Creative Arts Experience
The Creative Arts Experience’s (CAE) mission is to engage students in the fine arts community at Baylor by providing programs of art, music, theatre, film, and literature, with the additional focus of these arts as seen through the lens of world cultures. Through participation in CAE events, students grow and mature in the reception, interpretation, and appreciation of the arts and develop cultural literacy, critical thinking, social skills, and patronage of the arts.
As you can imagine, this year, the pandemic presented quite a challenge for the arts. However, as faculty began to adapt and change, and their delivery methods of curriculum needed to change, the CAE, in collaboration with faculty, were able to create new ways to deliver and record attendance for these virtual events. The new online events were offered through a combination of QR codes, YouTube channels, and reflection questions. We are pleased to say, as a result of everyone’s efforts, the CAE hosted 150 synchronous, asynchronous, and in-person events that served over 4,763 Baylor students. CAE will continue to offer in-person, synchronous, and asynchronous events in all categories to provide the maximum opportunities to our students.
This past semester, the Modern Languages and Cultures department hosted a World Cinema Series. This event offered 12 asynchronous CAE film events in 10 different languages that hosted 477 students. The World Cinema Series provides students with a unique opportunity to watch international movies right here on the Baylor campus. Thanks to this event being hosted every fall and spring semester on Tuesday nights, students can see the world through film. The Department of Modern Languages and Cultures created this event 12 years ago to allow students to watch movies in the languages taught in their department. With incredible effort and coordination from Jennifer Good and Rosario Colchero-Dorado this semester, the series transitioned online to accommodate the current COVID crisis. They will continue to operate online this spring. Participating instructors provide an extended introduction to help students better understand the cultural and cinematographic context in which each movie was produced. This event is a cinematographic and cultural eye-opener for our Baylor students.
Coming up this Spring, we are excited to announce that Literature and World Cultures will be hosting an event titled Of Daughters and Mothers presented by Cherry-Award winner Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black. Dr. Cognard-Black is a Professor of English at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a two-time Fulbright scholar to The Netherlands and Slovenia, and a recipient of the Norton T. Dodge Award for Creative and Scholarly Achievement. Cognard-Black’s books include Narrative in the Professional Age, Kindred Hands; a writing textbook, Advancing Rhetoric; an anthology of food fictions, culinary poems, Books that Cook: The Making of a Literary Meal; and a collection of essays by women writers about their everyday contraptions, From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines. Dr. Cognard-Black will read from recent and past creative work that considers the fraught yet resonant relationship between daughters and mothers by sampling both realistic and fantastic fiction. She will present this work through a staged reading. Join us on April 14th, 2021, for this event.