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Courses 2014-15

Most graduate seminars offer 4 units of academic credit. All graduate courses must be taken for an S/U grade.Questions about degree requirements and applicability of credit should be directed to the MFA's graduate coordinator.

History and Theory Seminars

Both seminars are required for the degree; course substitutions are not allowed. Each seminar is offered every other year, usually in Fall quarter. Refer to the quarterly schedule of classes and the department's course descriptions and course offerings pages for details. Seminars must be taken for an S/U grade.

LTTH 250 - Writing and Theory (4)
An overview of issues in modern critical theory as they pertain to writers. Will focus on issues of textuality, cultural forms, and aesthetics as they impact the process and meaning of writing. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of instructor, and departmental approval.

LTTH 255 - Modern Art Movements and Aesthetics (4)
An introduction to modernist aesthetics with a focus on art and literary movements. Particular attention to be placed on relationships between modern literary movements (Realism, Imagism, Surrealism) and their counterparts in visual arts, music, dance, and theater, and the ways in which literary movements are components of or responses to issues of political and social identity. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of instructor, and departmental approval.

Literature Seminars

Seminars

Graduate seminars in Literature are numbered 200-290 and offer 4 units of academic credit. Seminar offerings vary from quarter to quarter. See the following for up-to-date information:

Quarterly schedule of classes
Literature course descriptions
Literature course offerings


Independent Study

Students may, with pre-enrollment written permission from the program director, apply LTWR 298 special project credit (or other 298 credit in literature) to the degree. Course credit varies, with most courses offering 2 units. See the online course proposal form for instructions on setting up an independent study course. All graduate courses must be taken for an S/U grade.

LTWR 220 - Topics in Writing (4)
This seminar will be organized around any of various topic areas relating to writing (fiction, poetry, cross-genre, theory). Topics might focus on a genre (film, popular novel, theater) or on the transformations of a theme or metaphor (nation, femininity, the uncanny). Repeatable for credit when readings and focus vary.

LTWR 298 - Special Projects: Writing Course (1-12)
This course may be designed according to an individual student’s needs when seminar offerings do not cover subjects, genres, or authors of interest. A paper is required. May be applied toward the guided research or graduate seminar in Literature requirement of the MFA program. Repeatable for credit up to 4 times.

Art Practice or Theory Seminars

The Visual Arts seminars listed below can be applied to the MFA's "art practice or theory outside of Literature requirement." In addition, students may, with pre-enrollment written permission from the program director, apply other seminars offered by the departments of Visual Arts, Music, Theater and Dance. All graduate seminars must be taken for an S/U grade.

VIS 210 - Narrative (4)
Examination of narrative issues in contemporary art making. Traditional and experimental narrative practices in painting, drawing, sculpture, and performance are explored alongside narrative strategies in media and digital media.

VIS 211 - Fact and Fiction (4)
This seminar addresses the space between narrative work generated from a factual base and that generated from a fictional one. Special attention will be given to discussing work that confounds the assumed gap between the two.

VIS 212 - History and Memory (4)
This seminar will engage the space between personal and larger histories. How is one’s own past both intertwined with and determined by larger social histories?

VIS 213 - Public Space (4)
An exploration of what public space is and how it operates, with a view toward an expanded context for considering how public artwork can operate within it. Included are areas such as mass media, activism, community action, computer networks, ecology, and alternative forums.

VIS 215 - Human Interface (4)
Examines human interface as it informs or transforms how we read and participate in culture at large. Concepts such as subject/author/object relationships, abstraction, metaphor, analogy, visualization, and complexity are discussed to establish context.

VIS 216 - The Object (4)
An investigation of the world of artifacts (“works of art” and others) and how they function as agents of communication and modifiers of consciousness. Contemporary perspectives drawn from the fields of art theory, anthropology, contemporary art, and semiotics will be utilized.

VIS 218N - Imaging Selves and Others (4)
Explores various strategies exhibited in a wide range of contemporary art practices engaging in the representation of personality, spirituality, and the physical self.

Writing Workshop

LTWR 215 - Cross-Genre Workshop (4)
In this generative workshop, writers create intergenre works and practice unconventional workshopping techniques that function less as editorial roundtables and more as discussions of the relationships between aesthetics and culture. Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of instructor, and departmental approval.

Apprentice Teaching

Apprentice teaching courses are numbered 500 and above. The following list is for illustration purposes only---the student must ask the hiring department for the correct course number and units for each TA appointment.

CAT 500 - Apprentice Teaching/C.A.T. (4)
Culture, Art and Technology Program, Sixth College

DOC 500 - Apprentice Teaching/Marshall (4)
Dimensions of Culture Program, Marshall College

LTWL 500 - Apprentice Teaching in Literature (2 or 4)
Literature Department

MCWP 500 - Apprentice Teaching in MCWP (4)
Muir College Writing Program, Muir College

MMW 501 - Teaching/Making of the Modern World (1-4)
The Making of the Modern World Program, Roosevelt College

MFA Thesis

The thesis units requirement is completed during the student's second and/or third year in the program. Typically students set up one or two 2-unit independent study courses per quarter, each supervised by a different thesis committee member. See the online course proposal form for instructions on setting up an independent study course. All graduate courses must be taken for an S/U grade.

LTWR 295 - MFA Thesis (1-12)
Research for master's thesis. May be repeated for credit up to 12 times. Prerequisites: Open to MFA students only.

About

2015 Admissions


Application Period
September 1–December 1, 2014

Admission Notifications
February 2015

Program Begins
September 2015

Contact Us

(858) 534-8849
mfawriting@ucsd.edu
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