UC Berkeley Art Practice
Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley

Graduate Courses

Graduate Courses

Graduate courses in Art Practice are available exclusively to graduate students in Art Practice unless noted otherwise. All graduate courses must be taken for a letter grade.


ART NWMEDIA 201: BCNM: Questioning New Media (NWMEDIA 201, 3 UNITS)

Questioning New Media is a hybrid studio/lecture course that explores issues and practices in contemporary new media culture. Students will research, present and make creative works that critically examine new media. The course will focus on the issues addressed in select campus lectures, local art exhibitions, and course readings. In class, students will enhance their skills in “questioning” new media: how to think critically about advanced topics, how to look at new media art work with a discerning eye, and how to transform their “questions” into an engaging creative work of art or performance.

Students will attend campus lectures, art shows and events, in addition to doing selected readings. There will be a final presentation/performance night open to the public. This course is open to graduate students from any department and upper- level undergraduates (upon instructor approval). This course fulfills one of the core course requirements for the Designated Emphasis in New Media.


ART 218: Theory and Professional Practices

Course may be repeated for credit. Hours to be arranged. ALL GRADUATE COURSES MUST BE TAKEN FOR A LETTER GRADE.

Prerequisites: Art Practice graduate students only


ART/NWMEDIA 290: Post-Secular: Religion, Ritual, and Performance

Please see UC Berkeley course catalog for details on this course offered by Prof. Asma Kazmi.


ART/NWMEDIA 290: BCNM: Critical Practices: People, Places, Participation (NWMEDIA 290-003, 4 UNITS)

A hands-on, studio design course where students work at the intersection of technological innovation and socially engaged art. Students will integrate a suite of digital fabrication tools with social design methods to create work that engages in cultural critique. Working with innovative technologies and radical, new art practices, this course will explore: hybrid art forms, critical design for community engagement, interventions in public spaces, tactical media and disobedient objects. These new making strategies will reframe our notions of people, places and participation.


ART 294: Graduate: Seminar: Studio Critique

Course may be repeated for credit. Six hours of instructional studio and three hours open studio per week. Weekly meetings will provide a forum for the discussion of issues related to assigned readings in the fields of esthetics, theory and art criticism.

Prerequisite: Art Practice graduate students only


ART 301: The Teaching of Art Practice

The 301 Pedagogy Seminar is a preparation for GSI’s and is aligned directly with the teaching of Art 8: Introduction to Visual Thinking. Within our pre-semester pedagogy meetings, each graduate student develops a syllabus with emphasis on teaching philosophy, course content, approach to grading, attendance policy, and critique approach and style. Graduate students develop lesson plans and relational formal exercises for each of the course’s three main projects. Instructors receive the Art 8 Pedagogy manual, which contains twenty years of GSI’s syllabi and other helpful information. During our weekly semester pedagogy meetings, the graduate students and I discuss the pertinent issues of their current classroom dynamics.

Prerequisites: Art Practice graduate students only