A topics course is one that is not regularly offered at the University of Lethbridge. Departments may use topics courses to try out a new course that they are considering regularizing, or for faculty to offer courses related to their research. Series courses are a group of courses within a certain genre and the offering changes every semester. You may take multiple topics and series courses for credit as long as each offering is distinct (i.e. having significantly different titles).
If you have any questions about topics courses, please contact the Fine Arts Advising Office (W660).
2023-2024 | Topics/Series Courses
ART
Introduction to Ceramic Art
ART 2850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course will explore approaches to working with ceramic materials in a fine arts context. Basic construction methods and surface design techniques will be taught alongside discussions of contemporary theoretical approaches to working with ceramics. Special attention will be given to assisting students with strategies for incorporating ceramics into their individual art practices.
DRAMA
Drama in Education
DRAM 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
An investigation of foundational teaching principles and techniques to create theatre with children and youth that embrace positive and inclusive class management skills. This investigation will explore age‐effective, dynamic theatrical styles used as a tool to incorporate curriculum or specific content, with an emphasis on fostering artist empowerment in young people.
Prerequisites: Education 2500 AND Admission to the Pre-BFA-Drama/B.Ed, Pre-BA (Drama)/BEd, BFA-Drama/B.Ed, BA (Drama)/B.Ed, or permission of the instructor.
NOTE: Students planning on enrolling in Drama 3850 - Theatre in Education are advised to contact the course instructor for additional details about this course offering.
Sharing Story: Indigenous-led Theatre Creation with Making Treaty 7
DRAM 3850 B
3.0 Credit Hours
Making Treaty Seven Cultural Society (MT7) is an Indigenous-led, settler-supported theatre company. Participants in this course will work collaboratively with members of MT7 to generate content that will be used in a new theatre production, which will be staged by the Drama department in Fall 2023. Students from any major are welcome, no previous theatre experience is required.
Prerequisites: Completion of 15 University courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
NOTE: Students planning on enrolling in Drama 3850 - Sharing Story: Indigenous-led Theatre Creation with Making Treaty 7 are advised to contact the course instructor for additional details about this course offering.
Shakespeare for the Intimidated
DRAM 3850 Y (Calgary Campus)
3.0 Credit Hours
A performance-based approach to the study of Shakespeare. We will engage in a variety of activities and presentations to make the text relevant and bring it to life. We will view and analyze stage and film productions of the plays as well as study their historical context.
Prerequisites: Completion of 15 University courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours) or admission to the Post Diploma program.
FINE ARTS
Study Tour: Myth and Theatre Festival, France
FA 3200 A
3.0 Credit Hours
Studio based study in voice performance and choreographic with Pantheatre at the Myth and Theatre Festival in Thoiras, France. In preparation for training at the festival, students will participate in three preparatory classes in Lethbridge with the instructor.
Prerequisites: Drama 2320 AND Permission of Faculty.
NEW MEDIA
The Human Side of Interaction
NMED 2850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This is an interdisciplinary course to survey and examine the theories and applications of Human Factors research and their implementations in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) related interaction design. The students will be introduced to a broad range of topics including historical reviews, influential theories, industry and market trends, and practical methodologies via introductory lectures and project-based learning reinforcements. They will be challenged to expand their understandings of today’s world of design and technology by taking a closer look at the key considerations of human factors behind real products in our daily life. This course will cover the interrelations between subcategories of such studies, and their impacts to our society and our daily life. The students will acquire an in-depth understanding to the importance of these topics, especially when it comes to their impacts on human-computer-interaction (HCI) based New Media design.
Prerequisite: Second-year standing (a minimum of 30.0 credit hours)
ART
Textile Art Studio (Embodied Textiles)
ART 3015 A
3.0 Credit Hours
Textile Art Studio (Embodied Textiles) will provide experience in a wide range of fibre material practices through hands-on workshops. Students will engage in a series of thematic projects in textile art with a focus on the embodied, performative and communicative aspects of textiles.
Prerequisite(s): Four of: [Art 2005 or Art 2006], Art 2010, Art 2015, Art 2023, Art 2027, Art 2033, [Art 2060 or Art 2061], or Art 2350/Indigenous Studies 2350 AND 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
Painting the Body
ART 3015 A
3.0 Credit Hours
Painting the Body is a studio-based course that will explore ideas of the body and embodiment as thematic subjects within contemporary art. Materials and process will be based in observational painting, drawing, and mixed media approaches. Students will explore the figure as subject through art historical context in a variety of ways, include life-drawing from the model, working from photo-based sources, self-portraiture, and alternative forms of observation and imagery.
Prerequisite(s): Four of: [Art 2005 or Art 2006], Art 2010, Art 2015, Art 2023, Art 2027, Art 2033, [Art 2060 or Art 2061], or Art 2350/Indigenous Studies 2350 AND 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
Senior Studio I & II
ART 4048 & 4049
6.0 Credit Hours
The following instructors will be available as supervising faculty members for the above mentioned classes in Fall 2023:
- Miguel Solis
Students who register for these courses will interview with each of the supervising faculty members to determine which faculty member will be their instructor of record. Students must ensure they are registered in the correct section of the course with their assigned instructor by the end of the add/drop period.
History of Photography
ARHI 3151
3.0 Credit Hours
This is a historical thematic introduction to the history of photography. We will discuss a wide variety of approaches to the medium so as to consider how and why photography has become such a fundamental visual communcative medium over the past 160 years. Art-related photography will be central, but the class will also deal with photography situated in the broader culture. Photography is a constant in our everyday life, and this course will concentrate on deciphering the significance of these images that surround us.
Prerequisite(s): Art History 1002 or Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Critical Issues in Contemporary Indigenous Art
ARHI 3152 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course examines current critical issues in contemporary Indigenous art and visual culture from across the settler-colonial areas of North American, as well as Australia and New Zealand. We will explore how Indigenous arts are understood in the communities in which they are made, how indigenous artworks have been understood in Western art historical discourse and museum exhibitions, as well as the relationship between “historic” and “contemporary” indigenous arts. This course will investigate the recent role of indigenous art in the questioning of identity and self-representation, decolonization, sovereignty, self-determination, and anti-colonial resistance. The course will rely heavily on course readings and class participation, structured like a seminar it is organized both thematically and geographically in order to address the specific concerns of the land, visual culture, survivance, and Indigeneity
Prerequisite(s): One of Art History 1001, Art History 1002, or Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
DRAMA
Screen Acting: Theory and Analysis
CINE 4850 / DRAM 4850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
A study of major stylistic approaches to performance throughout the history of film, television, and other media, and an overview of prominent theories that focus on the work of screen actors. Students will acquire specialized means of understanding screen actors’ expressive capabilities, and the methods to critically examine actors’ performances through close, formal analysis.
Prerequisite: Cinema 1000 or Drama 1000 AND third year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Production and Stage Management
DRAM 3821 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This is a nuts & bolts course covering the basic hard and soft skills required in the fields of stage and production management. Topics include: leadership and management, communication, creative problem solving, facilitation, teamwork. Through classroom learning, learning through production, and special projects, we will investigate the path to being artful collaborators in support of dramatic story-telling.
MUSIC
Guitar Ensemble
MUSE 1850 N
1.5 Credit Hours
Guitar is a versatile instrument capable of rhythm, harmony, and melody. Combining multiple guitar players into a group, all playing together, is quite an awesome experience. Guitar students very rarely get the ensemble experience that band, and orchestra instruments do.
Guitar ensembles are intended to give students the opportunity to enhance skills they develop in weekly lessons. Ensembles allow them to further improve sight-reading, listening skills, perform unique repertoire and more, in addition to the social advantages of camaraderie with others.
Open but not limited to Music major guitar students, students coming from other courses, faculties, or adults who wish to be challenged by a more advanced guitar ensemble repertoire are welcome.
Prerequisite: Audition
History of Rock and Roll to 1970
MUSI 3200 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course is designed to give the student a historical overview of the development of rock ‘n roll from its roots up until the end of the 60’s. This will be presented in a chronological manner, beginning with a brief overview of rock ‘n roll’s ancestors and influences. It will go on to study the musical and cultural melting pot of the 1950’s, followed by the effects of the British Invasion of the 60’s. A discussion of developments occurring in North America following the British Invasion will be the culminating point of this class.
Prerequisite: 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours) - as per calendar
Equivalent: Music 3200 – History of Rock and Roll: 1948-1970
NOTE: Not counted in the 16-course Arts & Science major or the core courses in the B.Mus. degree.
NOTE: Students with credit in Music 2850 (History of Rock ‘n Roll), 2850 (3850) (Popular Music in the 20th Century) or 3010 cannot receive credit for the same offering in the Music 3200 series.
NOTE: Credit is not allowed for MUSI 3200 - History of Rock & Roll to 1970 and MUSI 3200 History of Rock and Roll: 1948-1970 or MUSI 3200 – History of Rock and Roll
History of Jazz
MUSI 3200 B
3.0 Credit Hours
This course provides a comprehensive overview of jazz history, covering the major jazz styles and important musicians that have pioneered this music. We will trace jazz from its infancy, beginning in New Orleans and will highlight how this music has developed through the years and has grown into various sub-genres. Some of the styles that will be covered include: Early Jazz, Swing Era, Bebop, Cool and Fusion. Other topics will include learning important jazz terminology, becoming acquainted with the preeminent jazz artists within each style and most importantly analyzing how jazz has evolved and inspired other music genres since early in the twentieth-century.
Prerequisite: 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
NOTE: Not counted in the 16-course Arts and Science Music major or the core courses in the B.Mus. degree.
Indigenous Musics
MUSI 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course introduces students to a selection of Indigenous musics and musicians, considering ways in which music articulates and shapes issues of tradition and modernity; place and belonging; protest and resistance; power and intercultural relations; and sovereignty, resurgence, refusal, and self-determination.
Prerequisite(s): 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours) Note: Credit is not allowed for Music 3850 - Indigenous Musics and Music 2850 - Introduction to Indigenous Musics
Aesthetic Noise: Noise in Audio Art Making
MUSI 4850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
Disruptive, disturbing, dangerous, and unwanted are all adjectives that are commonly attributed to the word noise. Though generally interpreted as negative, the artist can reveal additional possibilities of noise by using it as an artistic material. When used aesthetically, it is possible for noise to communicate the ineffable. However, to gain an understanding of noise in this context, it will need to be filtered through multiple philosophies. In this course, we will explore the works of various artists who use noise as an anesthetic material and then filter the works through classical and continental philosophies to better understand noise’s potential. In doing so, we find that in the hands of an artist, noise can become a call for justice, symbolize trauma and be a mechanism for its discharge. It can also be a means of emotional and spiritual expansion. Noise presents nearly limitless possibilities when used aesthetically. In addition to exploring works and philosophies of noise, the student will create a work of noise drawing inspiration from the materials covered in class.
Prerequisite: Completion of 25 university-level courses (75.0 credit hours) with a major offered by the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Recommended Background: Experience with a digital audio workstation would be an asset.
NEW MEDIA
Emerging Video Technology
NMED 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
A studio intensive in moving image creation. Students are encouraged to pursue new innovations in video creation including immersive installation, 360° video, projection mapping and video applications for augmented and virtual reality.
Prerequisites: New Media 2030 or Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours) and a skills based assessment.
Documentary Video Production
NMED 3850 C
3.0 Credit Hours
An introduction to the art and craft of documentary video creation. Students will explore the techniques and strategies used in making compelling documentary video including research, storytelling, videography and post-production. Through studio practice, students will gain an understanding of documentary and its complicated role in contemporary media.
Prerequisites: NMED 2030
. ART
Performance Art
ART 3015 B
3.0 Credit Hours
This course will provide an introduction to performance art. Blending analysis of works by foundational and contemporary performance artists with hands-on embodied performance practice development, this course aims to give an overview of the history and practice of this complex form of meaning-making and question-asking. We will look at a range of works, focusing on contributions by artists who consider questions of gender, race and sexuality, power, place and institution through their performance work. The course will revisit canonical works by founding members of Indigenous and feminist movements from the 60s onward, as well as contemporary contributions from various queer, Black and Latinx cultural movements found globally. In performance workshops students will focus on core skills of performing using the body, gravity and time. Through a tacit process of experimentation, giving/receiving feedback, and project revision, students can expect to create works that examine intersections of performance with video, audio, object and site-specific influences.
Prerequisite: Four of: [Art 2005 or Art 2006], Art 2010, Art 2015, Art 2023, Art 2027, Art 2033, [Art 2060 or Art 2061], or Art 2350/Indigenous Studies 2350 AND 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
Senior Studio I & II
ART 4048 & 4049
6.0 Credit Hours
The following instructors will be available as supervising faculty members for the above mentioned classes in Spring 2023:
-
Annie Martin
Students who register for these courses will interview with each of the supervising faculty members to determine which faculty member will be their instructor of record. Students must ensure they are registered in the correct section of the course with their assigned instructor by the end of the add/drop period.
Gender, Sexuality, and Visual Culture
ARHI 4150 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course aims to enable students to think critically about historical and contemporary visual representations of gender. In class students will read and examine a range of feminist, critical race, post-colonial, and queer theories to study the ways that gender, sexuality, race, and class have been taken up in visual representation. Students will explore ideas about representation, spectatorship, and the production of meaning in relation to issues of social difference. Students will examine and analyze gendered and sexualized images through the media, popular culture, and historical and contemporary art from an intersectional perspective to ask: How does visual culture shape historical and contemporary articulations of gender and sexuality? How do the power relations in specific socio-political contexts inform these representations?
Prerequisite: One of ARHI 1001 or ARHI 1001, and third-year standing (60.0 credit hours)
DRAMA
Narrative Development and Pre-Production
CINE 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
An exploration of script writing and the creative, technical, and logistical aspects of project development and pre-production for narrative short films and episodic web series.
Prerequisite: New Media 3420
Production and Stage Management
DRAM 3821 B
3.0 Credit Hours
This is a nuts & bolts course covering the basic hard and soft skills required in the fields of stage and production management. Topics include: leadership and management, communication, creative problem solving, facilitation, teamwork. Through classroom learning, learning through production, and special projects, we will investigate the path to being artful collaborators in support of dramatic story-telling.
Waking Death Through Art
DRAM 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
Can the Covid-19 pandemic become a turning point for our cultural approach to death, dying, and grief? What perspectives can the artistic imagination offer the inevitability that awaits us all? This course combines research and creative practice as a mode of inquiry into the vast subject of death. Open to all Drama Department and Faculty of Fine Arts students.
Prerequisite: 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours) in a Faculty of Fine Arts program
Practical Production Design
DRAM 3850 B
3.0 Credit Hours
An exploration of production design through participation in a faculty-supervised theatre production. Students with background in lighting, costume, and scenic design gain an understanding of concepts and principles through applied practical experience fulfilling assigned design responsibilities.
Prerequisite: Drama 2825 and 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours).
MUSIC
Rethinking Schubert: Recent Ideas, Discoveries, and Controversies Concerning the Life and Music of Franz Schubert
MUSI 3000 A
3.0 Credit Hours
For over a hundred years after his death and continuing well into the twentieth century the appreciation of Schubert’s music was coloured by prejudices and misunderstandings stemming from a lack of accurate information about his life and a negative comparison of his style with that of Beethoven. Beginning in the 1980’s a reappraisal of Schubert’s life and music has gathered momentum with new archival discoveries and a broad re-evaluation of his style and its meaning. This course will deal in depth with this new movement which now sees Schubert’s music as a particularly effective expression of yearning and alienation so prevalent in early Romantic aesthetics. We will first look at new biographical discoveries and controversies concerning Schubert’s life and then look at new attitudes towards and approaches to Schubert’s music—what it expresses and how it does so. There is a substantial analytical component to the course based upon William Caplin’s Theory of Formal Functions, which will be applied to Schubert’s music, both instrumental and vocal.
Prerequisite: Music 4660
History of Rock and Roll Since 1970
MUSI 3200 A
3.0 Credit Hours
This course is meant to be a follow‑up course to the History of Rock and Roll to 1970. It will cover the fragmentation of rock 'n' roll styles through the seventies and eighties and nineties, beginning with the trends of the late sixties, through the mass marketing of the early seventies, moving to the technological boom that characterized much of eighties rock and roll, and ending with rock alternatives and Alternative rock and roll from the nineties.
Equivalent: Music 3200 – History of Rock and Roll: 1968-1990
Prerequisite: 15 university-level courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours) - as per calendar
NOTE: Not counted in the 16-course Arts & Science major or the core courses in the B.Mus. degree
NOTE: Students with credit in Music 2850 (History of Rock ‘n Roll), 2850 (3850) (Popular Music in the 20th Century) or 3010 cannot receive credit for the same offering in the Music 3200 series.
NOTE: Credit is not allowed for MUSI 3200 – History of Rock and Roll, and either of MUSI 3200 - History of Rock and Roll: 1948-1970 or MUSI 3200 – History of Rock and Roll: 1968-1990.
Classical Music Recording
MUSI 3850 D (DAA Majors) & M (Music Majors)
3.0 Credit Hours
Classical Music Recording Techniques will take students through the process of classical music recording and production. Students can enroll as either recording engineers or as classical music performers. Over the semester, students will focus on the major aspects of the recording process such as score preparation and pre-production, artistic guidance, approaches to recording in venues such as concert halls, microphone techniques, and digital editing. The goal is to instill the creative and technical aspects of a classical recording session for the audio students. Performance students will learn how to prepare for a recording session and receive valuable session experience. Both groups will finish with an understanding of the process through both theoretical and practical experiences as well as with recordings for their portfolios.
Prerequisite: Music 2260 AND One of Music 2550 or Music Studio 3448.
Note: Credit is not allowed for both Music 3850 (Classical Music Recording) and Music 3730 (Tonmeister: Classical Music Recording)
World Instruments for Audio Engineers
MUSI 3850 N
3.0 Credit Hours
This course will introduce international musicians from countries like Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Philippines, India, Israel, Spain, and Peru. These guest speakers will present an instrument and music style that is native to their country. Students will learn about how these instruments are used to celebrate and preserve ceremonies, oral history, and other life events. Additionally, students will learn techniques to record instruments that are not commonly found in a recording studio. These instruments may include cuatro, cajon, qanun, djembe, surdo, repique, berimbau, and loud.
Prerequisite: Music 2550
Electronic and Popular Music Production
MUSI 3850 NA
3.0 Credit Hours
This course is designed for students who have little to no knowledge of electronic music production but who have experience using a Digital Audio Workstation. It introduces the necessary tools and techniques to produce electronic music in different styles including House, Techno, Electro/French House, Trance, and Drum and Bass. Students will research and present the history as well as important cultural and technological aspects of these music styles. Students explore production techniques in Logic Pro for each genre and collaborate to create productions of their own.
Prerequisite: Music 2550 and Music 2510.
NEW MEDIA
Typography
NMED 3850 A
3.0 Credit Hours
An introduction to typography through a range of materials and practices, both digital and physical. Students will make work in response the study of type histories, contemporary issues, cultural contexts, and digital innovations.
Prerequisites: 15 courses (a minimum of 45.0 credit hours)
Games in Human History
NMED 3850 B
3.0 Credit Hours
This course provides a historical survey of games and the evolution of games across time and through various cultures, beginning with ancient board games (3500 BC) and ending with modern board, video, card, and war games. The course will cover the various functions which games have served (entertainment, gambling, status, competition) as well as the long-standing human interest in play, chance, rules, and competition. Emphasis will be placed on the evolution of games throughout history, the application of key technologies which have been used to create games (wood working, metallurgy, glass/stone work, paper and printing, electronics and computing), and the social structures and fandom which coalesce around games. An overarching goal will be to illustrate the similarities between ancient and modern forms of games, including the reasons and motivations which have throughout history drove humans to create and experiment with games.
Prerequisites: Third-year standing (a minimum of 60.0 credit hours)
Visual Effects
NMED 3850 C
3.0 Credit Hours
An introduction to video compositing, motion design and computer-generated imagery (CGI).
Prerequisites: New Media 2030