Deepak Unnikrishnan

This seminar will focus on writing for artists. It is a workshop-based course in which students are introduced to and practice skills of argumentation, research, clarity of expression, as well as the range of innovative writing practices available to them. Basically, we will treat language as material in itself: sometimes transparent, pointing toward objects of art and inquiry, and sometimes opaque, pointing towards language itself. Through weekly writing assignments students will learn the craft of not only writing about art, but the possibility that writing is a tool to expand one's studio practice and may be considered an art in itself. The first half of the semester is dedicated to sections in experimenting with description, analysis and critique, and personal chronicles. Students will also be expected to produce an artist's statement. The second part of the semester is devoted to putting these skills into professional practice, as students write reviews of current work and exhibitions, personal essays, curatorial proposals, creative pieces, and use writing as a tool to expand their studio practice.

Prerequisite: Declared NYU-AD Art & Media MFA student.

This course explores advanced topics of special interest Fine Arts and New Media. The topics are designed to aid students in gaining extra knowledge in an emerging topic. The course may be repeated for credit if offered under a different topic title. The course is open for NYUAD MFA students. Topics of each course can be found on the syllabus.

Prerequisite: Declared NYU-AD Art & Media MFA student.

“You are what you eat.” We have all heard this truism in one form or another. A more productive approach follows the French gastronome Brillat-Savarin’s famous statement, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” We are how we eat, how we think about what we eat, and how we procure the foods that we eat. Food relates intimately to who we are as individuals and members of families and broader communities, and as a species. What can analysis of food teach us about the construction of meaning, order, and values in our lives? How do patterns in the production, distribution, and consumption of food promote social categorizations such as gender, ethnicity, religion, education, race, status, and class? This will also be a course about the bond between immigrants and street/cheap food and the significance of Abu Dhabi's many cafeterias. It will also be a conversation about bodies, how they move (through music/sport/work/even food), and why they move the way they move. We will go to art spaces, attend public lectures, and take a movement workshop. By the second week, each student will research, design and present a street-related three-course menu as their final project.

This workshop introduces the basic elements of poetry, fiction, and personal narrative with in-class writing, take-home reading and writing assignments, and substantive discussions of craft. The course is structured as a workshop, which means that students receive feedback from their instructor and their fellow writers in a roundtable setting, and that they should be prepared to offer their classmates responses to their work.

People of movement, categorized as migrants, have always fascinated scholars, artists, and writers. Contemporary mainstream discourse about the Gulf has arguably placed a great deal of emphasis on profession, what people do, their social class, and why they came, especially those on the margins. How have these individuals been represented in the Gulf, by whom, what are their stories and where can we find them? The objective of the class is to try and answer these questions, as well as to produce original material in writing workshops, in order to try and address some of these issues, especially representation.

The capstone experience provides seniors with the opportunity to work closely with a faculty mentor and to conduct extensive research on a topic of their choice or engage in an extended creative project. The program consists of a two-part capstone seminar and a year-long individualized thesis tutorial. (Students receive credit for the seminar in the fall and for the project in the spring.) During the fall semester, students define their projects, develop a bibliography, read broadly in their chosen topic, begin their research, and draft a substantial portion of the project.

Prerequisite: LITCW-UH 1000, LITCW-UH 1001, LITCW-UH 1002, LITCW-UH 1003, LITCW-UH 3000, and senior standing

In the spring semester, students continue to work one-on-one with their capstone advisor(s) and to attend the capstone seminar. During the first seven weeks of the term, students develop a full draft of their project, which may include revision and re-articulation of key theoretical and/or aesthetic choices. Students work with their capstone advisor(s) to produce successive drafts of the project. The capstone experience culminates in the public presentation of the capstone project and the defense of the project before a panel of faculty reviewers.

Prerequisite: LITCW-UH 4000

What does it mean to be an “outsider”? Artists, filmmakers, journalists and activists have described and adopted this position for a range of purposes. This FYWS sets out to discover why outsiders are both essential and potentially dangerous. The figure of “the outsider” is often clueless - or in over his head - or ignorant. But ignorance can be liberating, fostering open-mindedness and a chance to weave complexity back into dead narratives. Crucially, analyzing the role of the outsider across a range of texts and cultures will help us question the act of belonging. Biss’s Notes from No Man’s Land will aid in our investigation, as will essays by Binyavanga Wainaina and Suketu Mehta. In order to understand outsiders with adopted countries the course will consider Katherine Boo’s book about Mumbai’s destitute, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Documentaries by Mads Brugger and Joshua Oppenheimer help explore how “the outsider” is sometimes seen as a master manipulator and exploiter. Such readings lead us to ask: who exploits whom?

Prerequisite: Must be a first-year Abu Dhabi student.

What is the relationship between food and food habits, between what is eaten in cities and what people crave, what’s in one day, out the next? This is a class about history and politics, the bond between immigrants and street/cheap food, and the significance of Abu Dhabi's many cafeterias. Students will tackle essays about lobster, food trucks, and ice cream; fiction by surrealists; and films about noodle makers and couscous masters. Drawing on your analysis of these texts, you will be asked to produce several essays in draft and final form in which you make original arguments about Abu Dhabi’s food scene/culture. Fact: there’s little written about Abu Dhabi’s street food. Our goal will be to try to rectify that and to determine how food is connected to the city’s evolving soul. “Street Food” is a class about observation and immersion: you will have mandatory off-campus assignments, requiring you to venture into the city, sample cheap eats, and comment and write about what’s being eaten, what ingredients are most sought after, what’s good, and what’s not.

Prerequisite: Must be a first-year Abu Dhabi student.