The Critical and Visual Studies Program

Critical and Visual Studies is a B.A. program for the imaginative student who wants to combine the rigor of the liberal arts with the openness and experimentation of the creative arts.

CritViz, as the program is often called, transforms the traditional meaning of "liberal arts and sciences," bringing vitality and practical application to intellectual and artistic practice. At the core of the program is the belief that the integration of theoretical knowledge and practical experience is crucial to learning. Here, anything created by people—from street art to political systems, from international media to the global economy— is a potential subject of study from a wide variety of perspectives. The program creates an interdisciplinary framework that allows students to explore the artistic, social, and political meanings of cultural and aesthetic production.

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The Liberal Arts Context

The student's academic program combines the core curriculum with a generous variety of electives in the liberal arts and sciences, as well as in architecture, art history, art and design, and planning. Students build a foundation in many classic and innovative texts of philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities, and in the writings of contemporary thinkers who are of special importance to Critical and Visual Studies. They study world civilizations and literatures, effective writing and scientific thinking, as well as social and political thought.

Pratt's Critical and Visual Studies program teaches students to be critical, articulate, well read, intellectually flexible, and culturally savvy. The program provides students with:

• A critical and historically informed understanding of how culture is made and lived within neighborhoods, cities, and across national borders.
• Competency in a range of techniques for research, analysis, and communication.
• The ability to develop and integrate written, oral, visual, spatial, and kinesthetic expression through student-initiated projects.
• Opportunities to extend the integration of theory and practice and make links between academic work and the working world through internships in cultural institutions, especially nonprofit arts and public service agencies.

The Critical and Visual Studies curriculum allows students the opportunity to take electives in the traditional studio arts and in new media. Students work in textual and visual media, honing their writing skills and also working experimentally to integrate the verbal and visual, creating new combinations of word and image.

The faculty in Critical and Visual Studies is committed to a wide range of intellectual speculations and engagement. Our faculty members have diverse teaching and research interests, including cinema and documentary film; cultural studies; media studies; globalization; imperialism; colonialism and post-colonialism; critical theory; race, class, gender and sexuality; history and historiography; literature and creative writing; theater and performance studies; philosophy; sociology; ethnography; landscape and space; environmental studies; and the history and sociology of science and technology. Area specialties include Latin America, Africa, North America, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Pratt's location in New York City allows students and faculty to be enthusiastic participants in a dynamic array of cultural events and institutions. Students in Pratt's Critical and Visual Studies program immerse themselves in the intellectual life of New York City. Students are expected to participate in a wide array of public programming organized by the faculty of Critical and Visual Studies.

Events underscore the program's emphasis on the public world of art, culture, and social life, and include the following:

The Colloquium Speaker Series brings renowned scholars and intellectuals to the Institute, giving majors the opportunity to meet and interact with distinguished thinkers and academics.

Film Screenings are designed to be provocative forums for current issues and timely debates. Filmmakers accompany their film screenings and address interested students after the screenings, making for lively discussions that extend beyond the classroom.

Field trips organized by faculty of the Critical and Visual Studies program, provide opportunities to see current museum and gallery exhibitions; to network with artists, architects, designers, critics and curators; and to engage with the city at large.

Showcase Conferences are small conferences organized around the projects of junior and senior Critical and Visual Studies majors and involve faculty and the larger student community. These smaller presentations and discussions are a chance for students to get to know the work of peers and to gain perspective on their own intellectual development.

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THE PROGRAM'S STRUCTURE

The Core: Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Years
The centerpiece of the program is the core curriculum comprised of introductory courses in visual studies, critical studies, and intermediate courses that integrate the two in specific cultural and historical contexts. The core also includes "praxis" courses that fully integrate theory and practice in the critical investigation of all the different forms of human expression: social, artistic, and scientific. Beginning with grounding in critical theory in the early semesters, the core courses build toward individual projects that test theoretical knowledge as cultural practice. From there, students branch off into elective areas ranging from globalization to sustainability, from cinema to urban studies.

The Senior Year: Internships, the Senior Project, and the Senior Seminar
A required internship provides invaluable opportunities to make connections for the professional world and post-graduate study. The internship is the culmination of the program's emphasis on real-world experience, grounded in the previous semesters of study and practice. Under the supervision of a faculty member, students identify individual internship opportunities, primarily in New York City arts and cultural organizations. Preparation for the experience includes everything from the creation of an up-to-date résumé and cover letter, and other workplace skills, to reflection on the social and political contexts in which the internship organization is embedded. During the semester in which students work at their internship sites, they also meet regularly as a group with the supervising faculty member and undertake written assignments.

The final year in Critical and Visual Studies enhances a student's sense of independence, self-reflection, and the confidence to make a difference in the world. Students are required to write a thesis and to participate in weekly meetings in which they give and receive peer critiques, in addition to readings and conferences with the supervising faculty member. The senior thesis, which is the end-product of this experience, hones students' abilities to express and argue their ideas and to make a new sense of the cultural world.