California Institute of Integral Studies

California, United States

Residential program

The Interdisciplinary Arts Department offers the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing. Writers and artists from wide-ranging genres and forms participate in conversation with one another, while also engaging across disciplines—in classes, workshops, and arts events—in a culture of inquiry that helps them to further develop and better articulate their work.

The MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing is a two-year, 39-unit asynchronous, online program with required virtual course meetings at the beginning of each fall and spring semester. Students may also choose to register for the (4-5 day) in-person Interdisciplinary Arts Seminar (offered in San Francisco and other locations TBA) that includes building relationships with cohort members and the MFA community, visits to art events and organizations, and opportunities to learn from guest artists through short workshops, readings, talks, and panel discussions.

Our degree includes the following:

• Individualized sessions with faculty advisers and art mentors

• Interdisciplinary conversation across the arts through workshops and online work

• A focus on multicultural and global perspectives on art making

• Exploration of inquiry as a vital skill in development of artwork and the artist

• International Summer intensives (for degree credit)

• Articulating an arts context, including one’s relationship to social, spiritual, and/or artistic movements as well as diverse cultural, gender, political, and global perspectives

• Creating a significant writing, art, or inter-arts project and opportunities to present one’s art through MFA semester showings

Our department values the complex range of human experience and welcomes artists from all disciplines (literary, visual, performing, media, and interdisciplinary) into an innovative laboratory for individual and collaborative projects. Working in small groups, individually with faculty and mentors, and with organizations in San Francisco and the Bay Area, students emerge as a community of artists, with valuable connections and relationships. We know that most artists will live a hybrid life, so we offer professional development courses and internships—focusing on building an arts career, community engagement, teaching, and editing and publishing our own inter-arts journal, Mission at Tenth.


Contact Information

1453 Mission Street
MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing
San Francisco
California, United States
94103-2561
Phone: 415-575-6285
Email: cshearer@ciis.edu
https://www.ciis.edu/academics/department-interdisciplinary-arts



DEGREE PROGRAMS

Graduate Program Director

Julie Bata
Program Coordinator
1453 Mission St
San Francisco
California, United States
94103
Email: jbata@ciis.edu

The MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing program has a unique multi-genre, multidisciplinary approach, and a strong focus on diverse, international, contemporary literary models. The writers in the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing program--a supportive community of faculty and students--encourage and challenge each other to create beautiful, powerful work, literature that changes lives. Our approach combines intellectual rigor with playful curiosity and the willingness to take risks and experiment in workshop, art, and craft courses. Studies in consciousness, theory, and the relationship of contemporary literature to history bring the greater world into our writing. We do not believe literary artists exist in a vacuum or must separate from the culture to create; rather, we hold the view that art provides a profound method for engaging self and culture and can transform the individual and world. Our poems, stories, essays, novels, memoirs, and multi-genre work may aim to change the world, develop the consciousness of both writer and readers, or simply delight and surprise our readers.

The writers in the program are deeply motivated individuals with rich life experiences and the conviction that writing is both an art and a calling. They learn to celebrate the variety and diversity of each other's choices and gifts, to give supportive feedback aimed at illuminating and strengthening each writer's work, and to claim their particular literary lineage. Students have a range of choices in establishing their individual programs and areas of study.

The heart of the program--the MFA Workshop and MFA Project--gives students a chance to focus on their own work while learning from the work of their peers. Courses on the art and craft of writing combine writing instruction with an education in reading as a writer and an overview of the history of, and contemporary practices in, the writing genres. This combination of courses, focusing on genre and then specific craft elements (that may cross genres), exposes students to the essential techniques and practices in a variety of types of writing, while allowing them to develop dexterity as writers and proficiency in various literary forms. We also have a notable professional development curriculum, with second-year courses in Editing and Publishing, Teaching Creative Writing, and the Artist in the World. Courses in arts administration, community arts work and teaching offered to the MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and Writing program.

Type of Program: Studio/Research
Largest Class Size: 12
Smallest Class Size: 12
Genres: Fiction, Playwriting, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry
Tuition 19000
Duration of Study: 2 years
Unit of Measure: Credits
Criticism and Theory: 3
Workshop: 12
Literature: 6
Thesis: 6
Total Units for Degree: 48
Other Requirements: Course work in the Art of Writing (9 units) and Artist in the World (6 units), professional development courses. Also opportunities to take 6 units in Consciousness study. Weekend Intensive (with limited online component)
Application Deadline Fall: 07/15/2019
Application Deadline Spring: 11/15/2018
Application Requirements: Transcripts, Writing Sample, Application Form, Letters of Recommendation, Other




FACULTY

Carolyn Cooke


Cindy Shearer





COMMUNITY