Graduate student information

REQUIRED/CORE COURSES

ARTE 670/870 Critical Perspectives on Art Education: History, Theory and Practice (3 credits)

Semester: Fall

Day & Time: Monday 18:30-20:30 Place: TBD

Instructor: Anita Sinner, anita.sinner@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students develop critical reading and writing skills while adding to their understanding of trends past and present that have shaped the field of art education.  

ARTE 672/872 Advanced Critical Analysis (3 credits -prerequisite ARTE 670)

Semester: Winter

Day & Time: Monday 18:30-20:30 Place: TBD

Instructor: David Pariser, david.pariser@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students develop advanced skills in critical analysis, academic writing and library research. Assignments include compiling and writing a review of literature on a topic of research or professional interest.

ARTE 680/880 Foundations for Inquiry (3 credits)

Semester: Fall

Day & Time: Wednesday 16:00-18:00 Place: TBD

Instructor: Lorrie Blair, lorrie.blair@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students are introduced to the basic concepts, terminology, and contexts of inquiry in art education. Students learn about the practice of systematic inquiry, including: identifying and articulating a topic or question; situating the inquiry within a theoretical framework; relating the inquiry to art education practices; and selecting appropriate inquiry procedures. Each student develops a proposal for a small-scale project related to his/her particular art education interests.

ARTE 682/882 Research Practice (3 credits -prerequisite ARTE 680 )

Semester: Winter

Day & Time: Wednesday 16:00 - 18:00  Place: TBD

Instructor: Lorrie Blair, lorrie.blair@concordia.ca

A seminar course in which students conduct a small-scale research project based on their own research proposal. Students are introduced to appropriate forms and practices for conducting the project and presenting the results.

ARTE 884 Doctoral Seminar (3 credits)

Semester: Fall

Day & Time: Wednesday 18:30-20:30  Place: TBD

Instructor: Richard Lachapelle, richard.lachapelle@concordia.ca

This course addresses research and communication, thesis writing, and professional practice.             

STUDIO AND TOPIC COURSES

ARTE 606/806 Studio Inquiry (3 credits):

Semester: Summer

Day and Time: Monday & Wednesday 14:00-18:00  Place: Remote

Instructor: Maria Ezcurra, maria.ezcurralucotti@concordia.ca

Topic: Inquiry Through Art Production: Social art practice and pedagogy

This graduate studio course will focus on creating socially engaged art, creatively exploring and reflecting on current social issues and the capcity that the arts can have to inspire positive change. Using contemporary art strategies and pedagogical approaches, students will conceptualize and create art projects intended to raise awareness about critical issues. As social practice, the work done in this course will make connections between art and live, considering how personal experiences affect and are affected by social and political circumstances. Being a virtual course, it will also look at how the current pandemic context and technology mediated social experiences have changed the relationship between our public and private spheres. Considering issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and community engagement, this course will offer students opportunities to practice, research and theorize social art in education. It will encourage the development of both relational and object-based works, as well as collaborative and site-specific projects. Involving artists examples, a few readings and videos, individual research-creation work, group collaborations and conversations, documentation processes and final presentations, we will explore how art can make a difference in people's lives. A few writing assignments are required, such as an initial written proposal for the project to develop in class, reflective journaling and a final written report with research notes and documentation of the process.

ARTE 606/806 Studio Inquiry (3 credits):   

Semester: Fall 

Day & Time: Thursdays 14:00-18:00 Place: TBD

Instructor: David Pariser, david.pariser@concordia.ca

Topic: Exploring Memories of Place

This graduate studio course will offer students the opportunity to set themselves an artistic problem or task to pursue and until closure is achieved or as far as time and resources permit. Initially, there will be several short exercises involving visual responses to instructor-selected works of art.  The bulk of the class time will be spent refining the question or problem that animates the students' interest.  Class time will be spent sharing the progress that students are making and engaging in shared self-reflection. Students will also offer constructive comments on the work of others. There will be at least two films to respond to, and a few (2-3) readings on topical questions having to do with the practice of contemporary art. Students are welcome to work in pairs or on their own. The overarching theme of the course is yet to be decided upon. The last time I offered this course, the theme was "A city that figures importantly in my life." At the close of the course, students will present the rest of the class with their projects and with an assessment of its success. 

ARTE 606/806 Studio Inquiry (3 credits): 

Semester: Winter

Day & Time: Mondays 16:00-18:00 Place: TBD

Instructor: Andrew Forster, andrew.forster@concordia.ca

Topic: Research and Imagination

In the university, artistic practice has been re-named 'research creation'. In everyday life doing 'research' now seems to mean looking up information that already exists on the web. There is a confusion of definitions here.  In our artistic practices what constitutes generating new knowledge (for ourselves or in concert with others)? In mathematics there is 'pure math', in the sciences there is pure or fundamental research. What is the equivalent for artistic practices? A key question that I will pose to participants in this course is how do you engage (or engage others) in a practice which opens-up something for which we do not yet have language? How do we begin a process of creation where vocabulary does not yet exist? This line of questioning about how art practices can be understood as research or experiment (personal, social, or political) will be unfolded through your own practice. This studio course is a meditation on our own practices where 'making' and then reflecting together on what that making does is the main thing. We will also do readings to deepen our vocabulary of reflection (eg. Ewa Ziarek writes about proto-feminist authors Virginia Woolf and Nella Larsen as inventing "counterfactual possibility" both in an aesthetic and political sense). Let's call this a course in the "counterfactual possibilities" of practice. 

ARTE 660/850 Selected Topics in Art Education (3 credits):

Semester: Summer

Day & Time: May 10 to May 14 (plus 2 weekend meetings)

Place: Self-Guided Tours with Zoom meetings

Co-Instructors: MJ Thompson, mj.thompson@concordia.ca; Elizabeth Miller, elizabeth.miller@concordia.ca

Topic: Under Pressure: Writing and Writing Pedagogies in a Time of Climate Disruption

What role does writing play in recognizing, understanding and resisting the temporality/s and disaster/s of climate disruption? What genres, styles and voices best approach the precipice and help mitigate its perils by mean of the power of expressivity? How might language rally us and our readers towards collective thought and action? Moving between poetics and politics, imagining and conveying, writing and thinking, form and fact, this class examines writing in relation to place under pressure. The class is a week-long intensive, involving daily site visits and daily writing demands (600-750 wds/day), as well as daily readings, discussions and guest speakers.  Students will develop an essay for publication, while expanding their understanding of land issues under climate change; and honing their expressive use of language as creative material. 

Throughout the week, we will maintain a focus on the following core practices:

* Lived Experience and Observation (sight, sound, scent, touch, taste, kinesis)

* Reading, Writing, Speaking

* Visible and Invisible Histories; Social Histories; Land Use Histories and Interpretation

Students who successfully complete the course will be able to:

* produce a work of creative non-fiction (focused on place)

* plan, write and revise a written interpretation of a landscape

* consider audience and develop a publication-specific pitch

* familiarity with approaches to writing-based pedagogy

REGISTER BY APPLICATION: All students wishing to take this class must first apply through the following link: Online Application The online application form asks that you identify the name of place/landscape you wish to wirte about; your relationship to this place; and what tensions, issues and/or contradictions you see playing out on the site? 500 wds max

Application due: April 16, 2021. If accepted, you will receive an email confirmation granting permission to register.         

ARTE 660/850 Selected Topics in Art Education (3 credits):

Semester: Fall

Day & Time: Tuesday 16:00-18:00 Place: TBD

Instructor: Anita Sinner, anita.sinner@concordia.ca

Topic: Curating Conversations: Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Artwork Scholarship

The aim of Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Artwork Scholarship is to survey international scholars engaged in creative research that is advancing pedagogical and experimental innovations, reflective and evaluative assessments, customary methodological approaches, and evoking deliberations on ethical issues and concerns, in relation to a host of topic areas in education.

Artwork scholarship is an umbrella term for the proliferation of art as research, and includes arts-based educational research, visual art practice, a/r/tography, and artistic research, with broad definitions of artist, researcher and teacher. In this course, we will introduce arts research in domains of visual, literary, performative and digital arts (such as installation works, multi-media, social fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, drama, music, dance, hybrid arts inquiry and more). Such inquiry is based on the contingency of adaptive, experimental and speculative dispositions, and students are invited to explore comparative contexts, to experiment with artful applications new to them, and to profile international art education based on personal and professional experiences.

* In addition, this course will host an internationalizing art education project with Hiroshima University in which students will work in collaborative virtual teams to produce an exhibition and supporting essays that will form part of a Special Issue of the UNESCO Observatory Journal. Students registering in this course must commit to participating fully in a rigorous peer-review process, and revisions of their work to the standard required for publication in an academic journal. Completion of the Special Issue may require work beyond the course to secure academic publication. If you have questions, please contact the instructor. 

ARTE 660/850 Selected Topics in Art Education (3 credits):

Semester: Winter

Day & Time: Tuesday 16:00-18:00 Place: TBD

Instructor: Joana Joachim, joana.joachim@concordia.ca

Topic: Issues in Critical Museologies

In this course, we will consider some of the key issues related to critical museology as they relate to race and art history in Canada. We will examine the cultural and historical stakes of these institutions and think critically about the disciplines of museology, curating and art history. We will develop an understanding of museum practices as well as harness skills to discuss art from critical perspectives considering issues around accessibility, acquisition, documentation, education, curating and how this intersects gender, race, sexuality, disability and class. The goal of this course is to familiarize students with some basic principles of critical museology, key aspects of Black Canadian history and how to take them up in art education. This course will lead students to gain an understanding of key political and museological stakes of Black art histories in Canada and beyond. Students will be encouraged to question the practices and histories which have led to marginalizations and erasure in museums. At the end of the course students will be able to articulate these issues in a compelling manner and will have a general knowledge of the key social functions within museums. Students will also develop some museum education skills and learn how to facilitate conversations around art for general audiences.