The vague label "experimental fiction" conceals a world of creative work and study that student writers are often advised to ignore and reject. In this program, we'll actively investigate the tradition of experimental literature by treating literary works-our own included-as creative experiments and research into the possibilities of language and narrative. We will view the alphabet, the language, the myriad tropes and formulae for literary expression, and the archetypal patterns of narrative as a vast table of elements that can be combined and synthesized into new substances: new genres, new prose forms, new syntax, new strategies for reading and making meaning, and new reasons to write.

Our own creative work will provide a rigorous testing ground for ideas. Student writing will be examined by faculty and peers on a regular basis with half a mind toward developing a manuscript, the other half toward investigating the complex relationship between reader, text, and writer.

Program seminars will emphasize a lineage of exceptional exceptions: novels and short fiction of the last half century by writers who have taken careful stock of shifts in literary and cultural theory, and who have learned their art in the ruptures between modernist, high modernist, and postmodernist criticism.

This program will focus on intensive group and individual field research in current topics in ecology. Students will be expected to intensively use the primary literature and student-driven field research to address observations about ecological composition, structure and function in natural environments. In addition, students will be expected to develop multiple independent and group research projects in local forests in the South Sound, the Evergreen forest campus, national forests, national parks, state forest, and other relevant natural settings. Students are expected to "hit the ground running" and should develop research projects for the entire quarter within the first several weeks of the program. These research projects will be formally presented by groups and individuals in the final weeks of the quarter.

Topics of study will include forest structure, ecological restoration; riparian ecology; fire history; bird abundance and monitoring; insect-plant interactions; disturbance ecology; and the broad fields of biocomplexity and ecological interactions. These topics and student projects will be crystallized through a series of intensive multi-day paper-writing workshops in which group and individual papers will be produced. We will emphasize identification of original field research problems in diverse habitats, experimentation, data analyses, oral presentation of findings, and writing in journal format.

The term "foundations" refers to the building blocks of performance, as well as to an awareness of the stylistic signatures of various artistic eras. Therefore, this program is designed to introduce students both to the essential concepts of the musical and theatrical arts and to the study of aesthetics and performance history. In addition, students will become familiar with the discipline, rehearsal and production processes of the arts. We welcome students who have a passion for music and theater, the willingness to take risks, the patience to work hard, an openness to new ideas, and a desire to share their work and to support others' learning and creativity.

In this program, students will build a solid understanding of historical and theoretical aspects in Western music and theater. We will investigate music and theater as forms of artistic and social expression, so that students may understand how the arts mirror the human psyche in ways that are deeper and more immediate than most forms of cognitive investigation. We will explore the historical progression of music and theater in various social contexts through readings, writings, lectures and films. Students will also explore the fundamentals of performance through workshops and group projects that are designed to develop their abilities in acting, scripting, musical accompaniment and improvisation.

We will study groundbreaking musicians and theater artists of the past, as well as those who are presently shaping the landscape of performance throughout the world. The program will use workshops and performance projects, and the seminars will study both music and theater. By the end of winter quarter, students will have had an intensive introduction to both types of performing arts. Students will present artistic responses to the program materials and readings in performance-based modes by completing weekly performance projects. The program will develop a working vocabulary of both language and skills with emphasis placed on the development of the students' ability to critique musical and theatrical works.

Foundations of Visual Art is the entry-level program for students emphasizing the visual arts. This yearlong program offers an intensive introduction to making two- and three-dimensional art forms, while studying art history and aesthetics. The primary program goals are to develop visual literacy, learn to use art materials to express one's ideas, and learn to make a sustained visual investigation of ideas or topics through work in series. The program is designed for students who are passionate about art, willing to take risks, have the patience to work for extended periods, are open to new ideas, and are willing to share their work and support others' learning. The program functions as a community of working artists, learning together and sharing ideas through intensive in-studio work and art history study.

In fall and winter quarters, students will build skills in working two-dimensionally. Students will learn drawing and design, beginning black-and-white photography, beginning painting and basic color theory, and they will develop a visual vocabulary through their own work.

In spring quarter, students will continue their study of art history and will work in mixed media, metal and wood.

I always felt that the great high privilege relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. —Katherine Mansfield

Here, Mansfield states one of the primary ideals we hold about friendship, that it trumps all other relationships and is uncorrupted by them, that each person brings out the best in the other and can anticipate the other's thoughts almost before they are formed. But the other side of "having to explain nothing" is that by explaining nothing, we have apparently neglected to create a broadly understood and accepted language for thinking about friendship. This program is designed to call into question these relationships that are usually taken for granted, but hold a central place in our lives.

We will study a wide variety of friendships: of the past and the present; across age differences; across cultural settings; within other cultures; male friendships; female friendships; childhood best friends. We will read about friendship as explored by classical authors such as Aristotle, Cicero, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Cervantes and Austen. Although the primary concerns of the novel are family and romantic love, some contemporary novelists are interested in friendship as well. Toni Morrison's Sula, about a friendship between two black girls, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, in which two young men-one black and one white-befriend each other in Brooklyn, and Jose Marķa Arguedas' Deep Rivers, which discusses formative relationships among boys in a Peruvian boarding school, are some examples. Filmmakers are especially good on friendship, as all those "buddy movies" and "road movies" attest. We will view films such as Thelma and Louise, Sideways, My Life As A Dog, Harold and Maude and Central Station.

After an initial focus on individual friendships, we will expand our studies to the communities from which friendship groups emerge and in which they are embedded-groups like Latino communities in the U.S., sports fans and sports teams, people who chat on the Internet and communities of scientists.

Students will explore their own and others' experience of friendship by writing (both fiction and exposition), by interviewing, and by considering theoretical lenses through which to look at a variety of phenomena, including friendship. Throughout our studies, we will be guided by these questions and others we'll invent as we go along: What cultural work does friendship do, in our lives and in societies? What makes a good friend? What makes a friendship last, or not last? How can we best find friends? Where do online friendships stand in our description? What happens when online friends meet face-to-face? Is there anything about friendship now, in the U.S., that we'd like to change?

Students will develop skills in writing, interpretation, oral history, research, critical thinking, film analysis and cross cultural perspectives.