Teaches foundational concepts for intellectual exploration and personal development within an academic community: analysis, critical thinking, metacognition, engagement with others across difference, and self-efficacy. Engages Porter’s intellectual tradition of investigating the contribution the arts and humanities make to a good life, a just society, and a flourishing world. Enrollment is restricted to college members. Enrollment limited to 30.

PRTR 1A explores opportunities, expectations, and responsibilities in university life. Topics include: academic planning; general education requirements; majors and minors; campus policy; and preparation for Porter’s core course: Re/reading Race. Students gain familiarity with resources for health, well-being, time management, academic success, cultivating just communities, sexual harassment and violence prevention, reflection on UCSC’s principles of community, and an introduction to the living and learning tradition of Porter College. This course can be taken for Pass/No Pass grading only. Enrollment is restricted to entering first-year Porter College students.

Building on the foundational skills, habits of mind, and interpretive proficiencies developed in Academic Literacy and Ethos: Arts of Reading (PRTR 1), students will explore the ways in which feature-length narrative and documentary films have approached the representation of truth. . Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Designed to empower students in making informed decisions about their academic and career paths. In this dynamic class, students delve into a structured process of self-discovery, gaining insights into their interests, values, skills, and aspirations. Through a combination of interactive workshops, engaging discussions, structured panels and practical exercises, students build the lifelong skills necessary for ongoing exploration and discovery.

Explores critical engagement in education in the context of a research university. Introduces first-year issues and success strategies and ways to participate in the institution’s academic life. Investigates strategies for clarifying education goals and devising a plan for success. Students cannot receive credit for this course and KRSG 26 or STEV 26. Enrollment is restricted to first-year Porter and Kresge College members.

Seminar offering students different strategies to navigate the time demands of their course load in balance with their personal lives. Course begins by examining your own relationship to time management. Students tackle common time-management strategies and discuss how to overcome obstacles such as screen distraction, procrastination, and mental health. Course also discusses the dangers surrounding “grind culture” and students work together as a class to create realistic project management systems that balance mental wellness, job/family obligations, and college demands.

Mockumentaries such as “Waiting for Guffman,” “This is Spinal Tap,” and Woody Allen’s “Zelig” grow out of the documentary tradition; but instead of claiming to represent real-world phenomena, they blatantly distort. Ten mockumentaries and their documentary correlates are studied. Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Design functional objects, sculpture, and other digitally inspired forms in a variety of 2D (Illustrator) and 3D applications (Cinema 4D, Ketch UP, or AutoCAD), then produce those models as physical objects with a variety of rapid-prototyping methods including laser cutting, 3D printing, and vacuum forming. Enrollment is restricted to college members. Enrollment limited to 25.

Theory and practice of improvisation in the performing arts with an emphasis on acting improvisation techniques. Readings and films develop a theoretical and historical understanding of spontaneous invention on stage. Students attend area theater improvisational performances. Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Explores solo performance works made for the theater. While all course texts fall within the narrative tradition, some center on performers’ lives, others on socio-political issues. Course participants screen video recordings of live performances in class., ultimately creating their own brief solo performances. Enrollment limited to 24. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Explores different aspects of written drama: scene and character development, plot, dialogue, monologues, soliloquies, stage direction, setting, and structure. Excerpts of late 20th-century plays serve as the basis for class discussion. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

This interdisciplinary course combines archival research methods and creative practice to create a collaborative research space where, together, we explore our own distinctive institutional history through a deep dive into UCSC’s special collections library holdings. Through sharing and discussing our research findings- including historic photographs, films, syllabi, student publications, flyers, oral histories/audio recordings and more- and through screenings, readings, and conversation, we develop creative projects in dialogue with our research process. Enrollment limited to 20. (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Introduction to the farmers band tradition. Theory and practice of drumming are emphasized, resulting in a group performance. Enrollment limited to 20.

Several composers and performers of contemporary art music discuss the processes by which works are conceived in imagination, transcribed in notation, and realized in sound. After a brief introduction to contemporary music aesthetics, students attend a series of related presentations, seminars, and concerts. Enrollment limited to 18.

A cross-cultural survey of the kunstlerroman, or artist’s novel, from its origins in late 18th-century Germany to contemporary Latin America and the United States, this course explores how this genre understands artistic development and the role of artists in society.

Theoretical and historical aspects of the arts from one culture or world area are explored through seminar discussion, library research, and film/video presentations. Enrollment limited to 20. May be repeated for credit.

This workshop teaches the history and construction of handmade books as a mode of personal and/or political expression leading to an exhibition of student work. Enrollment limited to 15. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Considers Jewish-American filmmakers as they come to terms with their identity in autobiographical works. Students write responses to texts and create their own brief personal narratives. Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Considers filmmakers and monologue performers as they come to terms with their identity in autobiographical works. Students write responses to texts and create their own brief personal narratives. Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Students learn basic techniques of interview and camera work to document on film oral histories collected from community elders. Students develop their skills in writing, theater, visual art, music, or film to reinterpret oral histories as artwork. Priority given to college members. Others by permission of instructor. Enrollment limited to 30.

Creativity in different disciplines is developed via different ways of knowing. Musical, visual, scientific, and spatial literacy demand understanding which is not primarily logocentric. Explores how practitioners of arts and science develop their work and conceptualize its execution. (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Develops the qualities of compassion and kindness toward oneself and others. Combining contemporary scientific research, mindfulness training, and traditional contemplative practices, this course supports students in the cultivation of a more discerning, thoughtful, and compassionate life. Enrollment limited to 30.

Addresses questions of aesthetics and politics through a critical and practical examination of some artistic, literary, and broadly cultural developments proper to the history of the Internet (1990s to the present). Enrollment is restricted to participants in the first-year scholars program. Enrollment limited to 25. (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Students explore social justice topics in Shakespeare and deliver a performance or creative project that engages with the local community. Students are guided by instructor’s models of teaching techniques, designed to stimulate the imagination, and by diverse readings. Enrollment limited to 30. (General Education Code(s): TA.)

Offers the opportunity to participate in programming interdisciplinary curatorial praxis, arts events, exhibitions, performances, lectures, and film screenings. Students are exposed to UCSC alumni and faculty members’ research through visiting class lectures. Students learn basic protocol for arts programming and critical arts writing, and are required to create their own participatory curatorial project at Porter College. (General Education Code(s): PR-E.)

We live in a world permeated with photographic images, but do we really notice photographs? Do we understand how they work and what they mean? Do we know how to read them? Now that our phones and cameras have merged, we might also say that we live in a world that is forever inviting, imploring us to take photos; we might say we live in a world in which it is almost impossible not to take photos. Are we all photographers now? Do we choose to take photographs or has photography, in a sense, chosen us? (General Education Code(s): IM.)

Investigates how science fiction’s utopic and/or dystopic projections give insights about equality, democracy, justice, and difference at the same time they register contemporary anxieties about community, kinship, war, viruses, genetic engineering, robotics, surveillance, and environmental degradation. (Formerly PRTR 151F.) (General Education Code(s): TA.)

Focuses on long-form (acting) improvisation, building participants’ knowledge and skills through practical and theoretical readings, by viewing relevant performances, and by improvising in class and in small groups outside class. Participants perform in a final public showing. PRTR 41I, PRTR 80I, or equivalent college-level experience or coursework. Enrollment limited to 20. May be repeated for credit. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

For practitioners of acting improvisation, this course deepens participants’ knowledge and skills through practical and theoretical readings, by viewing performances, and by improvising in class and in small groups outside class. Participants perform in a final public showing. . Enrollment limited to 20. May be repeated for credit. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Rehearsal of the principal vocal parts of an opera in preparation for a full production. Consideration of the dramatic aspects of each role and the interrelationships of the characters. Enrollment limited to 25. May be repeated for credit.

The practice of music in a particular area of the world at an advanced level. Students learn the music of one world area or culture over the quarter and study the associated cultural background. Enrollment limited. May be repeated for credit.

Small, discussion-based seminar held in conjunction with The Humanities Institute’s community reading initiative, The Deep Read. The Deep Read aims to bring together UCSC undergraduates, faculty, and alumni to discuss and think deeply about a text and its key themes and issues. Course is a comprehensive study of The Deep Read book, the author’s work, and its relevant contexts. While the textual analysis framework remains consistent every year, the topic, author, and key text changes each year. (Also offered as Literature 112Q. Students cannot receive credit for both courses.) Enrollment limited to 30. May be repeated for credit. (General Education Code(s): TA.)

Investigates form as it guides poetic utterance. Students complete texts to fit forms including broadsides, pamphlets, and books. Composition is guided by production methods, from holographic texts to letterpress and digital composition. Enrollment limited to 12. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)

Teaches the construction and history of handmade books as artistic expression. Coursework covers a variety of structures, the analysis of book content, and the integration of design and concept. Covers the generation of content; explorations in typography; and folded, glued, and stitched structures. Enrollment limited to 15. (General Education Code(s): PR-C.)