We offer a major in Studio Art and a major and minor in the History and Criticism of Art and Visual Culture. Studio art courses focus on making–students create animation, ceramics, drawings, films, paintings, photographs, and prints. History and Criticism courses center images, objects, and architecture made by people from different periods and places, which students situate in historical and social contexts.

Premised upon the idea that reading critically and writing imaginatively are necessarily related and mutually nourishing activities, the concentration in creative writing complements and enhances the English major, and gives structured opportunity and a sense of purpose to students committed to the writing of poetry or prose. 

Integrating both theory and practice within the framework of a liberal arts education, the curriculum develops an understanding of art, culture, and the positionality of individuals through the lens of dance. With a variety of performing, choreographic, contextual, and individualized study opportunities, the dance program nurtures artistic independence, interdisciplinarity, and above all, a strong supportive community.

The Department of Music gives students the opportunity to study music from cultural, historical, theoretical, psychological, creative, and interpretive perspectives, including study of Western and non-Western classical, popular, and experimental musical traditions.

Theater at Bates invites students to develop existing abilities and enthusiasms and to discover new ones. There are many parts to assemble and explore: acting, directing, design, stage management, dramaturgy, playwriting, technical skill, dramatic literature, theater history, and performance studies. 

Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of human communication that focuses on the intersectional nature of meaning and knowledge.