. This class will provide equal parts of technical skill- building in virtual reality design, and engaged discussion on readings. It considers virtual reality as a way of making media, conducting scientific experiments, and probing the limits of humanity. Over the course of the semester, discussions, activities, and workshops will help you incrementally build a small-scale virtual world/gathering/or experience as your final project, informed by insights from design anthropology, neuroscience, psychology and philosophy. Key readings of scholars like Manuel Delanda and Donna Haraway will be supplemented with immersive “field trips” to boundary-breaking 3D virtual worlds crafted by contemporary artists, historically-accurate recreations of landscapes and buildings, as well as virtual worlds built by scientists to better understand the ways that brains work and bodies can be healed. At the end of the course, you will emerge with a technical skill set as well as a critical anthropological perspective on virtualized worlds. You will be able to: Integrate anthropological approaches to visual ethnography and participatory design Understand the core principles and techniques of virtual reality landscape design and development Employ industry-standard software tools to create virtual worlds, Analyze virtual reality landscapes, informed by anthropological perspectives on social interaction, identity construction, and community formation. Apply virtual reality landscape design techniques to a real-world project, employing ethnographic methods to understand user experiences, cultural contexts, and social dynamics. This course requires a basic understanding of 3D modeling software. If you have completed at least one course in computer graphics or possess equivalent experience, you possess the foundation to delve into the realm of Making Virtual Worlds. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 6442 Mutually Exclusive: ANTH 3442 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

This intensive practice-based workshop is a semester-long creative studio for students seeking to bring an existing experimental ethnography project to fruition, both in terms of production quality and theoretical engagement. Here, “experimental” implies an engagement with a creative process whose outcomes are unknown and unpredictable, while “ethnography” suggests a project that engages a shared social world or community. Rather than limit ourselves to one creative medium or theory base, this class will be shaped in conversation with students' specific interests, and is open to those exploring a variety of media forms. Students are expected to enter the class with a rough draft of an experimental ethnographic project (a collection of photographs, illustrations, video clips, a sound piece, a creative story, a short film, etc…). Over the course of the semester, this draft will be continuously honed and re-iterated through community conversation. In the introductory portion of the course, we will draw on pedagogical methods developed in art studio settings as we learn about one another’s projects, build a shared language for understanding and responding to each other's work. The second phase and bulk of the course will involve a rotating schedule of presentations and response sessions, when students will present a new iteration of their in-process work and the class will respond substantively, rigorously, and thoroughly using the shared language developed at the beginning of the course. Instructors will prepare weekly class ethnographic readings/screenings that draw from the presenting students theoretical/methodological engagements, and provoke stimulating discussion. Over the course of the semester, students will present four increasingly-honed iterations of their project, culminating in a showcase/exhibit at the end of the course (which may be private or public, depending on students aims). For their final assignment, students will submit their project to the journal/platform/exhibit they selected at the beginning of the course and/or outline a course of action for doing so. Also Offered As: ANTH 6443 Mutually Exclusive: ANTH 3443 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

What if we could practice a radical ethnography of vulnerability because we believe that truly democratized, ethical engagement requires the unconditional vulnerability of the ethnographer: the relinquishing of all academic, professional, and project power bullying through a humble transparency and personal permeability that immediately triggers trust by de-enshrining the intellectual, by bravely including the emotional and spiritual life of the empathic ethnographer. Most of reality is invisible; th deeper communal paths are psychic. I am a veteran, multi-disciplinary social choreographer who has intuitively employed ethnographic tools and strategies for the past 30 years, collectively producing transformative performative portraits of threatened communities. For this graduate and undergraduate seniors workshop, I wish to invite students into my field process, in terms of my readings and roamings through the world. The workshop experience will culminate in a field trip to San Juan, under the auspices of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, to visit historic colonial sites and contemporary model projects such as El Departamento de la Comida, a queer farming collective. Not Offered Every Year Also Offered As: ANTH 6666 Mutually Exclusive: ANTH 3666 1 Course Unit University of Pennsylvania Catalog 1889

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Through a series of studio projects, this course focuses on the conceptualization and production of time-based works of art. A seminar component of the course reviews contemporary examples of media based art and film. A studio component of the course introduces production techniques including lighting, cinematography, audio, editing, mastering projects, and installing audio-visual works in site-specific locations or gallery spaces.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

FNAR 7020 FNAR 7030

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Graduate Critique is designed to introduce students to different pedagogical methodogies relating to the citical examination of works of art as well as to assist students in terns of speaking about their own work. This course provides a democratic and interactive forum for the voicing of opinion in an informed context. This course is required for MFA students in the 2nd semester of the program.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

MFA Graduate Seminar 1 MFA Graduate Seminar 1 Select 2 FNAR Electives 2 Historic Preservation Requirements

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

2 Critique IV 2 Elective(s) and/or Grad Seminar 2 Course 4.00

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In this joint seminar between Architecture and Fine Arts, we investigate the alternative modes of diagrammatic thinking that are influencing art and design disciplines. The course provides a historical perspective on the evolution of visual epistemologies from late 1950s and reviews its current state from the lens of contemporary representation theory, computation, fabrication and information technologies. The goal is to gain both theoretical and hands-on experience with the contemporary diagramming techniques in order to advance both designs and the thinking behind them.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

In these advanced representation courses the work extends to new ways of documenting and seeing landscape. These courses are open to all interested School of Design students who have previous drawing experience or have taken foundation studios. Recent topics have been: Traces and Inscriptions (spring 2013), instructors: Anuradha Mathur, Matthew Neff; Landscape Representation (fall annually),instructors: Valerio Morabito; Landscape Drawing (spring annually), instructor: Laurie Olin; Landscape Drawing (spring 2008), instructors: David Gouverneur, Trevor Lee; Shifting Landscapes: A Workshop in Representation (spring 2005, 2004), instructor: Anuradha Mathur; and The Agile Pencil and Its Constructs (spring 2004) instructor: Mei Wu.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Course topics vary between terms. Students may take more than one topics course. 1 Course Unit

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Critical Issues in Contemporary Arts is a graduate level seminar course for fine arts majors and graduate students. Offering two to three sections each semester, standing faculty will rotate topics based around critical issues in contemporary art including Defense Against the Dark Arts and Perspectives in Art: A Nomadic Approach. Please see the PennMFA website for specific section descriptions. Enrollment may be granted to undergraduate fine art students with the persmission of the professor.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

University of Pennsylvania Catalog 841 Fine Arts Electives (with FMAE attribute) (https:// 2 1 catalog.upenn.edu/attributes/fmae/) Outside Electives (must be 5000-level or higher, not in FNAR 2 or DSGN) Open Elective (must be 5000-level or higher) 1 2 Total Course Units 19 Courses with the FMAG Attribute can substitute for FNAR 8010, FNAR 8020, FNAR 8030, or FNAR 8040. 18.00 The degree and major requirements displayed are intended as a guide for students entering in the Fall of 2026 and later. Students should consult with their academic program regarding final certifications and requirements for graduation.

Subject

FNAR

Credits (min)

1

Credits (max)

1

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Critical Issues in Contemporary Arts is a graduate level seminar course for fine arts majors and graduate students. Offering two to three sections each semester, standing faculty will rotate topics based around critical issues in contemporary art including Defense Against the Dark Arts and Perspectives in Art: A Nomadic Approach. Please see the PennMFA website for specific section descriptions. Enrollment may be granted to undergraduate fine art students with the persmission of the professor.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Critical Issues in Contemporary Arts IV is a gradate level seminar for fine arts graduate students in their fourth semester. Offering two to three topic based sections each semester, standing faculty will rotate topics based around ciritcal issues in contemporary art. Previously offered sections include Defense Against the Dark Ages and Perspectives in Art: A Nomadic Approach. Please see the PennMFA website for specific section descriptions each semester. Enrollment may be granted to undergraduate fine art students with permission of the professor.

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu

Graduate Fine Arts independent study course for students pursuing advanced, specialized, indecently-driven course work. This course must be taught by a full-time faculty member. 0.5-2 Course Units

Subject

FNAR

Type

course

Edition

2026-2027

Source

catalog.upenn.edu