Courses / Undergraduate

Fall 2016

  • Film and Media Cultures

    20 | CCN: 15689

    Damon Young

    4 Units

    This course is designed to introduce undergraduates to the study of a range of media, including photography, film, television, video, and print and digital media. Throughout the semester, we will focus on questions of medium “specificity,” i.e. the key technological/material, formal, and aesthetic features of different media and the modes of address and representation that define them. We will consider how different media work with time and space, and how they construct their audiences or spectators, producing different kinds of “publics.” Throughout this course, we will discuss the ideological effects of various media, particularly around questions of racial and sexual difference, national identity, capitalism and power. The course is organized around the reading of major works of 20th century media and cultural theory, by authors including Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Laura Mulvey, Mary Ann Doane, and Friedrich Kittler. It is reading intensive, and includes a weekly screening.