Libraries collect, conserve and share human knowledge; the Web provides a new technology for the collective representation of human expression. Through the academic disciplines of history, rhetoric, cultural studies, library and information science and through applied work in libraries and Web publishing, we will explore the history, promise and pitfalls of information technologies, especially as they might influence common beliefs and understandings. In particular, we will consider current developments and future prospects for academic libraries and information technologies within the larger context of information literacy, scholarly expression and knowledge creation.

The major learning objectives include effective research methodology, information technology literacy, multi-media production skills and Web publishing with an emphasis on effective models for scholarly writing on the Web. The classroom component of this program includes reading seminars focused on intellectual questions about knowledge production, a film series, and two weekly workshops/practica on Web design, digital imaging and other multi-media production. Students will apply their developing information technology literacy by assisting with workshops for other academic programs and will negotiate individual work assignments in the library based upon their intellectual interests and the types of skills they wish to develop. Potential areas of work include library reference, the sound and image library, government documents, media loan, library technical services, archives and rare books. Beginning to advanced computer users are encouraged to enroll.

The goal of this program is to lay a firm foundation for more advanced work in computer science. Students in the program will have the opportunity to achieve a deeper understanding of increasingly complex computing systems by acquiring knowledge and skills in mathematical abstraction, problem solving, programming and the fundamental structures of hardware and software systems. The program covers standard material in a core liberal arts computer science curriculum such as algorithms, data structures, computer organization and architecture, logic, discrete mathematics and programming.

The program content will be organized around four interwoven themes. The computational organization theme covers concepts and structures of computing systems from digital logic to operating systems. The programming theme concentrates on learning how to design and code programs to solve problems. The mathematical theme will help develop theoretical abstractions and problem solving skills needed for computer scientists. An on-going seminar theme will explore social, historical or philosophical topics of science, technology and society.

Students will develop a variety of skills using traditional and digital photographic techniques and computer software to manipulate photographic images as well as studying the techniques of assemblage and mixed media art. They will use those skills to build both individual and collaborative art installations that are conceptual in nature. Over the course of two quarters, students will be expected to do reading and attend slide lectures and seminars on photography and installation art. They will study the way artists around the world have combined these media to make complex and challenging works of art. As part of this study, students will examine works by a diverse group of artists including Alfredo Jaar, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Shirin Neshat, Jolene Richard, Chen Shun-Chu, Felix Gonzales Torrez, Stan Douglas, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Corwin Clairmont, Miguel Fematt and Pat Ward Williams, among others.

This program is designed to support freshmen by developing their skills in English composition as well as basic skills in photography, digital imaging and mixed media art. At the same time, it is designed for students who have done previous work in a variety of artistic media and are ready to create intermediate and advanced work. Students will learn about a variety of strategies for developing both personal and political themes that create a rich visual language for viewers to interpret. All students must participate in art critiques and keep an intellectual journal that addresses the books and slide lectures. In addition, freshmen will be required to write a three-page paper on each of the books we read fall quarter, and write three five-page papers synthesizing materials from various sources we are studying during winter quarter. All students will produce a seven to ten page research paper on an artist whose work inspires them and prepare a ten-minute presentation for the class.

There will be a field trip to museums and galleries each quarter. During winter quarter, there will be an optional 11 day field trip to Merida in Mexico to attend the Encuentro de Performances, dealing with performance, video and installation art hosted by the Hemispheric Institute at New York University in conjunction with a new art school in Merida, Mexico. The faculty will help any students whose work is of professional quality and relevant to the conference theme to apply to exhibit their work at the conference. The conference will have numerous workshops that the students can attend. Students will be able to make excellent contacts with artists, scholars and students from other institutions.

Democracy in the United States, as a social practice and political ideal, has been a work in progress since the Revolution. Given the linguistic, religious, ethnic, and regional diversity of the U.S. population, and given differential hierarchies assigned to race, gender, sexuality, and social class in this country, institutions that aspire to promote democratic ideals have become sites of debate and struggle around such questions as how to define citizenship, how to define equality, how to protect minority populations against majority prejudices, and how to promote individual liberties while safeguarding the common good.

In this program we will study political institutions and legal frameworks such as those established by the U.S. Constitution, and cultural forms such as film and literature that organize national belonging and exclusion. Focusing on the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries, we will be centrally concerned with citizenship and the public sphere as they have emerged in mass society. We will study the way that ideas of "public" and "private" are shaped and enforced in American civic culture. As an example, we will examine the regulation of human sexuality and the ways that recent debates about same-sex marriage have played out in courtrooms, legislatures, and the media.

We will also consider how the U.S. Constitution defines civil rights in comparison to international standards of human rights, and will inquire whether rights frameworks offer appropriate recourse in the face of injustice. As examples of rights frameworks, we will examine equal protection and free speech, and consider forms of inequality and censorship exercised both by the state and by the media. Throughout these and additional case studies, we will persistently ask this question: What is the role of law and literature in shaping the various "publics" and the forms of "citizenship" that ground national belonging and political activity in the United States?