Courses / Undergraduate

Fall 2017

  • Senior Seminar: The Promises of Cinema

    105 | CCN: 44696

    Instructor: Anton Kaes

    This undergraduate research seminar focuses on the promises and possibilities of early cinema as seen through the lens of contemporary media. Is cinema as we know it a thing of the past? The rise of new media... More

  • Documentary Film

    128 | CCN: 46884

    Instructor: Alina Predescu

    This class will provide a history of documentary film, and in so doing engage with the theory and practice of documentary filmmaking. We shall consider the auteurs, ethics, genres, and technologies of this film form, from its... More

  • History of Avant-Garde Film

    129 | CCN: 14775

    Instructor: Jeffrey Skoller

    Beauty will be convulsive or will not be at all! –Andre Breton Avant-garde film is a cinema of subversion, of sensual perversion, filled with constantly challenging, unruly images and ideas that are often messy, sublime and like life... More

  • Special Topics in Film: The Film Essay – Cinema, the Minoritized Subject, and the Practice of Writing

    140 - 001 | CCN: 44724

    Instructor: Damon Young and Stephen Best

    Taking as a point of departure James Baldwin’s dazzling work of film criticism, The Devil Finds Work, this course introduces students to some of the best writing on film that describes the encounter with cinema—and with particular... More

  • Special Topics in Film: Performance in Film

    140 - 002 | CCN: 14788

    Instructor: Eileen Jones

    According to James Naremore in his seminal book Acting in the Cinema, …[P]eople in film can be regarded in at least three different senses: as actors playing theatrical personages, as public figures playing themselves, and as documentary evidence.... More

  • Special Topics in Film: Seeing Red: 1975 in Italian and World Cinema

    140 - 003 | Italian 170 | CCN: 44720

    Instructor: Ramsey McGlazer

    In 1975, Italy was, in one journalist’s words, “deep in crisis.” The postwar economic boom known as the miracolo italiano had given way to the long “Years of Lead,” marked by stagnation and foreign debt as well as by... More

  • Auteur Theory: The “New Wave” and Contemporary Chinese Film Auteurs

    151 - 001 | CCN: 44726

    Instructor: Weihong Bao

    This course introduces Chinese film auteurs since the late 1970s across the geopolitical divides between Mainland, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. We will focus on individual film auteurs (Jia Zhangke, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wong Kar Wai, etc.) situated in... More

  • Auteur Theory: Geek Auteurs: Abrams, Whedon

    151 - 002 | CCN: 44728

    Instructor: Emily West

    This course examines the auteur status of two writer-producer-directors whose careers span the late 20th and early 21st centuries, blend and revise generic categories, and jump across media platforms. J. J. Abrams and Joss Whedon function as... More

  • National Cinema

    160 - 001 | CCN: 44730

    Instructor: Natalia Brizuela

     This class will explore the idea of a committed cinema in Latin America, focusing on the 1960/1970’s and the present day. It will compare these two historical periods to the industrial and commercial film and media that... More

  • National Cinema: Contemporary Television in the Global North

    160 - 002 | CCN: 44732

    Instructor: Mark Sandberg

    Recent television production in the Nordic countries has reached a new global audience outside the media circuits (such as art-house cinema) that historically have been the more typical Nordic outlets to international markets. Successful branding of some... More

  • National Cinema: Transnational Cinemas: Imposter Tales

    160 - 003 | German 186 | CCN: 46746

    Instructor: Deniz Göktürk

    In times of post-truth politics, this course focuses on imposter tales in literature and moving images, analyzing performances of social roles and national identities across multiple media and genres. Considering classic tales of “clothes make the man&rdquo... More

  • Beginning Screenwriting

    180 | CCN: 29617

    Instructor: J. Mira Kopell

    Students explore the art and craft of writing a feature length, narrative screenplay. Each writer pitches three story ideas, chooses one concept to develop into an outline and then completes the first act of the script. The... More

  • Advanced Screenwriting

    181 | CCN: 42458

    Instructor: J. Mira Kopell

    In a workshop setting students will explore the art and craft of writing a feature length narrative screenplay. Writers will workshop detailed script outlines and then develop that material into a portion of a feature screenplay. In... More

  • Digital Video: Focus on the Narrative Short

    185 | CCN: 29553

    Instructor: J. Mira Kopell

    This hands-on digital video production course explores the process of making a narrative short. Students will write, pre-visualize, direct and edit three short films and crew on an additional six class projects. Scripts and cuts are... More

  • Film and Media Cultures

    20 | CCN: 14784

    Instructor: Mary Ann Doane

    This course introduces students to theories and methods in the scholarly study of audiovisual media, including photography, television, film, video, and digital media. Throughout the semester, we will focus on questions of medium “specificity,” asking: what are... More

  • History of Film: Silent-WWII

    25A | CCN: 14786

    Instructor: Anne Nesbet

    This class will serve as an introduction to narrative cinema, from its nineteenth-century prehistory to its hugely popular role in the 1930s. Topics considered will include the rise of early film, the gradual development of cinematic narrative... More

  • History of Film: WWII-Present

    25B | CCN: 44694

    Instructor: Eileen Jones

    In this introductory survey course we will examine the history of cinema from the impact on national cinemas of the rise of Fascism in 1930s Europe through the international development of film as a transformative technology, art... More

  • Introduction to Digital Video Production

    26 | CCN: 46003

    Instructor: Jeffrey Skoller

    Film 26, Moving Image Media Production, is an introductory film production course that provides a basic foundation for digital video production with hands-on instruction in the use of digital cameras, sound recording for video, basic lighting techniques... More

  • The Craft of Writing – The Emotional Life of Horror Films

    R1A - 001 | CCN: 14670

    Instructor: Eliot Bessette

    Horror, disgust, and fear, oh my! This course provides an introduction to horror films through the emotions. Horror films elicit a variety of emotional reactions that in ordinary life we experience as negative. Yet viewers come back... More

  • The Craft of Writing – Makin’ Copies: Replication and Repetition in Global Visual Culture

    R1A - 002 | CCN: 14671

    Instructor: Jennifer Blaylock & Kaitlin Forcier

    The central goal of this class will be to explore the themes of copying and repetition in visual culture as a means to develop and practice the skills of effective writing. The ease of making copies today... More

  • The Craft of Writing – Divergent Bodies: The politics of difference in Hollywood Cinema

    R1A - 003 | CCN: 66970

    Instructor: Jennifer Alpert

    This course engages in a non-exhaustive history of how representations of difference have operated in popular Hollywood movies (and one instance of TV as analytical comparison), and how the politics of these depictions cut across lines of... More

  • The Craft of Writing – Silence and Excess: Giving Absence Form and Voice

    R1B - 001 | CCN: 14781

    Instructor: Katherine Guerra & Chi Li

    We’ve culled together films which have critical reputations marking them as either bombastic and fast-paced, or restrained with very little dialogue. We are interested in the ways in which films from many different national traditions can represent... More

  • The Craft of Writing – “We Have the Technology”: Anxieties about New Media

    R1B - 002 | CCN: 14782

    Instructor: Jianqing Chen & Renée Pastel

      This course asks students to consider “new media” in a critical way. As a class, we will question what is “new” about new media, and how discourse around new technologies today fits into a longer legacy... More

  • The Craft of Writing – Alternative Realities

    R1B - 003 | CCN: 14783

    Instructor: Harry Burson & Lisa Jacobson

    In our fractured current political climate, “alternative” versions of reality are a hotly debated topic, from Facebook newsfeed bubbles to talk radio and cable news. The exploration of alternative realities is hardly limited to news media, however:... More