CSP 600: Cultural Sustainability
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course introduces cultural sustainability both through its interdisciplinary theoretical foundations in cultural policy, public folklore, anthropology, and community arts, and through reflection on cultural activism and inquiry. |
CSP 605: Cultural Policy
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Culture matters to people, and is threatened by globalization and modernity in troubling ways. As a matter of public policy, culture has been defined and addressed in different ways. This course looks at the history of these formulations and the practices they have engendered, and suggests ways that the value of culture is of critical importance to policy makers seeking a sustainable and livable future. |
CSP 612: Research Design and Methodologies
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course offers practical applications for students. Processes include ethnographic research conducted in collaboration with communities, principles of ethical research design, navigating community participation and approvals, as well as considerations for sharing and distribution of the work itself. In this course, students identify an appropriate methodology and design a research project in a community in consultation with the instructor. They are expected to submit a professional quality research proposal that demonstrates best practices in ethical research design and articulates a selected methodology. The proposal includes a site description, initial documentation, resource listings, next steps, and a reflection on the principles of practice that inform the research design. Students may use this class to articulate key research questions they wish to explore in their Capstone. Prerequisites: CSP600 and CSP671. |
CSP 615: Cultural Partnership
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
What are effective strategies for scholars and organizations to work with communities to help develop the capacity for those communities to make choices about what matters to them? This course explores ways that effective enduring partnerships and programs can be developed to reflect the voices and aspirations of communities, their stakeholders, and the cultural organizations that serve them. |
CSP 671 Critical Perspectives in Community-Based Research
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Students in this course analyze the historical, conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of ethnography to articulate a unique perspective on research methodologies grounded in the principles of cultural sustainability and embracing of the power of collaboration within and across communities to co-create representations of culture. This course explores multiple research approaches and modalities to understand the implications of fieldwork and the critical role of research in working with communities. Students examine issues of subject position, representation, mediation, collaboration, and action. Finally, students analyze extractive and colonizing histories in ethnography to shape alternative approaches that are community-based and community-driven. Prerequisite or Concurrent with: CSP600 |
CSP 675: Capstone
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
The Capstone is undertaken over two semesters. Students work with a committee of three advisors and choose either an immersion fieldwork project, a public program in a cultural institution or community, or an academic thesis. Under the mentorship of a faculty advisor, students develop their proposal in the semester prior to beginning their Capstone. Students are expected to present and defend a final document which demonstrates mastery of the core concepts of cultural sustainability. Students must submit a Letter of Intent to be approved by the Program Director on order to be enrolled in their Capstone. |
CSP 610: Introduction to Cultural Documentation
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Cultural documentation provides an orientation and foundation in the methodologies used to understand and engage with the cultural processes and assets of value to communities. This course introduces best practices in cultural documentation, the use of ethnographic fieldwork and digital media to record and understand culture, and the ethical and practical issues involved in appropriately and effectively engaging with people in a variety of community contexts. |
CSP 618: Cultural Sustainability Theory Seminar
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course considers and develops the foundations of cultural sustainability as an emerging academic field, a theoretical framework and a mode of practice. The seminar will help students deepen their understanding of cultural sustainability as a concept, better articulate the value of their own practice, and serve as a platform for the intellectual development of the field. Students will develop a theoretical essay applying relevant concepts from this inquiry to their own area of interest. |
CSP 620: Food and Foodways
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Food and foodways are integral to many aspects of cultural identity and activity, and important to consider in the development of projects in cultural and economic sustainability. In order to comprehend a community, it is important to understand how and why that community uses food to construct and maintain identity and tradition, express values and beliefs, perform identity, present itself to the public, manage health systems, use environmental resources, and support indigenous and local economies. |
CSP 624 Environment, Development and Economics
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course examines how natural resources intersect with social and economic development initiatives. We will review the different kinds of natural resources and review case studies of both successes and failures in regard to sustainable use and community benefits. Special attention will be paid to community-based initiatives and examples of inclusive decision making and policy design. |
CSP 625: Festivals, Events and Performances
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
How and why do people celebrate? How can festivals construct a "separate space" outside the "everyday." What are the transformative, transgressive, subversive and communal possibilities for the employment of the "festive vocabulary?" How can a festival create a sense of what Victor Turner called "Communitas?" In this course, students will explore these questions; learn the basic elements of the festival; identify its history, motivation and multi-vocal meanings; learn the different elements of the "festive landscape;" provide analysis of community festivals in social and historical context; and, develop a festival program, including key thematic elements such as music, craft, and narrative components. |
CSP 628: Principles of Cultural Mediation
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Without the recognition of difference of opinion, viewpoints, and individual value systems, conversations around divisive issues can often be dominated by polarized and destructive debate. Creating a space for dialogue can allow for these multiple viewpoints to be shared. Students will reflect on how their own cultural background frames their understanding of themselves and others, and will develop an understanding of how intercultural dialogue and mediation can be utilized to work successfully and ethically in partnership with communities. |
CSP 630: Community and Economic Development
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
A critical feature of cultural sustainability is the development of strategies that align with economic vitality and benefit cultural practitioners. This course surveys, analyzes, and evaluates efforts of this nature: cultural tourism, schools, marketing initiatives for cultural products, and other forms of entrepreneurship. |
CSP 635: Interpretive Planning and Project Management
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This class provides insight and guidance into the planning and implementation of cultural programming at museums and similar organizations. Students will explore best practices and current issues pertaining to the development of interpretive approaches and their concrete implementation in these settings. |
CSP 638: Language Preservation
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Language is one of the most salient and identifiable aspects of human culture. Human languages are important aspects of a culture's identity and sovereignty. Throughout the world communities are facing unprecedented language endangerment and half of the world's languages may become extinct in the next 100 years. This course provides an introduction to the practical and theoretical causes of language shift and what this shift means for impacted communities. Selected case studies provide a global perspective on the discourse. |
CSP 640: Exhibits, Real and Virtual
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Museum exhibitions, publications, websites, and other media provide powerful tools for sustaining, strengthening, and showcasing the cultural assets and practices of communities for purposes of education, advocacy, and preservation. Students explore the use of text, image, video, and sound in effectively telling the story of themes and issues that matter to communities. |
CSP 642: Culture and Calamity
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
There are physical, psychological, social, and cultural dimensions to upheavals in community life, whether caused by war, economic or environmental devastation, forced displacement, or even policy. Human expression, even in the most authoritarian states and in the direst hours of crisis, cannot be silent. This course will examine the cultural and artistic aspects of upheaval and conflict around the world, including the destruction of traditional culture and emergence of new forms and voices. Case studies and readings will examine culture as a reflection and record of upheaval and as a creative response to it. |
CSP 648: Museums and Communities
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Today's museums are re-considering their civic missions and practices, the ways they engage new partners and audiences, and, therefore, their priorities. Many believe that the health of museums depends on becoming more civically engaged with a range of communities. Successful museums engage in dialogue about civic empowerment and often center on issues of how and where citizens seek and engage each other, about their senses of power, trust, and agency. This cornerstone course encompasses the unique and critical issues of working in today's museums, and offers strategies for connecting museums with communities in ways that position them as principal players in cultural sustainability. |
CSP 650: Organizing Communities: Advocacy, Activism, and Social Justice
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course introduces students to the methods and perspectives of community organizing. Cultural sustainability is often a matter of social justice and self-determination, and knowledge of community organizing strategies provides a critical tool for Cultural Sustainability practitioners. Organizing, advocacy, and action strategies will be shared and assessed particularly as they pertain to matters of cultural democracy. |
CSP 653: Topics and Issues in Cultural Sustainability
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Cutting across much of the curriculum in the M.A.C.S. program is a landscape of familiar but under-examined concepts that occasionally deserve focused study and analysis. At the same time, new topics or issues come up that require timely attention. Social concepts such as power, equity, and representation, have generated a body of literature and discourse applicable to cultural sustainability. This course enables M.A.C.S. students to explore a particular topic or issue in depth and achieve a degree of mastery. The topics will vary relevant to current issues. |
CSP 654: Cultural Representation at the Smithsonian Institution
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
Undertaken in partnership with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage (CFCH), students learn about issues and practices for representing cultures at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and museums in general. Through readings, lectures, and mentoring, the course explores representation, cultural brokerage, and interpretation in museums and festivals. Working with Smithsonian curators, students learn about festival management, program development, and digital media. They carry out practices for presenting traditions by incorporating community voices and perspectives though such experiences as digital storytelling, virtual exhibits, and collaboration with community members to present their traditions to new audiences. Through coursework students contribute to programs underway by CFCH and, when applicable the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. |
CSP 656: The Dynamics of Identity
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course examines the concept of identity to better understand how it influences the individuals and communities with which we work, as well as how we work with them. Students review the intellectual history of the idea of identity, the varied meanings it has, and the constellation of concepts and theories to which it is key (self, group, community, etc.) We then consider the influences on the construction -- and reconstruction -- of identity and the ways in which it is performed and interpreted. |
CSP 657: Culture, Spirituality & Sustainability
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
To effectively work toward sustaining cultures, it is essential to understand the centrality and implications of spirituality in those cultures. In this course, students explore some of the ways spirituality is inextricably embedded in a community's worldview: in views of nature, morality, leadership, family life, and in artistic expression. We consider how recognition of these connections enhances sustainability efforts and promotes community engagement. |
CSP 660: Oral History
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
This course provides training in best practices in oral history documentation. Through hands on instruction and mentorship with oral history practice, students will develop the knowledge and skills to professionally conduct oral history research. |
CSP 665 Arts of Social Change
Credit-Bearing
Graduate |
When faced with social injustices, including threats to survival, sustenance, or culture, humans often respond creatively by making art. Sometimes these arts draw on traditional cultural aesthetics and may represent the continued survival of defiant cultural art forms that will not be extinguished. Other times they take on a more innovative or even radical nature, emerging as new practices, narratives, or popular expressions. This course examines the vibrant use of arts to address social justice concerns and explores art in the context of the famous metaphoric view of art as either a mirror that reflects social reality or the hammer that shapes it. |
GRW 601: Writing Studio
Non-Credit Bearing
Graduate |
Designed as a studio to enhance writing and find your academic voice, this course helps students assess and improve critical reading and writing skills, especially those necessary for academic writing and thinking. With the instructor acting as coach, students workshop their writing, either a paper for another course, or a new piece. Topics include thinking about writing (metacognition); reading for content; planning, organizing and using evidence in academic writing and thinking; making a supported argument; and editing for clarity and effectiveness. Students who have taken this course show a marked increase in their confidence and integrity as academic writers. |
