Students studying political economy at Bennington engage deeply with subject matter affecting human well-being, exploring areas such as the environment, wealth inequality, international development, and gender. They build an analytical skill set, not only by using today;s economic tools, but also through an understanding of economic history and philosophical debates. Students will be able to show quantitative literacy and reasoning through applications and policy analysis. Upper-level courses challenge students to further combine their knowledge across disciplines.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
Sociolinguistics is about how language is used in society and how social factors affect the way we speak. At Bennington, students studying sociolinguistics explore how language shapes our identities and how social status and power influence those identities. They examine how people adapt their language during conversations and how it reflects things like gender, sexuality, group membership, and social status. They ask questions about not only what is said, but also how it is said, who says it, and why. Students also learn about the cognitive and structural aspects of language as a system and how it’s influenced by different contexts. They use both qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze language, and they evaluate different approaches to this important human topic.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
The French program at Bennington believes in challenging and engaging content as the best pathway to linguistic proficiency, regardless of level. Beginners use French to look closely at cultural practices. Intermediate-level courses often focus on film or music. Advanced students examine literature, critical theory, and theatre in depth. At all levels, small seminars focus students’ energy on close reading, challenging questions, and lively discussion.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
Our classes present many ways for students to deeply understand historical thinking, and incorporate it into their work in other fields. In addition to courses on American and international history, we offer courses on international law, the Constitution, diplomacy, human rights, and local history; we teach the histories of science, magic, medicine, books, and gender. Advanced projects classes and tutorials offer opportunities to pursue individual and collaborative independent projects across different areas of study.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
To enrich students’ exploration, artists, writers, and scholars in the field of Japanese studies regularly visit campus, and faculty and students collaborate to organize out-of-school activities. Students are encouraged to pursue Field Work Term opportunities related to their studies, and study abroad is strongly encouraged for students of Japanese. Bennington offers an exchange program with Kansai Gaikokugo University, Osaka, Japan.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
There are many ways to study mathematics at Bennington. The self-directed and problem-oriented approach of a Bennington mathematics education prepares students for the challenges of graduate school or careers requiring mathematics. Our courses also provide the support students in other areas requiring mathematics (physics, economics, computer science) need to prepare for graduate school or careers in their fields. In addition, students focusing in areas that are not usually connected to mathematics (dance, visual arts, literature) often take advantage of our unique course structure to include mathematics in their work in interesting and new ways. Many students who take even one course in mathematics find that it gives them new perspectives and skills that carry over into their other work in surprising ways.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
The study of media at Bennington explores media history and theory, as well as scholarly and artistic work in the new fields of sound studies, visual culture, media archaeology, and the digital humanities. We work from an expanded definition of media that includes not only printed and digital texts and imagery, but also the physical strucutures make media possible, from undersea fiber optic cables to the ring of telecommunications satellites orbiting the earth. Students learn how to analyze the circulation of media artifacts and their meanings in relation to structures of power, the construction of social difference, and the range of possibilities for interpreting the past, perceiving the present, and imagining the future.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
Music at Bennington helps students grow in their ability to do creative work in performance and composition. Our faculty of active professional musicians and composers represent a rare diversity of musical traditions who share a belief in hands-on learning and the development of versatile, thinking musicians who are able to understand multiple musical perspectives. Courses range from ensemble classes in Filipino kulintang, North American traditional music, and percussion music from the African diaspora, to classes in counterpoint, voice, jazz improvisation, electroacoustic music, studio recording, music history, and individual instrumental study.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
Bennington’s approach to art history, like our approach to everything, includes many different areas of study. Students are invited to make connections between historical and contemporary art, between what informs their own practice and what has shaped artistic practice across the centuries and across the globe. Students’ work in other subjects—the social sciences, languages, sciences, studio art—enrich their exploration of art in a historical context, and vice versa.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.
Bennington’s individual student-designed programs offer a powerful approach to engaging the environment. Faculty from all of Bennington’s areas of study participate in designing a broad and flexible curriculum that supports students’ work in environmental studies. Students draw on these deep and diverse resources to assemble the tools necessary to gain new insights and frame new interventions into today’s environmental problems.
At Bennington, you design your own course of study and work, taking full advantage of the College’s resources both inside and outside the classroom. This process goes beyond the bounds of a traditional major. You identify one or more areas of interest that spark your intellectual curiosity and provide a foundation for your academic work and fieldwork, and you pursue that work with ongoing guidance from your faculty. This is your Plan.