Book Arts, MFA

The MFA degree focuses on book arts as a hands-on practice, as a creative medium, and as a historical and cultural phenomenon. Its principal objectives are to provide aesthetic and scholarly contexts for the making of creative work and for the study of book history, arts, and technologies. It also offers a structured program in book-related disciplines for graduate students interested in studio arts, in librarianship, and in literary and cultural history.

Learning Outcomes

Students will learn:

  • breadth of hands-on and contextual (studio, art historical, cultural) experience with art, craft, and design disciplines within the book arts;
  • depth of study within one or more craft disciplines within the book arts;
  • sustained, project-based problem solving accomplished through art-making;
  • proficiency in hand skills (scale: competence, proficiency, excellence/mastery);
  • interdisciplinary synthesis of studio art, scholarly practice, and material analysis;
  • critical thinking within and across these book-based disciplines; and
  • professional development and exposure to career tracks.