UH Launches Creative Work Minor This Fall

To fully realize the fine arts is to comprehend how and why specific works were constructed, composed and created. A dynamic new University of Houston minor will look beyond art itself and focus on the cultural, historical and philosophical factors that inspire it.

UH's Honors College will debut its Creative Work minor this fall. This academic program is open to students from all majors, as well as those from outside the Honors College.

"This minor will provide students with a coherent framework that connects art forms to other studies," said John Harvey, director for UH's Center for Creative Work. "It's completely interdisciplinary. Students can apply courses to this minor from a range of subjects including women's studies, business, music, English, the sciences and more. At the end of four years, students will have an understanding of how all of these topics are integrated with regard to creative works."

Harvey will teach the Creative Works foundation course Poetics and Performance this fall. Among the minor's capstone courses is Artists in the Regions, which explores art and literature within Texas and surrounding areas. Starting spring 2011, a new Greek theater and philosophy class, the City Dionysia, also will serve as a capstone course.

Other classes that can be applied to a Creative Work minor include selections from UH's Interdisciplinary Art curriculum such as Collaboration Among the Arts or Selected Topics in Interdisciplinary Arts. Students also can receive up to six credit hours through approved internships at arts institutions.

More than 40 courses from different UH colleges and departments can taken as Creative Work electives. A complete list of these classes is posted at http://tinyurl.com/2f498nr. A student must successfully complete 18 hours (which includes the foundation course and one capstone course) from this curriculum to earn this minor.

"The Creative Work minor combines fine arts interests with cultural studies such as history or philosophy," Harvey said. "It's a minor that's interested in the study of how art is made."