All J-Term Field Colloquia must feature thirty hours of in-class instruction and twelve hours of a variety of experiential education, community-based learning, and fieldwork, with the fieldwork activities and related assignments cohesive within the course structure and indispensable for exploring a variety of answers to the colloquium’s core question.
This guide of sample fieldwork activities details how previous field colloquia successfully pursued answers to the course’s guiding question by:
Fieldwork is experiential learning where students generate knowledge with their community context by observing, interviewing, inhabiting, gaining practical skills, and learning how a fieldsite is constructed as both place and object of study. These assignments require students to complete a structured activity with guided instruction and reflection before, during, or immediately after a field visit.
Students visit a leading archive, learn archival techniques and methods of study, and reflect in both a field journal and an 800-word essay on how family documents constitute an archive, are exhibited and shared with the public, and give insight to living histories.
Valentin, "Sensing (Sensitive) Archives" — Berlin
Sensing (Sensitive) Archives: How can archives be understood as dynamic spaces that preserve personal and communal memories, shape narratives, and reflect broader universal concerns? Traditionally, archives have been seen as repositories for storing and classifying historical records. Beyond the physicality of the documents themselves, however, archives contain deeper layers of meaning.
This course examines how archives serve as sanctuaries for memories and narratives, highlighting universal issues such as intolerance, exile, and migration. How can we address archives as subjects in their own right and as constructs of our recollections? Inspired by the contributions of curators, researchers, and artists in Berlin, students will engage with archives of Jewish histories, such as the Jewish Museum and the city itself as living entities. They will explore sensitive questions of remembrance and memorial through photography, writing, and reflection. The course will culminate in a journal of their experiences and a final paper examining how archives serve as sites for addressing sensitive and significant issues
Students research food markets and stalls using ArcGIS Story Map software, including geolocations, photos, videos, and short descriptions. The Story Map is presented on the final day, along with a 4-to-5-page final essay on elements of Mediterranean foodways that arise from analysis of the story map.
Shannon, "Mediterranean Foodways" — Florence
Mediterranean Foodways: Cuisine, Culture, Sustainability: A bottle of olive oil, a basket of warm bread, platters of fresh produce, grilled fish: these are stock images of the Mediterranean diet. Cuisine is an integral part of Mediterranean foodways — attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors associated with food production, preparation, and consumption. How do foodways relate to forms of social difference, including ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality? How do Mediterranean foodways engage with the political, economic, and cultural processes of globalization? What have been the effects of mass migration across the Mediterranean on its foodways? What are some lessons about sustainability that we can learn from the Mediterranean?
Students will explore the intersections of food, culture, and politics through analysis of the Mediterranean diet, food markets, the Slow Food movement, and the challenges of global food production, including sustainability and the problem of food waste. Case studies from around the Mediterranean as well as film viewings and field excursions (including food tastings!), will enable students to appreciate the multiple and contradictory ways traditions are created and recreated in a globalized Mediterranean.
Students identify a site-specific piece of recorded music or sound art, listen closely and repeatedly to the recording, then compose an essay of 400-500 words that addresses the course themes through the selected work.
Daughtry, "Art/Environment/Attention" — Abu Dhabi
Art / Environment / Attention: How do our acts of attention illuminate the world around us? Why do some works of art appear to “call out” to us, and others leave us unmoved? Is our accelerating world of new technologies altering our attention spans? What cultural resources do you bring to the acts of listening, looking, and reading? How can you deepen your creative and critical engagement with the world of which you are a part?
This course will help you reflect upon and expand your powers of attention. We will give primary focus to (a) works of music and visual art and (b) your lived environment, experimenting with different styles of bodily engagement with them, and asking what modes of attention and attunement they enable and require of us. We will listen deeply and repeatedly to a single piece of music, until it becomes as familiar as our own inner voices. We will visit the Louvre and look at a single painting for a prolonged stretch of time. We will spend an afternoon at the water's edge and a day on a sand dune, practicing radical modes of attention to our surroundings.
If you take this course seriously, you will emerge with a powerful set of conceptual tools; a new appreciation for the profound depth, complexity, and expressive richness of artworks and environments; and a refreshed and revitalized attention span that will enrich your scholarly life and the broader world you create, inhabit, and share.
After a field visit to mangrove expansion and restoration projects in the UAE and meetings with UAE-based experts to study blue carbon initiatives, students develop team-based research projects that apply the lessons from the UAE's blue carbon experience to other contexts globally.
Samii, "Governing Tropical Forests and Blue Carbon in the Climate Crisis" — Abu Dhabi
Governing Tropical Forests and Blue Carbon in the Climate Crisis: This course examines how institutions and incentive-based mechanisms can protect and expand carbon-rich ecosystems - tropical forests and coastal "blue carbon" systems, such as mangroves - to address the climate crisis. Deforestation and mangrove destruction contribute significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, while these ecosystems provide critical services for climate mitigation, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Despite multilateral frameworks such as REDD+ and emerging carbon credit markets, conservation efforts face a credibility crisis. Students will explore the global public goods nature of ecosystem protection, local incentives that drive ecosystem loss, climate finance and other strategies for promoting conservation and restoration, and methods for evaluating them.
A unique feature of the course is a field visit to mangrove expansion and restoration projects in the UAE. Students will meet UAE-based experts to study blue carbon initiatives. Using insights from class and the field visits, students will develop team-based research projects that attempt to apply the lessons from the UAE's blue carbon experience to other contexts globally. The course draws on perspectives from economics, political science, international relations, conservation science, and anthropology, and emphasizes mixed-methods research and effective communication of findings.
Students perform a comparative analysis of food markets in the UAE and the host country. They visit a grocery store or market and journal their observations regarding what is for sale, quantities, advertising, and arrangement, and turn this data into a comparative case study on the relationship between consumer behaviors and health.
Parekh, "Commercial Determinants of Health" — Abu Dhabi/Uganda
Commercial Determinants of Health: A Focus on Globalization: Globalization has propelled multinational companies to a prominent role in shaping economies and societies worldwide. They shape cultural norms around food and redefine consumer behaviors.
The course examines the pivotal role of these commercial actors, particularly in the food and alcohol industries, in determining population health outcomes. Through a comparative analysis of the UAE and Uganda, this course explores how corporate strategies impact food systems, food security, and health disparities across diverse socio-economic landscapes.
Students will visit local communities and conduct stakeholder interviews with community leaders and healthcare professionals in both countries. Students will critically analyze strategies, policies, and practices of the food industries and their impact on research sponsorship, public health, health equity, social justice issues, and population-level disease risk. Through case studies relevant to both countries, students will gain insights into the complex relationships between commercial determinants and health, while exploring strategies to promote healthier and more equitable societies.
At the start of the trip, students write a 5-7 page country report based on secondary research on the host site’s history, economy, and culture, the cultural differences they expect to affect their interactions across perceptions of “foreigners,” the issues featuring in the local news, and the etiquette rules there are for daily life. At the end of the trip, students write a 6-8 page firsthand trip report discussing daily experiences and making connections between daily experiences and their implications for global business and professional development.
Narayanan, "Global Business Strategy — Abu Dhabi/Kenya
Global Business Strategy: The main objective of this course is to enrich students’ understanding of variations in the institutional and resource contexts of nations and the impact of these variations on national economic growth, globalization, and the strategic management of multinational firms.
After taking this course, students can expect to become familiar with these basic areas: (1) underlying theories of international business, (2) environmental factors affecting international activities, (3) the management of business functional operations in an international context, and (4) analyzing international situations and developing international growth strategies. These goals will be accomplished through lectures, readings, case analysis, an international trip, and a group project.
The course will also include a visit to Nairobi, Kenya, during which students will be able to observe directly how the institutions and resources there impact how business is done there compared to in other countries. While in Kenya, students will have an opportunity to explore the host country and participate in presentations and discussions with local experts. They will also conduct market research to help them formulate a market entry strategy for their project report.
Students document daily activities and visits to specific sites associated with domestic worker carework and respond to questions focusing on new knowledge gained from the activity, new questions generated, and connections to course readings. These journal entries could include photographs, short videos, hand-drawn sketches, reflections on media articles, notes, etc., amounting to roughly 500-750 words each day (though students could choose to write more if they desired).
Paul, "Care Across Borders" — Abu Dhabi/Singapore
Care across Borders: Migration and Domestic Work: Around the world, the labor of paid and unpaid care is being transformed by global migration flows, in addition to changing demographics, the increasing labor force participation of native women, and the advent of new communication technologies. More and more families are relying on migrant domestic workers to care for children and elderly dependents. But how does this care across borders impact the lives of the migrant domestic workers and their own kin? Who cares for the children these migrants leave behind in their home countries? Is sending financial remittances from overseas to support their left-behind families equivalent to being physically present in their children’s lives? Is the labor of caring for one’s family and other people’s families sufficiently valued (and remunerated) in the twenty-first century? How do migrant domestic workers engage in self- and community-care overseas?
Students will explore these questions by engaging with feminist scholarship on migration, domestic work, and care labor. Students will analyze the care policy regimes in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore to understand how migrant domestic workers engage in transnational carework in these countries and with their families back home, and how their carework is perceived and protected.
Students document and share reports on the living heritage of the country based on fieldwork across the local arts and cultural scene, attending to dominant and contested historical narratives (museums, tribunals, NGOs, UNESCO sites, pop culture). They prepare their research in the form of Wikimedia entries (Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, etc.).
Prim, "Arts for Transformation" — Cambodia
Arts for Transformation: The Case of Cambodia: How can arts and culture drive transformation and healing in post-conflict societies? And how can they contribute to heritage preservation, historical narrative shaping, and contemporary expression in such settings?
This course explores the role of the arts in reconstruction, revitalization, reconciliation, and peacebuilding. We will examine the methods and tools that prove successful and consider why other approaches fail. Using Cambodia's complex history as a case study, we will investigate how shifting narratives, cultural governance, social welfare, and the cultural economy intersect to shape the arts ecosystem. Through meetings with local artists in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap; site visits from the World Heritage site of Angkor temple complex to the Tuol Sleng Genocide museum, students will gain insight into the social, cultural, economic, and political factors that shape and drive Cambodia's dynamic and transformative arts scene.
Students regularly spend one or two hours looking at a single work of art in a museum, writing logs of their time doing so. Logs are time-stamped observations, noted as they occur to the writer. They track the observation and thought process, recording observation and thought about the work, listed as they come. These slow lookings lead to a final 2500-word essay on one of the works.
Zamir, "Slow Looking" — Madrid
Slow Looking: What happens when we decide not to move on to the next thing, but to stay with a work of art for long periods of time, longer than we ever thought possible? In this course, we approach visual art as an invitation to slow looking, an adventure of observation and thought based in receptivity rather than preformulated ideas.
Besides learning a protocol for sustained observation, students will receive intensive training in analytical methods. How do we gather observations without immediately harnessing them into schemas? How do we pass from observations to a set of questions, and then explore those questions? We will, however, explore not only what slow looking can let us see but also what it cannot let us see. In repeated visits to three major museums in Madrid, we will do slow looking in person. Students will engage in discussion of works of art and write frequent short writing assignments. We will also read and analyze essays that exemplify the art of slow looking.
Students design and conduct a research project on a particular aspect of colorism in one of the communities observed in the UAE using participant observation, field notes, interviews, and other forms of qualitative and or quantitative research, complemented with digital research. Students will choose a focus in consultation with the instructor (e.g., global public health, marketing and economy, identity, language, beauty standards).
Touray and Blake, "Colorism Across Global Lines" — Abu Dhabi
Colorism Across Global Lines: Focus Study in the UAE: This course examines colorism as a pervasive form of discrimination that privileges lighter skin tones across and within communities. Students will learn about its historical origins, structural dimensions, and cultural expressions across a range of global contexts. They will explore how colorism operates alongside racism in shaping systems of inequality; how it shapes access to power, economic opportunity, education, and social mobility; and how it intersects with racism, classism, gender discrimination, and nationalism.
Students will engage in fieldwork in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah, interviewing shop owners and community members who engage in skin-lightening practices. They will also conduct site visits to high-end luxury beauty markets and interview service providers about their perceptions of colorism and beauty standards. Students will engage in conversations with community members working on issues of race, labor, and beauty culture in the UAE. For their final project, students will apply their insights to analyze the luxury beauty market, design a counter–colorism advertising campaign, or propose actionable responses to color-based discrimination at local or global levels.
Students visit villages, communities, hospitals, households, etc., then take notes about the dynamics unfolding in the communities. Eventually, students select a chunk of field notes (e.g., from the hospital) and re-elaborate them and draft academic papers or policy reports.
Pesando, "Unequal Childhoods" — Rwanda
Unequal Childhoods: How and why does childhood unfold so differently across societies? This course explores patterns, drivers, and consequences of child development and emerging adolescence comparatively across high- and low-income societies, drawing upon multidisciplinary sources spanning sociology, economics, international development, anthropology, psychology, fiction, and literature.
We first consider the kinds of inequalities that children and adolescents experience at multiple stages of the life course, alongside their drivers and some of the policies enacted to target them. We then turn to case studies from field experiences in the UAE and rural Rwanda. Emphasis will be placed on axes of inequality such as poverty, race/ethnicity, migration status, gender, and disability, as well as on manifestations of unequal trajectories such as low human capital, child malnutrition, demographic factors (e.g., household sizes), teen pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. Students will be able to think critically about the linkages between research, policymaking, and practice in improving child development and successful transitions to adulthood in various contexts, including rural sub-Saharan Africa.
Students collect about 20 examples (photos) of street signs and signboards of private businesses in Modern Standard Arabic and English and examine the frequency of use of language on the sign, the strategy for writing text that contains English and/or Arabic, and the function of information and symbols behind the use of the language. They interview the owners of the stores to better understand language uses. They prepare their analyses in a three-page paper using 12 examples and references to three in-class readings.
Hary, "Language, Religion, and Ethnicity" — Abu Dhabi
Language, Religion, and Ethnicity: What is language? Where is language? What are religion and ethnicity, and how are they connected to language? The seminar offers a linguistic view of religion and ethnicity, investigating some snapshots of the sociolinguistic history, society, and culture of the United States and the Arab world. We will consider the great diversity of communicative systems we encounter both as a source of enrichment for individuals and for the nation as a whole.
Students will be introduced to basic concepts of linguistics with an emphasis on descriptive linguistics and sociolinguistics, examining the relationship between language and religion, language and nationalism, language and power, language and ethnicity, language and gender, language and space (with emphasis on Linguistic Landscape), and language and education. In the course, we will conduct several faculty-guided fieldworks and some Community-based Learning (CBL) Engagement that explore local dialects, language, and heritage, Linguistic Landscape study of selected local neighborhoods, in-depth guided visit of religions in the UAE and their sociolinguistic significance, deep discussions and interactions with “Half Emiratis,” and more.
Students are responsible for delivering a site introduction presentation while abroad, preparing remarks for each visited site, presenting them on-site to locations visited, and connecting these remarks to critical readings and other site visits.
Hilgendorf, "From Athena to Athens, Myths — Past and Present — Abu Dhabi/Greece
From Athena to Athens, Myths — Past and Present: Greece has been associated with several quintessential images promoted to entice tourists: olive groves, the Parthenon, and white-washed buildings on sun-drenched islands. Beneath this branding lies a rich and contentious past inscribed in the country’s architecture, monuments, art, dance, music, poetry, and cuisine. This course introduces students to Greek history and examines myths as templates for understanding the human experience that echoes across cultural boundaries.
Students will examine how myths connect human narratives, social contracts, and expressions of human existence to understand: “Is there a pattern of being and a way of thinking tied to the past, present, and future?” The exploration of Athenian landmarks, history, literature, and culture will challenge students to establish criteria for determining whether these sites and their attached histories have a broader, universal significance. The course explores different approaches to memorialization: the desire to showcase “golden ages,” why and how societies remember the past, how they decide which/whose pasts are worth remembering, and what motivations drive the promotion of specific pasts.
Students write a critical self-interrogation and analysis of one’s racial identity and relationship to Blackness and Anti-Blackness in the host country, using guidance from course readings, presented as a 3-4 page report.
Rogers, "Black like me? A Global Exploration of Race, Colorism, and Racial Identity" — Abu Dhabi
"Black like me?" A Global Exploration of Race, Colorism, and Racial Identity: The question, who am I? is universal across human societies, but it is intimately shaped by sociohistorical and political contexts. In this course, we explore identity questions related to race and Blackness, such as: What is race and how was it constructed? Who is Black and what does it mean to be Black across time and place? How do we learn about ourselves in relation to Blackness (and anti-Blackness)?
Students will engage with multiple texts and materials that explore the subjectivities of racial identity within sociocultural, political, and historical contexts. Through class discussions and activities, journal prompts, and qualitative interviewing, we will reflect on racial structures of a global society “as is” as well as Afro-futurism and “figured worlds” to collectively reimagine who and what we are beyond structures of anti-Black racism. Methodologically, students will practice asking real questions and use critical qualitative methods to design an interview protocol, conduct their own identity-focused interview, and analyze and interpret their data to come to new ways of knowing about themselves, each other, and the world.
Students, in groups of three, each attend a unique approved field visit and deliver a 10-15-minute class presentation about their sensory experience, incorporating appropriate course vocabulary.
Carlos Guedes, "Immersive Experiences: Los Angeles" — Los Angeles
Immersive Experiences: Why have human beings long been driven to push the boundaries of reality and spectacle through immersive experiences? Do immersive environments provide sensorial experiences that extend human perception? What is the impact of immersive technologies on entertainment, education, and communication in the first quarter of the 21st century? Ultimately, how do these environments and technologies condition/enhance/distort our perception of reality?
This course will address these questions by organizing discussions about relevant literature and audiovisual media, complemented by fieldwork consisting of various immersive experiences in Los Angeles, including visits to museums and escape rooms, experiences with Virtual Reality, and an insider look at the film industry in Hollywood.
Groups document the physical conditions, people's lives, and urban interventions in selected alleyways (sikkak) of Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Deliverable: A photo essay (50-100 pictures), a 500-word reflection, and supporting diagrams, maps, and descriptive text.
Alawadi, "Beyond Bigness: The Everyday City" — Abu Dhabi
Beyond Bigness: The Everyday City: How is one to evaluate which urban design ideology to subscribe to, and thus design better environments? What are the different urban design ideals informing the design of cities? How can urban design facilitate everyday encounters?
These questions underscore Jane Jacobs' warning of a global "dark age" in community life. Our neighborhoods are experiencing a collapse in everyday social interactions, sparking a debate about the decay of social life. Planners and designers criticize the excessive over-scaled urbanism seen in post-1990s developments, characterized by grand designs, fragmentation, vast expanses of glass and metal, and a loss of spontaneity within cities. In contrast to the traditional neighborhoods of the pre-1990s era, many new developments lack simplicity and dense physical layouts, which hampers neighborliness. To address this decline, understanding the factors that enable everyday urbanism, a product of good urbanism, is essential.
The course draws perspectives on everyday urbanism from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The course materials and engagement with sites are structured to unravel the complexities of urban design and promote vibrant, interconnected communities.
This set of sample assignments doesn't treat the field site as a mere backdrop. Instead, they help students learn how a location functions as both a subject of academic study and a source of new, community-contextualized knowledge. To achieve this, the assignments combine a structured field activity with guided instruction and reflection exercises.
Interviews can elicit a life biography, request information, follow up on field observations or community activities, or gather qualitative data on viewpoints or opinions. Interviews can take place as conversations or formal meetings conducted one-on-one or in small groups: they build relationships and deepen student understanding of local perspectives and issues.
Students write a short paper (2–3 pages), telling a big history that comes from their own community/site experience through a small, personal story of someone they meet and speak with.
Prim, "Arts for Transformation: The Case of the Mekong Region" — Thailand
Arts for Transformation: The Case of the Mekong Region: You’ve probably had personal experiences where art has changed something inside of you. What power do arts and culture have to transform on a larger scale?
This course looks at the ways that arts and culture are being employed by artists, cultural workers, and communities in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, to contribute to transformation of the Mekong Region. This region is rich in natural resources, comprised of low and middle-income countries with growing economies, and has an important geopolitical position within Asia, including ASEAN, and in relation to China. The region is currently experiencing conflict, urgent environmental issues, and growing social inequality. It has a rich and diverse cultural makeup that has been shaped by empires, colonialism, and globalization.
By meeting artists and exploring the socially-driven, culturally-specific approach to grassroots leadership among creatives in the Mekong Region, you will consider the role of networks and the concept of region in creating alliances across borders. Through a creative process of group and individual work, you will connect these reflections to your own context.
Each student produces a podcast that is an interview with a regional expert, activist, professional, or scholar on an issue pertaining to the region and the course topics.
Sophia Kalantzakos, "The Himalayas" — Abu Dhabi /Nepal
The Himalayas: Geopolitics and Ecology of Melting Mountains: The Himalayas are home to 15,000 glaciers that provide a lifeline for more than 2.5 billion people. While these mountains span geographic boundaries across India, Nepal, China, Bhutan, and Pakistan, sovereign states have sought to territorialize the land, the water, the air, the ecosystems, and the people. The climate crisis has exacerbated regional tensions because, as the Himalayas melt and their water sources diminish, a race to secure access to fresh water is quickly turning into competition.
This course offers a fresh narrative frame for understanding the Himalayan water crisis. Glaciers, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and weather patterns constitute integral parts of the region’s intricate and holistic system of water generated, blocked, and moved through these mountains. The class will examine how the region’s complex water issues are not adequately captured by statist IR theorizations. It will emphasize the roles played by diverse local cultures, regional geopolitics, ecologies, and scientific analyses of earth systems to better understand what constitutes a lifeline for a third of humanity.
Students write a profile of someone they interviewed, connecting that person’s story to a bigger issue in Shanghai discussed in class. The essay should integrate the interview, field notes, class readings, and external research.
Mustamaki, "Shanghai Walks: Tracing the City’s Stories" — Shanghai
Shanghai Walks: Tracing the City’s Stories: Inspired by the rising trend of Chinese Citywalks — a social media phenomenon where young urbanites document slow-paced, observational walks through their cities — this course invites students to explore Shanghai on foot. We'll use the city as our classroom, asking how walking can help us better understand its complexity: what does a street-level view reveal about the city’s histories, rapid changes, and the role of its residents in its story?
Guided by local experts and lecturers, we'll complement our walks by studying theories of urban space and walking, Shanghai's colonial history, and its immigrant groups. As students gain a critical vocabulary for assessing urban issues, they will not only build a deeper understanding of Shanghai but also learn to apply these concepts to their own urban experiences. Students will document their walks through notes, photos, videos, and sound recordings, which will form the basis of a daily social media diary. Alongside an essay based on an interview with a city resident, this assignment is designed to sharpen students' observation and storytelling skills, helping them see how individual stories form the very fabric of the city itself.
Students participate in a walking tour and debriefing session with urban design staff. They write a short essay engaging with class readings and prepare a group presentation on their findings.
Myntti, "Well-Being and the Design of the Built Environment" — Abu Dhabi
Well-Being and the Design of the Built Environment: How do the cities, neighborhoods, and streets where we live affect our well-being? To explore this question, this course will draw on approaches from urban planning and design, psychology and other social sciences, and urban ecology and environmental justice. We will discuss the evolution and definition of the concept of well-being and its increasing use by public officials as both aspiration and metric. We will then examine how the design of the built environment affects well-being through three of its determinants: mobility: how people move from place to place in their daily lives; social connections: the effects on people of pro-social public and communal spaces; and nature contact: the type and extent of contact people have with greenery and the natural world. Assignments will use three areas of Abu Dhabi as case studies.
Students will learn through interactive lectures and classroom discussions and debates; guest lectures; the screening of documentary films; a small ethnographic project on campus; field exercises in two contrasting neighborhoods of Abu Dhabi — a dense older central district and a new suburb; and a design project on Saadiyat Island.
Students interview a Korean in their 20s about their projection of the next 10 years of Korea, and write a critical reflection and analysis incorporating topics discussed in class. The length should be 3-4 pages, excluding the interview transcript.
Jeong and Lee, "From Rags to K-Pop: The Korean Human Resource Story" — South Korea
From Rags to K-pop: The Korean Human Resource Story: How did one of the poorest post-war nations transform into a leading economic and soft power, home to K-pop and K-dramas? This course explores the answer by focusing on South Korea’s most vital resource: its people. Through readings, videos, and an immersive learning experience in Seoul, students will gain a deep understanding of the relationship between a nation's people, culture, and progress.
The course begins at the War Memorial of Korea to trace the nation's rise from post-war devastation. Corporate site visits and guest lectures will provide first-hand experience of early and current Korean human resource (HR) policies, which fueled growth through labor-intensive manufacturing and exports, creating the powerful chaebols (family-controlled conglomerates). Students will assess how these principles were applied to the entertainment industry and culture, contributing to the rise of K-pop, through site visits and analyses of their favorite artists. Finally, the class will examine Korea’s plunging birth rate, a direct threat to its human resources. Students will interview local Koreans to discuss the social impact of K-pop and evaluate the generalizability of the K-pop model to their home culture.
After a tango class, students interview the tango teacher and ask about challenges teachers face (in their business, technique, balancing tasks, finding space); their favorite music, composers; their assessment of tango tourism; their knowledge of tango venues outside Buenos Aires; their thoughts about the evolution of the tango scene. They submit a paper describing their findings and present those in class.
Shasha and Lant, "Tango: Art, History, and Physics" — Buenos Aires
Tango: Art, History, and Physics: What can dance say about national culture? How does a dance emerge, change, and how do we know? This interdisciplinary course on tango explores both its artistic and physical sides, tracing its roots in the port cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, its fusion of African, European, and local influences, and its growth into a global symbol of national identity. We examine tango’s shifting status — from cultural opposition to Argentine national emblem — and its global reach through music, cinema, and performance. In tandem, we study the physical principles embedded in tango’s movement: balance, parsimony, and coordination.
Students will analyze historical and cinematic records of tango and will experiment with a virtual choreographic robot. Fieldwork includes visits to a professional tango show, a tango dance hall, and museum; interviews with dancers; and hands-on tango instruction (optionally without touch); culminating in student-created choreographies performed by a robot. This course invites students to ask: What physical principles define a dance? How does a national culture influence a dance, and how does that dance redefine a nation? And how do culture and motion shape one another?
Assignments involving hypothetical scenarios, structured simulation learning, or debates practice critical thinking and advocacy from different perspectives.
Role: Special Urban Design Consultant. Students propose a dramatic urban design transformation for a 10-block area of Abu Dhabi or Dubai based on course readings and the Chairman’s vision. They deliver a 20–40-slide presentation and a 2,500–3,000-word report (with maps, images, and references).
Alawadi, "Beyond Bigness" — Abu Dhabi
Beyond Bigness: The Everyday City: How is one to evaluate which urban design ideology to subscribe to, and thus design better environments? What are the different urban design ideals informing the design of cities? How can urban design facilitate everyday encounters? These questions underscore Jane Jacobs' warning of a global "dark age" in community life. Our neighborhoods are experiencing a collapse in everyday social interactions, sparking a debate about the decay of social life. Planners and designers criticize the excessive over-scaled urbanism seen in post-1990s developments, characterized by grand designs, fragmentation, vast expanses of glass and metal, and a loss of spontaneity within cities. In contrast to the traditional neighborhoods of the pre-1990s era, many new developments lack simplicity and dense physical layouts, which hampers neighborliness. To address this decline, understanding the factors that enable everyday urbanism, a product of good urbanism, is essential. The course draws perspectives on everyday urbanism from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The course materials and engagement with sites are structured to unravel the complexities of urban design and promote vibrant, interconnected communities.
Students are given a fictional crime to solve as forensic investigators, using facts established from traces left at the scene to deduce what happened and who the murderer was.
George Shubeita, "Forensic Science: Guilty or Not Guilty?" — Abu Dhabi
Forensic Science: Guilty or Not Guilty?: “Every contact leaves a trace.” This phrase, coined by the pioneer of forensic science, Edmond Locard, is the starting point of all forensic investigations. Scientific measurements are used to discover traces left at the crime scene and connect them to a person, an object, or a place. But what is it about science that allows us to make these connections? And how are facts determined by scientific measurements different from those recorded during an interrogation? Does the word ‘fact’ carry the same meaning in the legal system as it does to you or to an experienced scientist?
In this course, students explore these questions while analyzing samples left at a crime scene using biological, chemical, and physical laboratory techniques used in forensics. We explore the underlying scientific principles and analyze adjudicated cases to discuss the capabilities and limitations of forensics, how it relates to the criminal justice system, and its impact on society.
Students prepare arguments for both sides of a debate (e..g, the ethics of eating animals), drawing on fieldwork, and then are randomly assigned to one team or another. They then debate the issue following Oxford-style debate format, then vote on the winning side.
Shannon, "Mediterranean Foodways" — Florence
Mediterranean Foodways: Cuisine, Culture, Sustainability: A bottle of olive oil, a basket of warm bread, platters of fresh produce, grilled fish: these are stock images of the Mediterranean diet. Cuisine is an integral part of Mediterranean foodways — attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors associated with food production, preparation, and consumption. How do foodways relate to forms of social difference, including ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality? How do Mediterranean foodways engage with the political, economic, and cultural processes of globalization? What have been the effects of mass migration across the Mediterranean on its foodways? What are some lessons about sustainability that we can learn from the Mediterranean?
Students will explore the intersections of food, culture, and politics through analysis of the Mediterranean diet, food markets, the Slow Food movement, and the challenges of global food production, including sustainability and the problem of food waste. Case studies from around the Mediterranean, as well as film viewings and field excursions (including food tastings!), will enable students to appreciate the multiple and contradictory ways traditions are created and recreated in a globalized Mediterranean
Role: Journalist. Students take notes during their experiences on the site, experimenting with journalistic techniques (setting scenes, creating news stories) and reflecting on the ethics of research with migrants and refugees, which they then apply towards their final project, an oral presentation of a topic of their choice on migration.
Alami, "Reporting on Migration" — Greece
Reporting (on) Migration: How does media coverage shape migrant experience, representation, and policy development? What are the ethics of reporting on displaced populations? What critical frameworks shape our understanding of how populations in host countries understand the influx of migrants? What roles are played by media and social media in influencing policies and acceptance or rejection of migrant populations?
This course on migration reporting takes as its central case studies the so-called refugee crisis of Syrians in 2015 and compares it with the Ukrainian migration crisis of 2022, examining how media discourse may have impacted the way populations fleeing wars were viewed and responded to. Students will learn techniques of feature writing and discuss journalism ethics. The class includes a seminar in Greece, with the class International Peace-building and Education with Professor Dana Burde, to meet with displaced populations and work in partnership with Refocus Media Labs, an organization that specializes in training refugees in migration reporting. Students will produce a written story while in Greece, in addition to several other writing assignments in Abu Dhabi.
Role: Policymaker. Students, organized into groups with randomly assigned roles (e.g., government, NGO, community member), present policy options and priorities regarding a class issue, drawing evidence from site visits.
Luca Maria Pesando, "Global Education Inequalities and Policies" — Florence
Global Education Inequalities and Policies: How do educational institutions maintain or narrow equalities and inequalities around the world? How can public policies reduce educational inequalities? We first consider the kinds of inequalities that exist in our society, their bases, and some of the policies enacted to target them. We then turn attention to the analysis of educational structures related to the production and maintenance of equalities and inequalities, with concrete examples both from the Italian case and from a range of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The consequences of educational opportunities of recent reform proposals will be discussed, as will the relation of education to occupational opportunities in selected contexts worldwide. At the end of the course, students will be able to think critically about the linkages between research, policymaking, and practice in improving the quality of education in various contexts, especially those in LMICs. The course is interactive, dynamic, and complements lectures and in-class debates with experiential learning such as visits to the oldest university in the world (Bologna) and the UNICEF Innocenti Office of Research (Florence).
These assignments focus on applying course concepts to create professional-level content using media or data analysis tools, including assignments that apply academic learning to real-world community issues or policy development, as well as collaborative problem-solving where students work in teams to innovate site-specific projects.
After visiting the Zayed National Museum traveling exhibit, students complete the following assignment, requested by the Museum’s Audience Engagement Lead: Choose one artifact from our website and, after evaluating that it would be appropriate for a touch tour, draft a mini touch tour text with rich, descriptive language for that object.
Mills, "Disability, Technology, and Media" — Abu Dhabi
Disability, Technology, and Media: Starting from the premise that disability is a social phenomenon, rather than an individual and medical one, this course asks: How does the built environment shape disability? And how might disability studies inform better design? In our seminar discussions, we will consider the significance of media and technology to the definition and experience of disability in a cross-cultural perspective. Topics include: universal and critical design; “assistive technology;” visual rhetorics of disability in photography and film; and disability aesthetics.
Following the principle “nothing about us without us,” we will host lecturers with a range of disability expertise. We will also practice access techniques such as captioning, alt text, plain language, and video description. An overarching question for this course will be how to shift access from a retrofit and compliance issue to a creative practice. An important component of the course is our partnerships with Mawaheb and with Zayed National Museum: each student will complete 12 hours of community-based fieldwork to help these organizations make their exhibitions accessible and the visitor experience welcoming.
Student groups collaboratively design enhancements to the NYU Abu Dhabi campus garden landscape, focusing on design, sustainability, circulation, and plant choices. Deliverable: Oral presentation to clients/stakeholders and a submitted dossier of plans, images, and models.
Mariët Westermann, "Gardens of Eden" — Abu Dhabi
Gardens of Eden: The garden is one of the oldest modes of human intervention in the environment, but what has made it such a productive and enduring symbol and practice? This course explores the garden as a major art form by focusing on pictorial and spatial representations of the Garden of Eden. The Edenic Paradise of Genesis and the Qur’an, where Adam and Eve transgressed against God, gives access to thought about gardens in the ancient Middle East. As a foundational idea in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic theology, the Garden of Eden spawned a history of interpretation that helped differentiate these religions. The history of Eden in the art of the Peoples of the Book is closely entwined with that of garden design, and this seminar examines both.
The course introduces fundamental methods of art history as students examine gardens in ancient Mesopotamia, Medieval Christianity, Arabian courtyards, Renaissance altarpieces, Enlightenment cities, Persian court miniatures, Mughal tomb complexes, and early American towns. Field trips, once public health regulations allow, include outings to gardens and collections in the United Arab Emirates, and the seminar concludes with a collaborative garden design project in Abu Dhabi.
Students learn to make two varieties of pasta, gelato, and/or pizza at a local culinary academy, connected to fieldwork where they visit a food market and interview two vendors. They write a 1000-word essay on how the experience of preparing food deepens their understanding of foodways and the Mediterranean.
Shannon, "Mediterranean Foodways" — Florence
Mediterranean Foodways: Cuisine, Culture, Sustainability: A bottle of olive oil, a basket of warm bread, platters of fresh produce, grilled fish: these are stock images of the Mediterranean diet. Cuisine is an integral part of Mediterranean foodways — attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors associated with food production, preparation, and consumption. How do foodways relate to forms of social difference, including ethnicity, gender, class, and nationality? How do Mediterranean foodways engage with the political, economic, and cultural processes of globalization? What have been the effects of mass migration across the Mediterranean on its foodways? What are some lessons about sustainability that we can learn from the Mediterranean?
Students will explore the intersections of food, culture, and politics through analysis of the Mediterranean diet, food markets, the Slow Food movement, and the challenges of global food production, including sustainability and the problem of food waste. Case studies from around the Mediterranean as well as film viewings and field excursions (including food tastings!), will enable students to appreciate the multiple and contradictory ways traditions are created and recreated in a globalized Mediterranean.
Students participate in STATA statistical software and data analysis workshops to prepare for final projects analyzing data on global poverty collected through guided fieldwork.
Morgan Hardy, "Research Design, Fieldwork, and Data Analysis for Development Economics" — Accra
Research Design, Fieldwork, and Data Analysis for Development Economics: Close to 1 billion of the world’s population live on less than what is effectively two US dollars a day. A child born in Sub-Saharan Africa is nearly 10 times more likely to die as an infant than a child born in the United States, largely of biologically preventable illnesses. Nearly 70 percent of the world’s poor aged 15 and over are illiterate. Are these facts necessary? What has and is being done to change them?
Topics in development economics are concerned with the pursuit of understanding facts and questions like these. This is a challenging introductory course for college students who are motivated to learn more about what can be done in the fight against global poverty. Through a busy few weeks of immersive learning, students will achieve basic skill development in research design, fieldwork, and data analysis for development economics.
After studying concrete batching and casting, robotic formwork fabrication, and mock-ups of precast elements at production facilities, students participate in simple tests of deflection and strength of advanced concrete types like UHPC produced in Abu Dhabi.
Mohamed Moustafa, "Concrete: From Roman to 3D Printing" — Abu Dhabi
Concrete: From Roman to 3D Printing: Concrete is the most consumed material on Earth after water, yet it is also a major contributor to global CO2 emissions. Despite modern advancements in cement and concrete technologies, the remarkable durability of ancient Roman concrete — used in structures like the Pantheon and Colosseum, which have lasted millennia — continues to outperform today's material. Can lessons from Roman concrete help us balance durability with the urgent need for sustainability in modern construction, including innovations like 3D concrete printing?
Through field visits to cement and prefabricated concrete factories in Abu Dhabi, along with hands-on experience in 3D concrete printing, students will examine the engineering, environmental, and economic implications of concrete production. They will also explore contemporary efforts to create more sustainable alternatives, including the use of recycled materials, low-carbon binders, and bio-based solutions. For their final projects, students will design and print concrete prototypes and will be asked to demonstrate how this technology can accelerate construction and reduce waste and carbon footprint of concrete structures.
Groups develop a growth strategy for an assigned local company, outlining its strategic situation, competitive advantages, major challenges, and a 3–5 year strategic plan. Deliverable: Presentation slides (with detailed notes) in class, with no written report required.
Narayanan, "Global Business Strategy" — Abu Dhabi/Kenya
Global Business Strategy: The main objective of this course is to enrich students’ understanding of variations in the institutional, and resource contexts of nations and the impact of these variations on national economic growth, globalization, and the strategic management of multinational firms.
After taking this course, students can expect to become familiar with these basic areas: (1) underlying theories of international business, (2) environmental factors affecting international activities, (3) the management of business functional operations in an international context, and (4) analyzing international situations and developing international growth strategies. These goals will be accomplished through lectures, readings, case analysis, an international trip, and a group project.
The course will also include a visit to Nairobi, Kenya, during which students will be able to observe directly how the institutions and resources there impact how business is done there compared to in other countries. While in Kenya, students will have an opportunity to explore the host country and participate in presentations and discussions with local experts. They will also conduct market research to help them formulate a market entry strategy for their project report.
Students engage in a series of intentional living practices (e.g., modifications in technology, verbal communication, food) and practice guided mindfulness practices, connecting the experience to the site.
Hussain, "Being Here" — Abu Dhabi/Nepal
Being Here: How have spiritual guides and devotees in various religious traditions conceptualized presence and mindfulness, nature of the soul, purpose of life, suffering, and joy? This course provides students with an experience of the daily life of mystics and monks committed to a spiritual path and ascetic ways of being. It will include daily reflective journaling, reading, and a final paper.
To optimize the experience, each student will commit to a series of conditions of intentional living across religious traditions, which include modifications in technology, verbal communication, attire, and food. Students will study poetry and other writings, meditations, and prayers to provide insight into the metaphysical reality experienced by those who have committed themselves to lifelong contemplative living. Through experiential inquiry and intercultural encounters, students enter an intentional way of life to discover the mysteries and depths of these questions and have the rare opportunity to embody the timeless spiritual maxim, “be in the world but not of it."
Students participate in a masterclass and recording session with a professional musician and complete and write a one-page pre-masterclass plan of action and a post-masterclass one-page evaluation.
Matteo Marciano, "Tone Meister: The Pursuit of Perfect Sound — Rome
In an era where technology has exponentially increased our capacity to manipulate sounds, pursuing the 'perfect' sound has become a central concern for musicians, sound engineers, producers, and audiophiles.
Who gets to define perfect sound? How do individual tastes and preferences play into the idea of perfect sound? How have cultural and historical contexts shaped the evolution of our understanding of sonic perfection? Students will explore these questions in the classroom and in some of the world's most renowned recording studios. From the state-of-the-art recording studio at NYU Abu Dhabi to the historic Loa District Studio in Rome and Firdaus Studio in Dubai, students will have the opportunity to work alongside musicians of the caliber of Ennio Morricone's orchestra and collaborate with Grammy Award-winning music makers. Through guided projects, students will create a collection of recorded works, detailed analysis, and documentation, all demonstrating proficiency and a deeper understanding of sound.
These hands-on experiences will introduce students to the real-world application of making music, leaving students with a deeper understanding of the intangible nature of sonic perfection.
Students write a memo (maximum 1,500 words) proposing a strategy to use USD 200,000 to improve the digital ecosystem of the field site. The memo must include a robust justification, a theory of change, and a fully formatted APA bibliography.
Nothias, "African Perspectives on Data and Technology" — Rwanda
African Perspectives on Data and Technology: Why do digital technologies entrench global inequalities, and how might they also offer opportunities for alternative futures, local creativity, and appropriation? This class shifts the focus from the usual narratives on data and technology, which tend to revolve around Silicon Valley and its renowned tech innovators, to African contexts. It aims to understand, conceptualize, and analyze data and digital technologies through an African lens. We will rethink the temporality of the digital revolution by looking at the history of fiber optic undersea cables in Africa. We will consider how people consume data differently in rural contexts where access to the Internet is expensive. And we will discuss who is a tech worker in Africa, from software engineers and tech start-up entrepreneurs to gig economy workers, content moderators, and data annotators. The course involves readings by anthropologists, communication scholars, STS scholars, and political analysts; site visits; and encounters with technologists, social entrepreneurs, and activists in Rwanda.
Students work with experts to learn techniques for the preservation, public archaeology, and management of material culture through visits to the Sharjah Archaeological Museum and the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum.
Greco, "The Shaping of Identity" — Abu Dhabi
The Shaping of Identity: Past and Future of Egyptological Collections: Museum collections are often perceived as static entities hidden away in storerooms or trapped behind showcases. By focusing on the dynamic histories of museum collections, new research reveals their pivotal role in shaping a wide range of social relations. Over time and across space, the interactions between these artefacts and the people and institutions who made, traded, collected, and exhibited them have generated complex networks of material and social agency.
This class will draw on a broad range of source materials to explore the cross-cultural interactions that have created museum collections. As European nation-states came of age in the nineteenth century, museums and archaeology played critical roles in constructing each nation’s ideas of its distinctive heritage and identity. A theoretical overview of those historical elements will be at the basis of a more conscious reflection on the role of contemporary museums, both in Europe and in the Gulf area. How do museums deal with their history? How to define their identity? What is their future? How should a museum tackle ethical issues?
Using Stellarium software, students work in pairs to examine the 15th-century CE texts of Ibn Majid. Using these texts, students test the strengths and weaknesses of 15th-century navigational practices by analyzing case studies and their application to Indian Ocean navigation. Students produce a project report and will present their findings to the class.
Sharfman and Staples, "Maritimity and Global Societies: Arabian Seafarers and the Making of the Modern World" — Abu Dhabi
Maritimity and Global Societies: Arabian Seafarers and the Making of the Modern World: What does it mean to be maritime? How have oceans and seafaring shaped the ways people, ideas, and cultures have connected across time and space?
This course investigates ocean interconnectedness and early globalization within the framework of the Islamic maritime realm. We explore how maritime history from the Bronze Age to the present shaped the modern world and investigate how “maritimity” — the ways in which human societies engage with the sea — was the catalyst and facilitator for social change. We study how Arabian seafarers spread ideas, religions, technologies, goods, and ways of life, and discover global identities and cultures made possible by connectivity and fragmentation.
Through fieldwork in Abu Dhabi, we will learn celestial navigation and analyze ancient star maps to reflect on how sailors conceptualized the seas and coasts around them. Finally, using traditional recording methods and photogrammetry, we will document ship structure to understand the technologies that made a globalized world possible, and appreciate how each vessel embodies the “maritimity” of five millennia.
Groups of five students co-design and deliver the learning objectives for a week's lesson, applying course concepts and fieldwork insights. Students turn in a team-submitted lesson plan, discussion prompts, and teaching materials (e.g., PowerPoint).
Nancy Gleason, "The Purposes of Public Education" — Abu Dhabi/London
Purposes of Public Education: What are the purposes of public schools, and how have they changed over time and across nations? In this experiential course, we will consider what should be taught, who should teach, and who should operate schools. Nearly all nations have developed universal, free, primary and secondary school systems. Schools are typically publicly funded and operated, providing citizens with basic literacy and numeracy. Schools are also expected to help produce other outcomes — moral and virtuous human beings, productive workers, and informed citizens able to participate in national governance.
Students’ own-country perspectives will be drawn upon to compare and contrast public schooling across contexts, colonial experiences, and prejudice within various systems. The course will consider what actions associated with SDG #4 and SDG #5 can be taken to increase positive experiences and meaningful learning in public school systems. Considerations of whether new technology, demographic shifts, and global economic changes necessitate a fundamental rethinking of the purpose of public education.
Students gather data from samples they collect from seawater or from data collected by various instruments on the ship. This data is graphed and interpreted in correlation with basic physical parameters, such as temperature or salinity, as well as abundance of plastic fragments. The grade for the lab report is based on the students’ drafting a complete protocol of their projects’ sample/data/footage collection and analysis.
Amin, "Blueprint for Ocean Conservation" — Greece
Blueprint for Ocean Conservation: How can scientific research help protect our oceans? As climate change intensifies, marine ecosystems face growing threats, and conventional conservation approaches often fall short. This field course explores how targeted, data-driven research can support effective marine conservation with tangible short- and long-term outcomes.
Aboard the research vessel Triton, students will work alongside the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, a Greek NGO committed to protecting Mediterranean biodiversity through science and local engagement. Traveling between five Aegean islands, students will use scientific tools to monitor dolphin and whale populations, map seagrass meadows and coralligenous reefs, assess microplastic pollution, and measure carbon sequestration. Fieldwork will be paired with discussions with island communities on biodiversity and traditional sustainability practices. Set in one of Europe’s last marine biodiversity hotspots, this course offers an immersive blueprint for linking ocean science with community-driven conservation.
Creative media, including audio, video, and written narrative as well as performance, allow students to process and communicate their fieldwork experiences and studies.
Teams prepare and present a creative expression (e.g., performance, photo slideshow, sculpture, sound sample) for a class festival, contextualizing the work and demonstrating critical engagement with the site.
Prim, "Arts for Transformation: The Case of the Mekong Region" — Cambodia
Arts for Transformation: The Case of the Mekong Region: You’ve probably had personal experiences where art has changed something inside of you. What power do arts and culture have to transform on a larger scale? This course looks at the ways that arts and culture are being employed by artists, cultural workers, and communities in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, to contribute to transformation of the Mekong Region. This region is rich in natural resources, comprised of low and middle-income countries with growing economies, and has an important geopolitical position within Asia, including ASEAN, and in relation to China. The region is currently experiencing conflict, urgent environmental issues, and growing social inequality. It has a rich and diverse cultural makeup that has been shaped by empires, colonialism, and globalization. By meeting artists and exploring the socially-driven, culturally-specific approach to grassroots leadership among creatives in the Mekong Region, you will consider the role of networks and the concept of region in creating alliances across borders. Through a creative process of group and individual work, you will connect these reflections to your own context.
Students create their own myth rooted in the personal experience of a site visit and using course readings, written with a partner.
Hilgendorf, "From Athena to Athens, Myths Past and Present" — Greece
From Athena to Athens, Myths - Past and Present: Greece has been associated with several quintessential images promoted to entice tourists: olive groves, the Parthenon, and white-washed buildings on sun-drenched islands. Beneath this branding lies a rich and contentious past inscribed in the country’s architecture, monuments, art, dance, music, poetry, and cuisine.
This course introduces students to Greek history and examines myths as templates for understanding the human experience that echoes across cultural boundaries. Students will examine how myths connect human narratives, social contracts, and expressions of human existence to understand: “Is there a pattern of being and a way of thinking tied to the past, present, and future?” The exploration of Athenian landmarks, history, literature, and culture will challenge students to establish criteria for determining whether these sites and their attached histories have a broader, universal significance. The course explores different approaches to memorialization: the desire to showcase “golden ages,” why and how societies remember the past, how they decide which/whose pasts are worth remembering, and what motivations drive the promotion of specific pasts.
Students write an essay or short story (2–3 pages or 800 words) inspired by an encounter they had in the field site (e.g., with wildlife, plants), considering emotional and ecological interstices.
Doshi and Dattatri, "Eco-Poetics" — Abu Dhabi/India
Ecopoetics: In the Land of the Tiger: What is the relationship between self and nature? How do we make ourselves at home in the world when the idea of home is continually under threat? In this age of the Anthropocene, how can literature and art-making respond to the global challenges we face?
This multidisciplinary course will explore the intersections between ecology, conservation, film, and literature. In an immersive experience in the Western Ghats of India, one of the most biogeographically unique places on the planet, and home to over 800 wild tigers, we will observe wildlife and understand the challenges of conservation in a country teeming with 1.4 billion people.
Alongside trips to the Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka and walks in ancient Shola forests, we will explore traditions of literature that offer a unique frame of humans in nature that go beyond mere pastoralism. The final part of the course will call for an eco-poetic reflection — an exploration of a topic (oral and written) that has elements of both the ecological and the lyric, emanating from an encounter of our time in the landscape of the Western Ghats.
Students present original work to an audience and elicit and generate knowledge from experiential learning environments and community context engaged learning that help bring critical reflection to experience.
Khoury, "Encountering Art Live" — London
Encountering Art Live: How is artistic work transformed through its encounter with an audience, and how can we create art in innovative forms with the audience’s journey in mind? Live Art, an umbrella term for various art mediums centered on the live encounter with the audience, originated with working-class artists of color who found themselves unrepresented in the predominantly white, gallery-based performance art world. This innovative art form resists definition, functioning as a research engine that constantly reinvents itself and operates outside mainstream aesthetics and the art economy.
This course explores Live Art in the UK — a key center for its development and recognition — introducing students through site visits and artist meetings to iconic spaces such as Shunt, BAC, and Forest Fringe, as well as influential works in one-on-one performance, instruction-based pieces, auto-teatro, sound walks, and more. Students will create their own live artworks (in small groups), experimenting with unusual forms and spaces, while interacting with “liveness.” Thinking with Live Art leads us to consider the political responsibility inherent in inviting people to bear witness to an artistic or political action.
Students design a creative project using the UR5 robot that can take any form (music, performance, visual art, or a functional task) as long as it showcases thoughtful interaction between human and machine. They share and present their project in class.
Moore, "Creative Robotics and Tech" — Paris
Creative Robotics and Tech: What will the future of human-robot interaction look like? How does embodied movement shape the way we design, understand, and collaborate with machines? This course explores how technology and movement intersect to fuel research and creative practice. As Einstein said, “Play is the highest form of research.”
Students will gain hands-on experience integrating robotics and emerging tech into artistic exploration—no prior experience required. We'll go behind the scenes of cutting-edge robotic filming tools, examine current human-robot collaborations, view a performance by the Nice Opera Ballet at La Seine Musicale in Paris, and examine the latest robot ballet project.
Students design, prototype, and install a temporary, site-specific, small-scale intervention that explores the symbolic and spatial dimensions of national dress. The assignment concludes with each team presenting their intervention in a class exhibition, with documentation (photos, video) and a concise exhibition text.
Alawadi, "Dressing the Nation" — Abu Dhabi
Dressing the Nation: What can national dress reveal about identity, belonging, and power? How is it shaped, preserved, or reimagined — and is it fashion or something else entirely? While centered on the Emirati National Dress, the course explores how national dress emerges, becomes standardized, and adapts to shifting urban, environmental, and social conditions.
Special attention is given to the crafts that underpin Emirati dress — embroidery, weaving, scenting — and their cultural and symbolic significance across men’s and women’s attire. We also examine the contemporary economies of craft, from local artisanal practices to global fashion systems, considering how tradition is preserved, commodified, or reinterpreted — and the tensions that may arise, including appropriation, dilution, or loss of meaning.
Through debates, design experiments, and fieldwork with local organizations, designers, and artisans, students will produce a final exhibition and develop a nuanced understanding of the evolving relationship between Emirati dress, craft, design, and fashion.
Groups create video diaries (e.g., Instagram Reel, TikTok) of their journey, including recordings, sound field compositions, video, and host a 10–15 minute presentation.
Matteo Marciano, "Sound, Technology, and Emotion" — Los Angeles
Sound, Technology, and Emotions: How do we connect with sound? What roles can sound play in cognition and emotion? How can sound affect our moods? How does technology impact our experience of music? How can recording technologies enhance the impact of sound on the brain in the production of affect? One goal of the entertainment industry is to connect emotionally with audiences, and the medium most used to strengthen this connection is sound. Knowledge of music, acoustics, computer science, and psychology allows music technologists to create effective soundscapes in various contexts.
This course focuses on the role of sound as a narrative medium to evoke emotional responses in cinema. Students will engage with research in psychology, neuroscience, acoustics, and other fields, while acquiring skills in field recording, multitrack sound editing, post-production, and musical acoustics. Using their phones and free downloadable software, students will create an immersive sonic storyboarding of the city of Los Angeles based on their field recordings from multiple locations in the city.
