Global Arts, Media and Writing Studies (GAMWS)
Global Arts, Media, and Writing Studies (GAMWS) is an interdisciplinary unit that draws from the artistic and humanistic traditions that examine media, texts, and arts as product and process of cultural expression. In addition to housing the Global Arts Studies Major/Minor and the Writing Studies Minor, GAMWS is home to several disciplinary extensions, including Art History, Visual Studies, Music and Sound Studies, Performance Studies, Media Studies, Creative and Professional Writing, and Rhetoric. This unit is designed to generate, grow, and sustain a nationally recognized, academically rigorous and interdisciplinary collaborative faculty that is rooted in the study of discursive and performative practices across multiple media, including visual, musical/sonic and aural, performative/embodied, experiential, and textual media.
This unit is uniquely focused upon how written, aural, and visual technologies and products shape communications and how creativity and knowledge are produced and managed, exploring how media of all kinds challenge, reproduce, and participate in social constructs along a range of intersectional categories. The courses and programs within this unit examine the production of texts/media as well as texts/media as objects in their historic and cultural contexts. GAWMS thus capitalizes upon the synergies between writing studies and the arts: both are produced and studied in their historical, socio-cultural, and political contexts, and both areas focus upon modes of representation as the objects of their study.
Global Arts Studies Program (GASP)
The Global Arts Studies Program combines the study of visual arts and music, as well as the interactions of sight and sound in film, television, dance, theater, videogames, and other multimedia. We study these arts in historical and cultural context all around the world, learning about their inner workings as well as their place in society. The GASP major combines scholarly courses with practical hands-on training in ensemble and studio settings, for a rounded education in artistic theory and practice.
The program is global in many senses of the word. We study all fields of creative expression in multiple global contexts with equal rigor, from film screen to dance club, from ritual and touristic practices to museums and concert halls. Our faculty of music scholars and art historians helps students refine the skills they need to critically engage culturally diverse media. Lecture courses, seminars, studio classes, and ensembles are designed to explore creative processes and material connections.
Working closely with faculty, our students conduct original research and acquire nuanced insights in both sonic and visual realms. Students further deepen their understanding of global arts through hands-on training in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, music, and dance in a variety of cultures and media. GASP offers students ample opportunities to develop their professional skills by participating in community-oriented events—curating exhibitions, managing the UCM Art Gallery, and organizing recitals, concerts, and multimedia performances.
For additional information on the Global Arts Studies Program major, please visit the Global Arts Studies Program website.
For Global Arts Studies Program major requirements, please consult your catalog.
Writing Studies (WS)
Writing Studies is a dynamic field, representing interdisciplinary research focused on how literacy functions in a variety of contexts, how technologies and media shape communications, how creativity and knowledge are managed, and how writing creates and offers access to infrastructures of social and political power. In short, Writing Studies equally explores the process and product of writing.
The Writing Minor currently offers a wide range of courses that center on academic, professional, and creative activity within print and digital media. This comprehensive degree program combines creative with professional writing and provides a fundamentally strong intellectual foundation for a much wider range of professional and academic post-baccalaureate opportunities.
Our faculty’s research areas include: creative writing, professional and technical writing, literacy studies, multimodal composition, rhetorical theory, writing pedagogy and assessment, and writing program administration.
For additional information on the Writing Studies Program minor, please visit the Writing Studies Program website.
For the Writing Studies Program minor requirements, please consult your catalog.
Updated 2021
