Vanderbilt University Logo
Skip to main content

Master of Liberal Arts and Science

Master of Liberal Arts and Science
  2. Course Information
  3. Upcoming Roster

Upcoming Roster

 

Summer 2025

The MLAS Summer 2025 term will run from Tuesday, June 3 through Thursday, August 7.

 

MLAS 6100:  Seminar in Humanities: Jewish American History through Literature and Film, 1905-1975
Prof. Adam Meyer
Course meets Tuesday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course Description : This course will describe the chronology of Jewish American life, particularly the experiences of Eastern European immigrants and their families, through the dual lenses of Jewish American literature and film. We will begin with the immigrant generation and move through the tumultuous years of World War II and into the time of the Civil Rights Movement. Authors to be read include Abraham Cahan, Laura Z. Hobson, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, and Chaim Potok; films to be screened include Hester Street, The Front, The Pawnbroker, and Driving Miss Daisy.
(Fine and Creative Arts, History, Literature and Creative Writing, Social Science)

 

 

MLAS 6400: Seminar in Literature and Creative Writing: Playwriting and Screenwriting
Prof. Judy Klass
Course meets Wednesday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course  Description: These two kinds of scriptwriting are very different. Playwriting emphasizes dialogue and character development, with scenes that unfold slowly and reveal layers of people and changes in their relationships. Writing for the movies means telling a story visually, usually with much quicker scenes, some with no dialogue, and employing cinematic techniques (match-cuts, montages, inter-cutting, frames within frames) when they enhance a script. We'll read famous stage plays and screenplays, and scenes from others, and watch some works on screen in class -- and students will write monologues for the stage, scenes for two characters, then more characters ... and then short, silent screenplays, "music videos" (writing out visuals to go with a favorite song), and short screenplays with synch sound. We'll discuss Hollywood three-act structure, "road movies," "buddy movies," adapting a script originally written for the stage -- "opening it up" so that it works on screen -- and we'll look at options and choices for both kinds of writers. Ambitious students are welcome to plot and complete full-length plays and full-length screenplays along the way. 

(Literature and Creative Writing)

 

Fall 2025

The MLAS Fall 2025 term will run from Monday, August 25 through Thursday, December 7.

 

MLAS 6600: Seminar in Social Science: Food, Culture, and Identity  
Prof. Norbert Ross 
Course meets Tuesday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course Description : Eating and food are less about nutrition than about identity, politics, production and profit. While eating together provides a strong bond (our companions are the ones we break bread with) any community is also marked by exclusions - who doesn’t get to sit at the table. Hence in this course we explore issues of gender, race, and class and how they relate to food and eating. As part of the course we will explore our own habits as well as the Nashville food scene.
(Social Science)

 

MLAS 6200: Seminar in Fine and Creative Arts: The Italian High Renaissance: Milan, Florence, Rome, Venice  
Prof. Sheri Shaneyfelt
Course meets Monday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
CourseDescription : This course will focus on the art and architecture of High Renaissance Italy from ca. 1480-1550. We will study primarily works of painting and sculpture, but also architecture and the graphic arts. Major masters will include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Santi, and Donato Bramante working in Northern and Central Italy, namely Milan, Florence, and Rome. We will also consider Sofonisba Anguissola as well as Giorgione and Titian who were active chiefly in Venice and the Veneto. We will approach our material with an emphasis upon stylistic progression, iconographic interpretation and meaning, the role of patronage and audience, and original physical, cultural, societal, and historical context.
( Fine and Creative Arts, History)

 

MLAS 6700: Interdisciplinary Methods Seminar (Core Seminar): Ethics
Prof. Robert Talisse
Course meets Wednesday evenings, 6:00-8:30 pm
Course Description : What if you could prevent a murder by telling a lie?  What if you could save a life by stealing a car?  What if you could save five lives by committing one murder?  What if you knew you could get away with that murder by telling a well-constructed lie?  Would it be wrong to commit the murder?  Would it matter if the five you save were close friends, and the one murdered were a cranky stranger?  What kind of person would you be were you to murder one to save five others?  Can a bad person be happy?  Attempts to give coherent and systematic answers to questions like the ones above have resulted in rival theories of morality, each offering different views of what is morally good, worthwhile, permissible, obligatory, and praiseworthy.  In this course, we will critically examine the most influential of these theories. Through careful study of key primary texts supplemented with contemporary articles, students will explore the landscape of philosophical theorizing about morality, develop critical thinking and dialectical skills, and evaluate their own moral commitments.
(Core Seminar, Social Science)

 

4/2/25