Film, TV, and Media Studies Courses

Course Description  

In Art of Cinema, we explore the following: how does a film communicate information and meaning to its audience? What are the expressive components of cinema?

Cinema is a key component of our cultural landscape and how we understand ourselves and the world. This course is aimed at developing a deeper appreciation for film by developing critical thinking and reading skills. We will explore how audiences make meaning from artistic and thematic cinematic strategies by examining its core communication elements. Moreover, we will examine how cinematic developments have been influenced by technology, cultural trends, and time.

During the first half of the course, we will break down the aesthetic components of cinema. (Cinema refers broadly to film, video, and digital time-based works intended for screening before a mass audience.) We will examine each element’s function in the production of meaning in a text, and in doing so, generate a shared vocabulary through which we can all speak and write with intelligence, confidence, and specificity about the ways in which a work affects us.

In the second half, we will discuss film history and genre by examining movie genre classifications. We then move into specific film topics that concern broader possibilities for cinematic expression. These topics include avant-garde and animation films that explore the medium’s relationship to reality and deviations from traditional storytelling. Therefore, during the second half of the course, we will use the language and grammar of cinema developed in the course’s first half, linking our aesthetic and technical understanding of film codes and language to generic and other formats -- in the larger cultural context.

 Course modality – In-person lecture and screenings. Separate 50-minute discussion section also required.

 Learning Outcomes – At the end of course, students will:

• Know the aesthetic components of cinema, including their historical development and the ways the function in the production of meaning, and be able demonstrate this knowledge in their exams and writing assignments.
• Know a shared vocabulary that enables scholarly and critical film discourse and demonstrate this knowledge in their discussion and writing.
• Understand the relationship between cinema’s aesthetic language and the cultural, technological, and economic conditions that determine it and demonstrate this knowledge in their discussion, exams, and written assignments.
• Value the diverse perspectives we bring to our understanding, interpretation and emotional response to cinema.
• Value the diverse approaches that filmmakers have taken to their art form as well as the stories they tell.

FLAG: Writing

Separate discussion required, see PROWL for times

Course Description

Stories matter. They help us find our way through a confusing and complicated world while providing us with positive and powerful images of ourselves. They can help us understand and empathize with others, especially those whose experiences are different from ours. They can reinforce our cultural attitudes and values or they can challenge us to think about difference differently. Through stories, we can better understand the ways that power and privilege impact different communities; compare the experiences of people from varied racial, ethnic, gendered, neurodiverse, class, and faith/religious groups; and gain an appreciation for the ways that race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion and disabilities intersect to form complicated personal and collective identities. This course investigates the ways that television, video games and content created for the web use and transform the elements of film language to create worlds and populate them with compelling characters in order to tell stories that shape and reflect cultural values and attitudes, especially those circulating in and around diverse and varied identities, including race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, faith and religion, and disabilities.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the semester, you will…

• Know the history and development of television, the internet, and study of video games
• Understand and be able to analyze the aesthetic aspects of an array of televisual, internet-based, and game texts with a specific focus on the ways that gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, faith and religion, and disabilities can be constructed through them
• Understand the ways that media scholars analyze and discuss texts and be able to apply scholarly discourse in their own writing and discussion

 By the end of the semester you will be able to...

• Expand, deepen, and apply your critical thinking and reading skills
• Develop a shared vocabulary for analyzing media texts
• Do a close reading of a media text--Refine your ability to construct and support an effective analytical and argumentative essay--Be able to reflect on your own learning and use these reflections to deepen learning

 By the end of the semester you will value...

• The contributions that marginalized groups have made and respect the continuing challenges they face to tell their stories in complicated and diverse ways
• Multiple perspectives and ways of expressing ideas creatively, analytically, and in scholarship
• The importance of informed discussion and debate to challenge, expand and clarify thinking
• Scholarly discourse and participation in a community of learning

 Instructional Methods

This course will have a blend of in-class and out-of-class elements. Every week there will be work you do on your own and we will convene on Wednesdays to go over it together, have screenings and discussions. We’ll start in a lecture/discussion mode, then shift to a student-led mode in which you will present materials and I will guide discussions. There will be a midterm and final exam as well.

Course Description

This course examines some of the most important industrial and artistic developments, and some of the most pressing and relevant thematic issues, in cinema worldwide from 1895 to 1955. Although we consider cinema culture today to be “global” in its various dimensions, the notion of a global cinema culture is fairly recent, having been preceded, first, by the codification of cinematic practices and conventions in the early 20^th century. This course will consider world cinema in the “national” context of the World War era. As film industries in Europe and Asia respond to, and are threatened by, the outbreaks of war in their home countries, filmmakers struggle to maintain their positions, even as they innovate cinematic styles. At the same time, American studios establish their dominance in the domestic and global marketplace through powerful distribution networks and the popularization of “Hollywood style” narrative and audiovisual design. The films, filmmakers, and topics covered here will reflect on this broad period as a national, pre-global era of world cinema.

Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will…

• know some of the most important aesthetic developments in world cinema during, between, and immediately after the First and Second World Wars, which will be traced to specific countries and filmmakers responding to these major conflicts.
• gain an understanding of cinema in a national context, where barriers of foreign language, culture, and government restrictions determine much of the content as new production and distribution methods are established.
• learn and make effective use of important terms and concepts derived from cinema practices of the wartime period (e.g. Russian formalism, German Expressionism, etc.) that are still in use today.
• embrace the varied approaches that filmmakers use in cinema, the wide array of stories they tell with it, and the way they inspire, and are inspired by, filmmakers of other nations and cultures.
• value the diverse perspectives we bring to understanding, interpreting, and responding to cinema.
• be able to demonstrate the above through discussions, exams, and written assignments.

Class Format – In-person lecture and screenings.

Work Expectations: 

Midterm and Final Exams

Two analysis papers

Participation 

Course description:
This course is a critical and historical survey of some major developments, trends, movements, filmmakers, and industries in world cinema from 1955 to 1990 and beyond. Because it is impossible to exhaustively cover over thirty-five years of global filmmaking in a semester, we’ll focus our attention on some central themes and countries that demonstrate the differences between foreign and U.S. film by exploring the concepts of first, second, and third cinema, tracking the influence of World War II on global filmmaking, and examining particular national and auteurs’ styles.

Learning outcomes:
This course will enable students to:
● Identify major trends in global filmmaking after World War II
● Appreciate the political and social contexts influencing these films’ production
● Track different artistic and political goals for and theorizations of filmmaking across the globe
● Develop critical thinking and writing skills about media and culture

Without a doubt, television is a powerful medium. It can reflect and shape values, help construct identities (personal, familial, cultural and national), teach us about the world and our place in it, and bring people together. Many of our attitudes about family, school, romance, gender roles, marriage, work, class, and ethnicity are shaped and informed by what we watch on television. At a time when movies seem to have lost their artistic and narrative vision, television has become the place to find innovative stories told in ways that not only push the medium but influence other media. But what is this thing called television? How has it changed over time, from its beginnings in radio to the internet age? How do we watch it? How do we talk and write about it critically and thoughtfully as consumers and as scholars? Further, the explosion of social media and YouTube (and the rest) culture has created new challenges to traditional television –both for the good and bad. Finally, massive upheavals are happening all over the entertainment industry, with shifting demographics and audience patterns. Understanding what is going on in the context of what happened in the past is the best way to plan for the future.

FLAG: Writing

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

The validity of truth in media traditionally has been evaluated from two perspectives: via an objective assessment of evidence and through the filter of one’s experience.  Through a series of screenings including works in mainstream documentary, mockumentary, avant garde film, interactive video, and experimental installations, we will examine, challenge, and redefine what constitutes non-fiction media.  This course will explore the varied approaches media-makers have taken to create and complicate claims of truth over the years.  These artists include Trinh T. Minh-ha, Errol Morris, Cheryl Dunye, Zanele Muholi, Ken Burns, and many others. We will talk about how the interpretation of evidence is the building block upon which their non-fiction narratives are derived.  We will discuss the assessment of the veracity of this evidence, and in doing so question the ethical and philosophical standards to which media should be held.  We will cover how truth is conveyed when it cannot be visually represented, or when representing people, places, or experiences for which no written record remains.  Finally, we will address how these narratives can destabilize traditional normative discourses of truth and the uneven power relations those norms can create between viewer, viewed, and filmmaker.  These discussions are especially pertinent in documentary media that attempts to reflect or represent lived experience and define well-being and identity, to raise awareness around key social and political issues, and to call viewers to action.  

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

Singing nuns in musicals, exorcists in horror films, and monks in martial arts movies; these are just a few of the ways in which religious figures have been utilized by filmmakers throughout cinema’s history. This course will look at a vast array of cinematic depictions of priests, nuns, and monks across multiple genres, and from varying historical and cultural contexts. Using both international and Hollywood texts from the mid-twentieth century to the present, we will explore why the religious figure continually appears and reappears in differing roles and contexts across multiple genres. We will also analyze the inherent elasticity of the priest, nun, and monk characters, and what makes them amenable to the genre film. We will also investigate the socio-historical landscapes from which these clerical depictions emerge and what they disclose about religion’s relationship to cultural identity.  

Engages critical perspectives and discussions of current movies and media, joined frequently by classroom encounters with media creators as well as actors, writers, producers and others engaged in contemporary media creation. Practical discussions of the creative process plus examinations of current professional trends are a focus; aesthetic analysis is a regular weekly feature. Professor Greene is a working TV producer and documentary filmmaker, and will draw on his own professional experience to delve deeply and specifically into the projects presented and the topics raised.

It is the intention of this course to demystify the contemporary media landscape by close conversations with working professionals as well as a free-ranging discussion of the themes and stylistic approaches represented by a wide-ranging slate of works. The course can serve to educate aspiring filmmakers about both professional realities and different creative approaches. For the casual filmgoer, the course is designed to challenge pre-existing viewing assumptions and open up different perspectives on media and how it talks to and about the wider world. There is also a strong writing component intended to focus and intensify our weekly classroom experiences through related prompts, and it is the intention of this course to help every student improve their writing.

Participation in class discussion and other class activities; weekly writing exercises; two analytical papers examining any film of the student's choice; and a multipart and
essay-based take-home final exam. A weekly asynchronous writing assignment based on a relevant prompt posted to Brightspace is also a core feature of this course.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

Since their inception, video games have grown from a casual experiment designed to introduce computers to the wider public to a billion-dollar industry with its own culture and place in the larger global culture. The past nineteen months has seen the gaming industry grow as people have turned to games for consolation during the Covid crisis. This course takes as a given that games are worthy of serious scholarly interest even as we play, analyze, share, and talk about games and game culture. 

Collaborative terms: We will work collaboratively to create our own glossary of terms. Once we have created our list of terms to define, you will sign up for two terms: one for which you will write the first draft of a definition and the second for which you will an addendum, in which you will build on a first draft definition created by one of your classmates. More specific guidelines will be distributed and posted on BrightSpace. 

Weekly reflection exercises: These are designed to encourage you to take time each week to step back, take a breath, hit pause, and reflect on the week, following a set of guided reflections. The guidelines will be distributed and posted on BrightSpace. You’ll upload your responses to BrightSpace each week. 

Group projects: Throughout the semester you will have the opportunity to work with some of your classmates on a variety of group projects, the last of which will be to design a video game (on paper) that deals with a social justice issue and pitch it to the class at the end of the semester. Specific guidelines will be distributed and posted on BrightSpace. You will also have the opportunity to write a short reflection essay, reflecting on the experience of working in a group. 

Short essays: You will have the opportunity to write several short (2-4 pages) essays throughout the semester. These essays will be designed to encourage you to think about games from a variety of perspectives. Prompts for each one will be distributed and posted on BrightSpace. You will upload your essays to BrightSpace. 

Gameplay journals: Since this is a video game class, you should be playing and/or observing games throughout the semester. In fact, playing games is part of our expectations for how you use your class preparation time each week. 7 Writing in a journal will help you step back from your gameplay to reflect and analyze your experience. Specific guidelines will be distributed, and you will post your journals on the BrightSpace page 

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

FTVS 3230 provides an overview of humanistic and social scientific theories of social media through contemporary and relevant case studies including platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as streaming and forum platforms. It examines the "participatory affordances" of new media technology from diverse viewpoints, looking to critique technological design and social media economics from marginalized and minoritized perspectives in particular. This course provides both critical and descriptive accounts of social media phenomena, and also incorporates practical lessons on social media strategy.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

This class is a critical, interdisciplinary survey of virtual reality as concept and media technology. The last decade has witnessed the resurgence of a “virtual reality” that conforms to all expectations – sophisticated, technologized goggles and sleek prosthetics that help teleport your senses to new heights of entertainment. Yet the ubiquitous advertising of gadgets like the Meta Quest belies the far more diffuse origins and applications of virtual reality. This course conceives of virtual reality as a far-reaching idiom of mediation, one that intersects multiple diverse fields, such as psychology, education, history, and the arts. In the era of real-time production, Unreal Engine, AI-generated art, and multiverse storytelling, virtual reality has become an especially useful concept in reframing the key debates of cinema and media studies for the 21stcentury. We will ask: what is reality? Are movies reality? Is the mind an image? Is that air you’re breathing? Through weekly case studies, theoretical analysis, and hands-on experience, this class will explore what virtual reality does, what it claims to do, and what you are going to do about it. 

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

Course description: Although sometimes understood in the past as a medium of “pure entertainment,” film has also had an essential relationship to evolving social conditions in the United States and various struggles for change. This course will focus on moments where film and media have commented upon, documented, and even informed social change.

We will analyze and contextualize media reflecting a wide variety of identity categories and social issues, looking both at and beyond media to understand its complicated intersections with power, economics, personhood, and representation. By familiarizing ourselves with basic theoretical concepts fundamental to cultural and social analysis, we’ll equip ourselves to think with nuance about the varied ways media has related to society.

Work expectations:

Weekly readings (on history, theory, and media analysis)

Attendance to weekly lectures and screenings

Engaged discussions during our class meetings

Written responses to the topics and readings covered in class

Midterm and final demonstrating mastery of class materials

Research paper doing comparative analysis of media focused on social issues

In the last two decades, animal studies has emerged as a thriving interdisciplinary field: animals have a lot to teach us about themselves as well as ourselves. This course explores how animals have been used as characters, actors, and metaphors in film and television, with a specific focus on animal actors, animal welfare in productions, and the rise of CGI animals in contemporary productions.  

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

An introduction to the theoretical paradigms that underpin film and/or media studies. The course may be offered as a historical survey or focus on a minimum of two distinct theoretical traditions and the historical developments within them (e.g., psychoanalysis/theories of representation and ontological/realist film theory). Alternately, it may focus on introducing the work of a minimum of four dominant film theorists from different decades. Refer to the specific semester description.

Prerequisite: FTVS 1010 or FTVS 1020.

The course examines the history of The Walt Disney Company from its arrival in Hollywood as a small animation company, through its evolution into a 21st century media juggernaut. We will trace its early innovations and successes, its dramatic role in unionizing animation, its transition into television production and theme park operation, its post-Walt slump and renaissance, and its contemporary era of aggressive acquisition and diversification. From this historic “backbone,” we will look into specific topics using different media studies methodologies: film aesthetics, cultural studies, feminist film theory, race and representation studies, and more.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

COURSE DESCRIPTION: 

Benito Martínez Ocasio, better known as Bad Bunny, is breaking musical records, breaking gender stereotypes, and centering his homeland of Puerto Rico in everything he does. What does it mean for an all-Spanish-language act from Puerto Rico to be biggest musical artist in the world? Bad Bunny has been the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify for two consecutive years, has the longest-running Spanish-language album at the top of the Billboard chart, and in 2022 became the only artist in history to stage two separate $100 million-grossing tours in less than 12 months. As we examine his impact on global popular music and culture, we will consider what Bad Bunny can teach us in Latinx Studies. Through film, popular media, and interdisciplinary academic texts, we will explore his role in the mass 2019 protests in Puerto Rico, what these protests and ongoing struggles in Puerto Rico teach us about U.S. colonialism and Puerto Rican politics, and what Bad Bunny’s increasingly anti-colonial stance says about the current state of resistance in Puerto Rico (particularly among Puerto Rican youth). We will also pay particular attention to the politics of race, gender, and queerness in Bad Bunny’s performance, and how these politics disrupt dominant Latinx media representations. Overall, this course will explore these topics by closely situating Bad Bunny’s work in relation to key texts in Latinx Studies regarding colonialism, race, resistance, gender, and sexuality.

This course examines American cinema during the1980s. Our initial aim is to situate each movie in the context of its release, and ultimately understand its complex relationship to American culture. This investigation will challenge us to see familiar movies in fresh ways, and to reconsider the illusions we may have about the culture and industry that produced them. This is not a celebration of the 1980s, nor is it about the ‘best’ or ‘most remembered’ movies of the decade. Instead, we’ll use a select group of movies to critically explore a complicated time and place. Our goal is a clear-eyed engagement with the trends, cycles, and themes that emerged or recurred in American cinema in a pivotal time in the nation’s history.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will...

Understand the economic logics of Hollywood that in part gave rise to these films.

Gain an appreciation of the political and social context which made these films relevant at the time.

Be able to distinguish current social and political norms in American cinema from those of the 1980s.

Develop a vocabulary specific to cinema studies, and integrate it with discourses from other disciplines.

Be able to demonstrate the above through discussions, written assignments, exams, and presentations.

This course will have a blend of in-class and out-of-class elements. Every week there will be work you do on your own and we will convene on Mondays to go over it together, have screenings and discussions. We’ll start in a lecture /discussion mode, then shift to a student-led mode in which you will present materials and I will guide discussions. There will be a midterm and final exam as well.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

Objectives:  Students will examine major trends and developments in American Film from the silent era to the present with special emphasis on comedy and American Film of the 60’s and 70’s.

 Learning Outcomes:

Students will be able to articulate in detail the complex themes, and visual and narrative styles of these auteurs who have shaped American Film.  Students will be able to articulate how these directors use the film to convey political, social, and personal meaning.

 Required Texts:  David Cook, History of Narrative Film

Thomas Schatz, Hollywood Genres

 Each student will be required to see four additional films outside of class and to write a one page reaction paper to each.

The final grade will be based on a mid-term (4 to 6 pages/25%), a paper (4 to 6 pages/25%), and a final exam (25%).  Attendance and participation will also be considered, along with the 4 page papers (25%).  Attendance at all classes for both the screening and discussion is mandatory.  (Missing more than two classes will severely affect your grade/one full grade for each additional class missed.  (Two lates will count as one absence).  Students are expected to have a thorough understanding of all films screened and all required reading materials.

 Screenings may include: Sherlock, Jr., Modern Times, The Philadelphia Story, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Harold and Maude, The Shining, An Unmarried Woman, Being There, Moonrise Kingdom, Tootsie, and Silver Linings Playbook. 

Course description:

 This course is a historically-situated survey of New Korean Cinema, a transnational film culture that begins in the late 1990s and whose phenomenal success can in part be explained because it is according to scholar Chris Berry, a “full-service cinema”, excelling in the production of not only art films and documentaries, but popular genre films, action blockbusters and other commercial entertainment fare. Produced by film workers with much better training than previous generations having had studied in film schools all over the world, these great films are marketed and placed within a sophisticated vertically-integrated system much like Hollywood to support their national success, secure regional domination and continue to extend their formidable global reach.

Using films that helped inspire and make up the ever expanding canon of New Korean Cinema this course will examine topics including dynamic iterations of auteurship, successful national and transnational modes of filmic address, genre innovations and hybridity, contemporary art cinema, populist documentaries, postmodernism as a primary mode of cultural production, and the new idioms of globalized entertainment films

Furthermore, during the semester, students will:

Cultivate a greater appreciation for the expanding global film canon.

Learn the fundamental concepts from film studies as they pertain to film style, grammar, modes of production and reception.

Continue to develop and refine critical thinking, researching and writing skills.

Understand and acknowledge that there is a film world outside Hollywood as New Korean Cinema illuminates the ways in which film is not only a global language but a multinational and interconnected industry that transcends borders

COURSE DESCRIPTION: 

A critical introduction to cinemas from East Asia and The Pacific. It may be offered as a historical survey; focus on a specific historical timeframe; or, offer a historical overview of a particular topic, national, or regional cinema. Note: Includes China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Refer to the specific semester descriptions, as multiple sections/topics may be offered. May be repeated for credit once as long as topic is different. Lab fee.

This course attempts to regard Black African movies (namely films originating from Sub-Saharan Africa, the region commonly known as Black Africa) as regular film productions that need to make their money back. Usually, when one seeks to study or teach African cinema, there is always a sense that this body of work has to be tackled differently. The consensual stance is because those films are made with different intentions in mind (depicting different peoples and cultures which had long been misrepresented), they serve different purposes (didacticism, Third Cinema, etc.). That’s why the scholarship on African cinema has tended to limit its focus to the political, social and aesthetical aspects. This course will invite students to expend their perspective on African films in order to enable them to discuss other aspects of African cinema, including the ones that deal with the artistry and business around those films.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

With limited funds, limited access to gear, and no formal training, communities of artists and musicians began forming punk rock communities and creating media in all forms on their own terms. Outside of the mainstream industries of music and film these makers produced a breadth of video art, music videos, documentaries, and narrative films rooted in truly independent cinema. Punk Cinema is critical and historical survey of films documenting the visual and musical influences influenced by the punk rock ethos on DIY and no budget filmmaking from the 1970’s to present. We will explore the aesthetics and ideologies of a ‘no rules’ filmmaking practices that often ignore industry standard practices. The class will also explore the social, political, and economic pressures of the times that led to this underground explosion across the world.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times

Science fiction has long been a staple of television, dating back to TV’s early days when its similarity to things only seen before in science fiction helped position it as the technology of the future. More recently, the creative possibilities offered by TV’s long-form narrative combined with advances in technology and multiple distribution platforms hungry for content have led to a new golden age of science fiction TV. During the semester, we will look at a number of science fiction texts (including Japanese anime as well as classics of American and British TV, among others) to explore the ways that science fiction TV engages with our fears, anxieties, fantasies, and desires about identity (individual and cultural), science and technology, dystopian and utopian imaginings, the uses and misuses of power and privilege.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

This course will help students develop their skills as researchers and deepen their understanding of Film and Media Studies as a field. Film and Media Studies is a deeply interdisciplinary field of study that examines a range of media archives and texts, spanning 19th-century visual illusions to 35 mm commercial films, streaming television, and social media. It also includes the study of the work of film and media production, including distribution policies, production infrastructures, and labor organizations. The field assembles scholars from across disciplines, including Art History, English, Communications, Area Studies, and Comparative Literature, and includes many with professional experience in film and media production. This course will provide a holistic view of the field by focusing on research methodologies. For example, we will address the differences between archival research, theoretical analysis, and industry studies and the types of arguments they produce. Through guest lectures from FTVS faculty, lessons devoted to on-and off-campus research resources, and collaborative workshops, students will learn what it means to conduct rigorous research within the field and pursue their own original research projects.

Students will spend the semester working on an individual research project. They will begin by selecting a topic in the first few weeks of class, which they will develop through primary and secondary research, writing workshops, and literature reviews. The class will culminate in a research symposium where students will present their work to classmates and FTVS faculty. In addition to the class symposium, students will be expected to submit an abstract to the Undergraduate Research Symposium in Spring 2024. The course is specifically designed to help students learn the processes of academic research and writing and is particularly useful for those thinking about pursuing conferences, publications, and graduate education.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

The video essay has emerged in recent years as a new form of digital communication, analysis, and entertainment. Specifically defined, the video essay takes the material of already-made audiovisual works and uses various editorial and artistic methods to transform their original meaning into something more expressive and analytical. Through this format, media scholars, non-professional critics, and social media producers are generating new ideas about media of the past and present. This class combines analysis with practice, with a multi-media and inter-disciplinary approach. First, we closely examine the various types of video essays on film, TV, video games, and other online media. This overview of the format shows its origins in experimental filmmaking and other non-conventional modes of audiovisual storytelling, including “essayistic” documentary. We look at the different types, modes of address, and technical conventions of the video essay. As students explore these histories and forms of the video essay, they also produce their own. In a flexible, experimental setting, and with no previous experience required, students learn to use videographic material to make an argument, to comment on media, or simply to explore the video format in a creative way. At the end of the semester, students have the option to exhibit their work to larger groups on campus or online. 

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

This course offers a broad overview of the history of American television, from live television broadcasting to online streaming. We will examine television as an entertainment industry, a technology, a form of cultural communication, and a social practice. This course asks questions about how television presents, challenges, and/or reflects American ideals and values.

Graduate SFTV majors only.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

This course surveys the development of American cinema through the artistry and industrial impact of international filmmakers working in Hollywood. Tracing the aesthetic, economic, and social formation of American cinema from the silent era to the present moment, the class examines the outsized influence of global filmmakers on Hollywood. We will discover how the dominance of American cinema and the characteristics of the Hollywood style are not solely domestic inventions, but rather the result of diverse international contributions, exemplified by filmmakers such as Ernst Lubitsch, Milos Forman, Jane Campion, Ang Lee, and Guillermo Del Toro.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

This course is a historically-situated survey of New Korean Cinema, a transnational film culture that begins in the late 1990s and whose phenomenal success can in part be explained because it is according to scholar Chris Berry, a “full-service cinema”, excelling in the production of not only art films and documentaries, but popular genre films, action blockbusters and other commercial entertainment fare. Produced by film workers with much better training than previous generations having had studied in film schools all over the world, these great films are marketed and placed within a sophisticated vertically-integrated system much like Hollywood to support their national success, secure regional domination and continue to extend their formidable global reach.

Using films that helped inspire and make up the ever expanding canon of New Korean Cinema this course will examine topics including dynamic iterations of auteurship, successful national and transnational modes of filmic address, genre innovations and hybridity, contemporary art cinema, populist documentaries, postmodernism as a primary mode of cultural production, and the new idioms of globalized entertainment films

 Furthermore, during the semester, students will:

• Cultivate a greater appreciation for the expanding global film canon.
• Learn the fundamental concepts from film studies as they pertain to film style, grammar, modes of production and reception.
• Continue to develop and refine critical thinking, researching and writing skills.
• Understand and acknowledge that there is a film world outside Hollywood as New Korean Cinema illuminates the ways in which film is not only a global language but a multinational and interconnected industry that transcends borders

 Work Expectations:

 Participation in weekly group discussions after screenings

 A midterm assignment called the viewing journal which will require students to incorporate salient information from lectures and readings to produce thoughtful and well-argued responses about the course and specific outside screenings.  A detailed prompt will be distributed in class two weeks before this assignment is due.

A formal analysis paper that will be an opportunity for students to formulate a critical argument concerning a film’s formal elements not screened in class.  The paper must cite articles from the course reader as well as other academic writings that are useful in the support of a thesis.  The paper must anchor an argument with strong formal analysis of the chosen film instead of providing the reader with an empty plot summary. 

A take-home final exam that will allow students to incorporate pertinent information from the lectures, readings, and screenings to produce sophisticated and well-supported responses to material examined in the last half of the semester.  A prompt for this take-home final exam will be distributed two weeks before this exam is due.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

The course will show how Italian neo-realism emerged from the ashes of Fascist Italy at the end of World War 2 by rejecting all the conventions of a commercial  cinema that was only interested in entertaining the public. Neo-realism set a higher goal for cinema: turning the camera on people from all levels of society and showing the reality and meaning of their lives.  This exultation of the human spirit and the unique style it engendered went on to influence generations of filmmakers around the world.  We will see both the Italian films that created the movement, and the films in France,  England, United States, Poland, Brazil and India which came under their influence.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

The course examines the history of The Walt Disney Company from its arrival in Hollywood as a small animation company, through its evolution into a 21st century media juggernaut. We will trace its early innovations and successes, its dramatic role in unionizing animation, its transition into television production and theme park operation, its post-Walt slump and renaissance, and its contemporary era of aggressive acquisition and diversification. From this historic “backbone,” we will look into specific topics using different media studies methodologies: film aesthetics, cultural studies, feminist film theory, race and representation studies, and more.

Meetings: See PROWL for meeting days/times 

COURSE DESCRIPTION: 

GRAD SEMINAR CLASS: Documentary Authors "Documentary Authors" examines in-depth the careers and works of six directors who have had a lasting impact on the field of documentary and non-fiction filmmaking. Those showcased include Frederick Wiseman, the Maysles Bros., Agnes Varda, Werner Herzog, Nanfu Wang and Jafar Panahi. The course explores production styles and approaches pioneered
by these film artists ranging from Direct Cinema, Cinema Verité, social activist filmmaking, first-person portraiture, and re-enactment; it investigates the creative challenges, aesthetic concerns, and the social and ethical questions posed by each.