M.A. Seminars

Seminars are taken during both spring and fall semesters.

Arts and Culture Seminar
Instructors: Alisa Solomon and David Hajdu
This course aims to develop students' analytical understanding, historical knowledge and nimble thinking about arts and culture across a range of disciplines on both theoretical and practical planes. Geared to a diverse range of students with various interests and goals—reporters, critics, general cultural writers, journalists with expertise in a particular art form—the course is organized thematically, allowing us to burrow down deeply into some specific genres while identifying both enduring principles and contemporary concerns that apply more broadly. We examine art works and events within wide contexts and trace the deep currents of American culture through them.

Through a combination of extensive reading (from scholarly, creative and journalistic sources), case studies, field trips and guest lectures from experts, we consider the formal and emotional force of the arts as well as the ways they function as commodities in a global marketplace. We examine how the arts can light the way to new ways of thinking and kindle conflagrations over contentious social issues. We learn about artists themselves—how their social roles have been constructed over time, what their creative processes are like, the nitty-gritty of how they bring their work before the public. And we learn about policy and economic issues—private and public funding models, intellectual property law, trade agreements. We learn, too, about the place and impact of the arts in such realms as education, religion and politics.

Students in the Arts and Culture Seminar will develop the skills, analytical habits of mind and flexibility to cover a wide range of stories—for example, to discover and convey the significance of Riccardo Muti's departure from La Scala; to unpack the trade issues as well as the historical cultural concerns behind China's request that the U.S. halt imports of Chinese artifacts; to bring readers/listeners/viewers inside the processes and purposes of a community theater project; to follow and assess the crackdown on illegal music downloading; to map out the cultural, economic and aesthetic meanings of Bollywood-style production in the U.S. It should occur to such students that in covering, say, product placement in rap music, the expert in neoliberal economics Susan George may be as useful a source as the Hip Hop expert Nelson George. Students will work on becoming cultural reporters and critics in the fullest sense.

Business Seminar
Instructors: Sylvia Nasar and James Stewart
The year-long business reporting seminar is taught by Sylvia Nasar, John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Business Journalism, and James Stewart, Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism.

The fall term stresses three basic attributes of excellent economics reporting: (1) A firm grasp of basic economic theory and institutions, (2) Hands-on knowledge of data for measuring economic performance and assessing the validity of economic arguments, and (3) The ability to find and report arresting stories. Our primary objective is to teach students simple, fast and effective ways to break down complicated problems, locate relevant data, and compensate for inherent biases. Weekly topics include: wages, national income, long-run growth and living standards, recessions and recoveries, taxes and government spending, the monetary system and the Federal Reserve, asset markets, labor markets, trade, and the world financial system.

The goal of the spring term is to provide journalists with the knowledge and analytical skills to conceive and execute stories about business. The academic subjects will not be taught in the abstract, but rather in the context of recent and current news and developments. The course will teach basic skills in accounting, corporate finance, securities law, securities analysis and portfolio management, while keeping the course firmly rooted in the journalistic process. This approach is intended to cultivate students’ abilities to identify issues of journalistic interest and to pursue them. Case studies include GM, Google, Coke, Pepsi, Wal-Mart, Hewlett-Packard, Martha Stewart, Enron, WorldCom, and Disney. While certain basic issues will arise with regularity, some of the most interesting and potentially explosive topics will be news-driven.

Politics Seminar
Instructors: Alexander Stille and Thomas Edsall
This course will offer an intense and concentrated introduction to what a journalist should know about politics. It will provide an historical framework or context to the main political systems and institutions that exist today, as well as a series of analytical tools that reporters can use to analyze and understand stories and situations they may confront.

This is the broadest concentration in the M.A. program, appropriate for students who want to be foreign correspondents, legal reporters, education reporters or city hall reporters. Across all of these domains, certain themes and issues recur, and this course is therefore organized around seven such themes. They are: power; identity and nationalism; mobilization, collective action and social conflict; rights; institutions; the distribution of resources; and bargaining and negotiation. Readings will explore these issues from the perspectives of the social sciences and journalism readings, and student assignments will include exploring the manifestation of these forces in the greater New York area.

Science Seminar
Instructors: Marguerite Holloway and Jonathan Weiner
The goal of this course is to furnish journalists with basic knowledge in several scientific disciplines; to provide them with case studies and historical reviews about selected contemporary debates so their thinking becomes more analytical and contextual; and to instruct them in the fundamentals of science reporting and writing. The course in no way intends to be scientifically comprehensive, but rather to introduce journalists to certain important facts and ideas in order that their coverage becomes more accurate and detailed. It will teach them to think more deeply about what they cover—to seek out the backdrop and implications of contemporary scientific issues. The class will meet two times a week for 90 minutes. The first meeting will typically be a scientific lecture; the second will focus on journalism.

The course will begin with an overview of the structure and sociology of science, and will then cover such topics as: the importance of scale and relativity in physics; how systems work in the earth sciences; relativism and other issues in the social sciences; medicine and health; and the processes of innovation and discovery.

Written assignments will include certain classic sorts of science journalism, such as the profile and the medical story.