Lecture sponsored 
by the 
Department of Social Sciences & Cultural Studies Pratt Institute

First Level: The first two years of the curriculum will give our students a broad and solid foundation in the Liberal Arts and Sciences, as well as allowing you to begin exploring your own individual interests.

Semester I
The first semester immerses our students into the foundations of the Liberal Arts: critical analysis, history, philosophy, science, and literature. Students share a common experience in the first semester that will establish a unique basis for your studies:

CST.100 First Year Seminar - 3.0 credits
CH.300 World History I - 3.0 credits
PHIL.208 or PHIL.209 History of Philosophy - 3.0 credits
ENGL.101 Introduction to Literary and Critical Studies I - 3.0 credits
MSCI.210 Science and Society - 3.0 credits
CST.190 Beyond Google I: Basic Information Literacy - 1.0 credit
Total Credits 16.0

Semester II
Semester Two completes the introduction to history, critical studies, literature and writing. It allows students the flexibility to choose electives from across the department, the school, and the institute. To ensure a distribution of elective credits, in semesters 2, 3, and 4 students may take no more than 6 non-required credits in any one disciplinary field of Social Science, History, Philosophy, and, Math and Science and no more than 15 credits from any single division at Pratt (i.e. SLAS, Art & Design, and Architecture).

ENGL.103 Introduction to Literary and Critical Studies II - 3.0 credits
CH.400 World History II - 3.0 credits
Open Elective credits 9.0 - 3.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester III
In Semester Three, students take the new Symposium course and continue their distribution of electives.
SS.225 Symposium - 3.0 credits
Open Elective - 12.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester IV
In semester 4, students participate in the guided advisement of Moderation. They also take their required Theory and Practice course and continue to take electives. “Moderation” provides students with the opportunity to reflect on their studies during semesters 1-3, identify their interests and begin to focus on the concentration that will structure the final two years of their program. Moderation requires students to examine their initial experiences in the program, their goals, and their interests, to evaluate their performance and their commitment to a course of study and to chart their final two years of college with the help of a faculty committee.

Theory and Practice requirement - 3.0
SS.299 Moderation - 2.0
Open Elective credits - 9.0
Total Credits - 14.0

First Level (Years 1 and 2) Total Course Credits: 60



Second Level: In their third and senior years, students are immersed in their guided electives, minors, internships, and their senior project or honors thesis. The project or thesis is undertaken with a committee chosen from and approved by the faculty. With the help of their Moderation advisers, students develop a course of study tailored to their individual interests and faculty expertise.

Semester V
CST.390 Beyond Google II: Thesis and Information Research - 1.0 credit
Guided elective - 9.0 credits
Open elective - 6.0 credits
Total Credits - 16.0

Semester VI
Guided electives - 9.0 credits
Open electives - 6.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester VII
Guided elective - 3.0 credits
Open electives - 9.0 credits
CST.440 Senior Seminar - 3.0 credits
Total Credits - 15.0

Semester VIII
You may choice two options, either a 6 credit Senior Thesis or a 3 credit Senior Thesis
CST.480 Thesis/Senior Project* - 3.0 credits
Open Electives - 12.0 credits
OR
CST.480 Thesis/Senior Project* - 6.0 credits
Open Electives - 9.0 credits

Total Credits - 15.0
Second Level (Years 3 and 4) Total Credits 61
___________
Total Credits for Degree - 121

*Senior projects carry 3 credits while more formal and in depth academic thesis carries 6 credits. If a student undertakes a 3 credit project, then they will take 12 elective credits. If a student undertakes a 6 credit thesis, they will take 9 credits.

 Visit the link below for admissions requirements or to apply online. We look forward to reviewing your applications!
http://www.pratt.edu/admissions/applying/

For more information, please visit our official page at:
http://www.pratt.edu/academics/liberal_arts_and_sciences/critical_visual_studies/

BA Program in Critical & Visual Studies
Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies
School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Pratt Institute
200 Willoughby Ave.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11205

Our Professor Lisabeth During has just published a new essay in a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities on "Belief in Cinema." The full text of her essay “What does it Matter? All is Grace” is available at http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/zJGTR28uHn9DmKB9u5iQ/full
Lisabeth During studied theology at the University of Cambridge, taught for many years in the Philosophy Department at the University of New South Wales, before joining the Department of Social Science & Cultural Studies and its Critical & Visual Studies program. She has published on Hegel, Artaud, George Eliot, Surrealism and André Bazin. Her The Book of Chastity: Studies in an Ascetic Ideal will be published soon. 

 
“What does it Matter? All is Grace”
Lisabeth During

Abstract 
Admirers of Robert Bresson often remark on the commitments he shares with the philosopher and activist Simone Weil. Both stubbornly idiosyncratic, they subscribe to what modernists call “a poetics of impersonality”: a deep desire to shed the ego and find some space empty of will, intention and even consciousness. Bresson pursued this ideal through his anti-theatrical practice, his resistance to expression and interpretation, and his war against “acting.” In Weil's religious thinking, the possibility of achieving a state of automatism in the soul, and thus leaving room for God to occupy all, was central. “Decreation,” her term for this principle, sounds like a will to suicide (a recurring theme in Bresson) but she explains it as motivated by love. Bresson's writerly films – the Bernanos adaptations (especially Diary of a Country Priest) – and Au hasard Balthazar – take as their theme the problem of grace. As in Weil, the path to grace goes through an acceptance of brutal necessity and incomprehensible accident. This is also the conclusion of Rossellini's Europa ’51. While André Bazin is a thinker with a keen sensitivity to grace and spiritual accident – his interest in depth of field is motivated by a desire to keep the free exercise of chance in play – his notion of love is more compassionate than anything we meet in Weil, Bresson or Rossellini. As Truffaut remarked, Bazin is a Christian from the days before the Fall.

Keywords: Robert Bresson, Simone Weil, grace, asceticism, decreation,  impersonality, modernism.

Sections:    
I saints and cinema
II robert bresson and the chastity of style:...
III impersonality as style
IV grace in cinema, real and invisible
V the reticence of literature
VI acting against attention
VII conclusion: realism and grace

During, Lisabeth. 2012. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities
Volume 17, Issue 4, (p.157-177).
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/zJGTR28uHn9DmKB9u5iQ/full
Special Issue: Belief in Cinema

Graduate Program in Media Studies


The Media Studies M.A. Program at Pratt is an intensive state-of-the-art program shaped in relation to Pratt’s art/design/architecture environment and to the burgeoning mediascape, lively social space, and theoretical scene of Brooklyn and New York City. Classes are small, following seminar, workshop and experimental formats, and all classes are taught by professors.


It is a given that media emergence is rapidly transforming experience, society and knowledge and that the saturation of the world by computers and screens has changed practically everything. This program is designed to foster, at an advanced level, the investigation of many of the significant social, political, cultural, economic and aesthetic questions of our time by drawing both on the historical record of media forms as well as on cutting-edge theory regarding issues of nation, political economy, gender, sexuality, race, aesthetic form, screen studies, etc. Our program prepares students for careers in media, media arts, or for Ph.D. programs in media by deepening and broadening each student’s understanding of the many interrelated functions of media in contemporary society. It also encourages students to pursue independent trajectories and create projects that may lead to places as yet uncategorized or defined.


The curriculum emphasizes studies of media, in their various forms, including film, video, television, photography, radio, writing and the computer-mediated convergence of these platforms. Guided by our diverse faculty, students study the logics and logistics of media and mediation, while they explore cultural technologies of expression, representation and manipulation along with the aesthetic, economic and political contexts in which such media operate. They also work on textual analysis, interpretation and semiotics. Students gain expertise in media history, media theory and media practice and are provided with opportunities for internships. For more information click http://prattmediastudies.com


Mediologies Conference

Each year in late April, the Media Studies Program hosts a conference, Mediologies, which includes presentations of work and works-in-progress by students, faculty, and guest presenters. These presentations may include critical papers, films, exhibitions, games and the like – all of which provide opportunities for discussion and debate of key issues. Seminar courses being offered in the spring enable students to develop papers and projects specifically for presentation at Mediologies.


Apply
If all this sounds appealing to you, we would welcome your application at Pratt. We are seeking highly intelligent, motivated students who wish to join a cohort of students and faculty working in an extraordinary program utilizing the newest and most socially relevant methods of media study and media theory. Applications for admission to the Master of Arts are due January 5 for the following fall; the program accepts fall entrants only. Applicants should have a B.A., B.S. or B.F.A. from an accredited institution. Candidates submit (1) a statement of purpose in which they describe their interest in the program; (2) 10-20 pages of relevant writing sample(s), with emphasis on analytical writing about media; (3) transcripts of undergraduate coursework; and (4) two letters of recommendation. All applicants follow the standard admission process for graduate programs at Pratt: see www.pratt.edu/apply.