The Arts

Communication Within the Curriculum (CWiC) is Penn's public speaking program. Its mission is to help students express themselves orally with clarity and confidence.

CWiC Speaking Advisors are undergraduate students trained in public speaking. CWiC Advisors teach workshops and provide coaching sessions for individual and group presentations.

For more information on scheduling a session with a CWiC Speaking Advisor or becoming a CWiC Speaking Advisor, go to the CWiC website.

The Creative Writing Program offers workshops in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalistic writing, screenwriting, and playwriting. It also offers minors in Creative Writing and Journalistic Writing, publishes a literary journal highlighting; the work of students, faculty and eminent alumni writers; and provides qualified English majors the opportunity to earn honors in English by submitting a creative thesis. Throughout the year, the program invites visiting writers to Penn for readings and talks, and sponsors a University-wide writing contest each spring.

Penn's campus is the home of the world-class Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and many galleries exhibiting both student and professional installations. Read more >>

The Kelly Writers House is a historic house on Penn's campus that serves as a center for writers from Penn and the Philadelphia region at large. Each semester the Writers House hosts approximately 150 public programs and projects: poetry readings, film screenings, seminars, art exhibits and musical performances. Each week about 500 people work, write and collaborate in its many rooms and in the "Arts Cafe." Writers House also has a strong virtual presence through live interactive webcasts and dozens of listservs, web magazines and email discussion groups.

home page
The Architecture major is a program for students interested in developing basic skills, knowledge, and methods of inquiry in the discipline of architecture in the context of a studio-based liberal arts education. Although the major resides in the College of Arts and Sciences, the studio and theory courses are taught by faculty in the Department of Architecture and the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning in the School of Design.

home page • about the major
Cinema Studies is an interdisciplinary program designed to acquaint students with the history and interpretation of cinema and to allow them to combine knowledge of the field with the traditional aims of an undergraduate liberal arts education.

The Creative Writing Program offers workshops in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalistic writing, screenwriting, and playwriting. It also offers minors in Creative Writing and Journalistic Writing, publishes a literary journal highlighting; the work of students, faculty and eminent alumni writers; and provides qualified English majors the opportunity to earn honors in English by submitting a creative thesis. Throughout the year, the program invites visiting writers to Penn for readings and talks, and sponsors a University-wide writing contest each spring.

undergraduate page • about the major
The major in Fine Arts is based upon the premise that an education in liberal studies should include the challenge of learning to see, and that the education of the artist is dramatically improved by liberal studies. Areas of study include drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, photography, animation, film/video, graphic design and multi-media.

home page • about the major
The Department of the History of Art invites all students to explore the connections between visual creativity and the history of human civilization. The History of Art is the study of form and meaning in the visual arts from their beginnings to the present.

home page • about the major
The Music curriculum exposes students to both a broad range of musical traditions from the past and present, and to the variety of approaches and practices desirable to illuminate musical subjects. As well as equipping students with a range of tools for investigating music (historical approaches, philosophical inquiry, composition, theory, performance), the curriculum is also designed so as to develop the integration of those skills.

home page • about the major
The Theatre Arts Program is an interdisciplinary major focusing on all intellectual and creative aspects of theatre and performance studies.

home page • about the major
We live in an increasingly visual culture. New technologies and philosophies of vision influence how we see ourselves and our world, and how we think about seeing itself. Students can engage these developments through a multidisciplinary course of study, connecting the theory, practice and culture of seeing. The major combines work in Art History, Fine Arts, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychology and Film Studies, among others.